Presidential
May. 1st, 2005 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggwardsI guess I'm hibernating again today, not really wanting to go out and face the world. Lots of negative thoughts and feelings that I'm going to keep to myself because you've heard them all before. Instead, I'm going to talk about presidents.
I watched the HBO Film Warm Springs today. It stars Kenneth Branaugh, who I love in about anything he does, and Cynthia Nixon as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The story takes place in the years where at 39 FDR becomes stricken with polio, and before he sets on the road to become president. The supposition is that if only Nixon could go to China, only FDR could come up with the New Deal, and the March of Dimes for that matter, and here are the reasons why.
The important factor is, FDR was a privileged child, being a Roosevelt meant being in New York high society, and being Teddy Roosevelt's relative meant that political connections were easy, even if you were in the opposing party. The movie opens with FDR's main strategist asking, "Why are you a Democrat?" Living in high society seemed to have little to do with the party of the people attitude that they were trying to espouse, and may have been the reason behind a string of defeats candidates had to the Republicans in the teens and 1920's.
Still, it's when FDR is crippled from the waist down from polio, and has to learn to live his life differently does he become aware of the plight of others not like him. He's presented with an offer to go to Georgia to a hot springs spa to try the therapeutic waters, but finds that the place is in disrepair, and far different from home. He comes into contact with poor farmers, blacks still in the throws of segregation and a place far below his standards, let alone equipped for a handicapped visitor.
Eventually, as the mineralized waters do show some ability to help FDR exercise his atrophied legs (which are done effectively through CGI), others come looking for a miracle. The spa normal attendees are appalled finding more and more people afflicted by polio in their midst, but FDR presses on, and eventually convinces the owner to make it a treatment center. After the owner dies from cancer FDR puts his own trust fund into the care of the facility, almost to his own ruin, knowing how the facility helps people, and ends up restoring himself, not to health, but regaining his spiritual strength.
One thing FDR wanted to do was walk again, coming to grips that he couldn't do that without much help finally leads him back to the political stage again, and the movie ends. I know in everything I ever read, I was always given the impression that FDR was very protective about his image, and didn't want to be seen as crippled. This movie doesn't discount that, but it doesn't seem as it was as big of a secret as I had thought it was. Apparently it was well known that he was stricken with polio, but given the times, and to appear in a wheelchair would be political suicide, apparently he did do his best to avoid that image when possible.
It would be interesting to see if a handicapped man, or woman could run for president could run for office now. Certainly being disabled is less stigmatized than it was then, but voters have become much more image conscious. It's been said that FDR's imperial accent may have been a big liability if he ran today, much like the criticism of John Kerry. I wonder if Mr. Kerry had been paralyzed, how that would have played?
I just finished a book, His Excellency, about the life of George Washington last night, and it had a similar track. While washington never suffered great injury, far from it, the great general of the Revolutionary War seemed to be able to avoid injury in an almost superhuman fashion, he was from a more upper-middle class Virginia household in the colonial period. It was one that didn't seem to breed a man to become a revolutionary, or a federalist. Still, it took Washington seeing his troops in the Virginia militia and being a farmer with an ever growing bill to the government in Britain to make him see that America was best governed by Americans, and changed his viewpoint. I wonder if other presidents go through this?
That brings me to now. Since we don't have a president that seems to take to hart anything but those like him and their wants, how does this work for the nation? Seeing the FDR movie makes me understand the close-mindedness of many in Washington now all the more. They've never gone further than their little circles, and they've been pushed there by handlers who've taken care of all the spin and the handlers are the ones who worry about trying to meet the masses, not the candidate themselves. Seems like there's a missing humanizing connection in some of our ruling classes these days who've come out of their McMansions and into the capitol. They've never done their research.
I watched the HBO Film Warm Springs today. It stars Kenneth Branaugh, who I love in about anything he does, and Cynthia Nixon as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The story takes place in the years where at 39 FDR becomes stricken with polio, and before he sets on the road to become president. The supposition is that if only Nixon could go to China, only FDR could come up with the New Deal, and the March of Dimes for that matter, and here are the reasons why.
The important factor is, FDR was a privileged child, being a Roosevelt meant being in New York high society, and being Teddy Roosevelt's relative meant that political connections were easy, even if you were in the opposing party. The movie opens with FDR's main strategist asking, "Why are you a Democrat?" Living in high society seemed to have little to do with the party of the people attitude that they were trying to espouse, and may have been the reason behind a string of defeats candidates had to the Republicans in the teens and 1920's.
Still, it's when FDR is crippled from the waist down from polio, and has to learn to live his life differently does he become aware of the plight of others not like him. He's presented with an offer to go to Georgia to a hot springs spa to try the therapeutic waters, but finds that the place is in disrepair, and far different from home. He comes into contact with poor farmers, blacks still in the throws of segregation and a place far below his standards, let alone equipped for a handicapped visitor.
Eventually, as the mineralized waters do show some ability to help FDR exercise his atrophied legs (which are done effectively through CGI), others come looking for a miracle. The spa normal attendees are appalled finding more and more people afflicted by polio in their midst, but FDR presses on, and eventually convinces the owner to make it a treatment center. After the owner dies from cancer FDR puts his own trust fund into the care of the facility, almost to his own ruin, knowing how the facility helps people, and ends up restoring himself, not to health, but regaining his spiritual strength.
One thing FDR wanted to do was walk again, coming to grips that he couldn't do that without much help finally leads him back to the political stage again, and the movie ends. I know in everything I ever read, I was always given the impression that FDR was very protective about his image, and didn't want to be seen as crippled. This movie doesn't discount that, but it doesn't seem as it was as big of a secret as I had thought it was. Apparently it was well known that he was stricken with polio, but given the times, and to appear in a wheelchair would be political suicide, apparently he did do his best to avoid that image when possible.
It would be interesting to see if a handicapped man, or woman could run for president could run for office now. Certainly being disabled is less stigmatized than it was then, but voters have become much more image conscious. It's been said that FDR's imperial accent may have been a big liability if he ran today, much like the criticism of John Kerry. I wonder if Mr. Kerry had been paralyzed, how that would have played?
I just finished a book, His Excellency, about the life of George Washington last night, and it had a similar track. While washington never suffered great injury, far from it, the great general of the Revolutionary War seemed to be able to avoid injury in an almost superhuman fashion, he was from a more upper-middle class Virginia household in the colonial period. It was one that didn't seem to breed a man to become a revolutionary, or a federalist. Still, it took Washington seeing his troops in the Virginia militia and being a farmer with an ever growing bill to the government in Britain to make him see that America was best governed by Americans, and changed his viewpoint. I wonder if other presidents go through this?
That brings me to now. Since we don't have a president that seems to take to hart anything but those like him and their wants, how does this work for the nation? Seeing the FDR movie makes me understand the close-mindedness of many in Washington now all the more. They've never gone further than their little circles, and they've been pushed there by handlers who've taken care of all the spin and the handlers are the ones who worry about trying to meet the masses, not the candidate themselves. Seems like there's a missing humanizing connection in some of our ruling classes these days who've come out of their McMansions and into the capitol. They've never done their research.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:35 am (UTC)And, for the record, it's narrated by Edward Herrmann, who played FDR in two TV movies with Jane Alexander as Eleanor. He was nominated for two Emmys, but lost them both. One of those times, he lost to an actor playing Harry S Truman, ironically.
The "Elizabeth" effect.
Date: 2005-05-02 01:08 am (UTC)Gender plays a powerful role in politics, and hostory has taught us that those who transcend gender run successful political campaigns.
Englands Elizabeth the 1st is a prime example of the strength of a non-sexual front; sterilization renders one privey to insights that transcend the dualities of male and female, thereby appealing to both sexes and those who are sexless (i.e. Homosexuals and transexuals).
I think FDR unintentionally fell into a sexless presence being confined to a wheelchair. Whether he could perform or not will probably remain a mystery, but I hink it's safe to say that the majority of the public considered him numb "down there".
Eleanor's homliness reinforced the dual sexuality surrounding the administration (she being a man rapped in a woman's body) which ultimately lead to their successful four terms in office.
Of course this all means that Ru-Paul should run for president.
T
Re: The "Elizabeth" effect.
Date: 2005-05-02 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:43 am (UTC)It goes to show that it is not the fact that matters in public life, but the perception of those facts. Although on its face, something like polio should not impact a candidate's ability to be president, but it would give the opposition a deadly weapon in the battle of public opinion. It'll be up to a candidate to present an alternative image of disability beyond what the opposition will bombard the public with. And its our often embarassment, but media manipulation works and is a vital tool for all public discourse.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 11:12 am (UTC)