With just a week before the election, Biden traveled to Warm Springs, Ga., to wrap himself in FDR’s mantle.
He ran for President at a time of record unemployment and economic despair, with democracy itself in apparent retreat around the globe. He overcame tremendous personal hardship and promised to heal a battered nation. His friends thought of him as a unifier; his enemies called him a socialist. If this sounds to you like Joe Biden, you’d be right. If this sounds like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you’d also be right. With just a week before the election, Biden traveled to Warm Springs, Ga., Tuesday to deliver a speech on national healing and economic redemption—and to wrap himself in FDR’s mantle. The venue was laden with significance. Not only because Biden is making a late push for victory in Georgia, but also because Warm Springs was where Roosevelt went to convalesce from the paralysis that followed a polio diagnosis in his 30s. Roosevelt had a little white house there, and the place became both a second home to him and a symbol of his fortitude in the face of illness. “This place, Warm Springs, is a reminder that though broken, each of us can be healed,” Biden said. “That as a people and a country, we can overcome a devastating virus. That we can heal a suffering world. That yes, we can restore our soul and save our country.” In the closing weeks of the race, Biden has sought to link the two major themes of his campaign—unity and healing—to the great presidents of American history. Three weeks ago, he delivered a speech in Gettysburg about the importance of repairing a “house divided,” invoking Abraham Lincoln’s famous words. But Roosevelt, more than Lincoln or even Barack Obama, may be Biden’s closest presidential parallel. Both Biden and Roosevelt were underestimated early in their careers. Roosevelt was called a “lightweight” by critics; Biden was mocked for his frequent gaffes. Roosevelt was a mediocre student and an unremarkable lawyer; so was Biden. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously said that Roosevelt had a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament; Biden has little of Obama’s erudition but is famous for his easy way of building connections.
