Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Speaker Tom Foley of Washington and Governor Mario Cuomo of New York lost their reelection bids. My friend Ann Richards lost the Governorship of Texas to a man with a famous name: George W Bush.

Chelsea eventually retreated to her bedroom to prepare for another school day. Bill and I sat alone at the kitchen table, monitoring the tallies on the television screen and trying to make sense of the results. The American people had sent us a powerful message.

The election turnout was pitifully low, with less than half of registered voters coming to the polls and significantly more Democrats than Republicans staying home. The only flicker of light for us in this dismal landscape was that the Republicans’ “huge mandate”

reflected the votes of less than a quarter of the electorate.

This fact, however, did nothing to moderate Newt Gingrich’s glee as he faced the cameras that night to claim credit for the Republican sweep. He already knew that he would become the next Speaker of the House, the first Republican to hold that position since 1954. He magnanimously offered to work with Democrats to push the Contract with America through Congress in record time. It was disheartening to imagine the next two years with a Republican-controlled House and Senate. The political battles would be even harder, and the Administration would be on the defensive to keep intact the gains already made for the country. With Republican leadership calling the shots, the Congress would likely demonstrate the accuracy of Lyndon Johnson’s aphorism: “Democrats legislate; Republicans investigate.”

Deflated and disappointed, I wondered how much I was to blame for the debacle: whether we had lost the election over health care; whether I had gambled on the country’s acceptance of my active role and lost. And I struggled to understand how I had become such a lightning rod for people’s anger.

Bill was miserable, and it was painful to watch someone I loved so much hurting so deeply. He had tried to do what he thought was right for America, and he knew that both his successes and failures had helped to defeat his friends and allies. I remembered how he felt when he’d lost in 1974 and 1980; this was worse. The stakes were higher, and he felt he’d let his party down.

It would take time, but Bill was determined to understand what went wrong with this election and to figure out how to articulate and reassert his agenda. As always, we started a conversation that would continue for months. We held meetings with friends and advisers to focus on what Bill should do next. More than anything, I wanted Bill’s Presidency to succeed. I believed in him and his hopes for the nation’s future. I also knew I wanted to be a helpful partner for him and an effective advocate for the issues I had cared about throughout my life. I just didn’t know how I was going to get there from here.

CONVERSATIONS WITH ELEANOR

There’s an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” that became a running joke in our family. Bill and I would ask each other, “Well, are you having an interesting time yet?” Interesting didn’t describe the experience. The weeks following the disastrous midterm elections were among the most difficult of my White House years. On my better days, I tried to view the defeat as part of the ebb and flow of the electoral cycle, akin to a political market correction. On bad days, I faulted myself for botching health care, coming on too strong and galvanizing our opponents. There were plenty of people inside and outside the White House―who were ready to point fingers. It was hard to ignore the grumbling, but Bill and I focused on what we could do to rally our forces. We had to develop a new strategy for a new environment.

One dreary November morning I stopped by my office after a meeting with Bill in the Oval Office and glanced at the framed photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt displayed on a table. I am a huge fan of Mrs. Roosevelt, and I have long collected portraits and mementos from her career. Seeing her calm, determined visage brought to mind some of her wise words: “A woman is like a teabag,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. “You never know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.” It was time for another talk with Eleanor.

I often joked in my speeches that I had imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to solicit her advice on a range of subjects. It’s actually a useful mental exercise to help analyze problems, provided you choose the right person to visualize. Eleanor Roosevelt was ideal. I had been tracking her career as one of America’s most controversial First Ladies, sometimes quite literally. Wherever I ventured, Mrs. Roosevelt seemed to have been there before me. I have visited dust bowl towns, poor neighborhoods in New York City and outposts as remote as Uzbekistan where Eleanor already had blazed a trail. She championed many causes that are important to me: civil rights, child labor laws, refugees and human rights. She drew harsh criticism from the media and some in government for daring to define the role of First Lady in her own terms. Eleanor was called everything from a Communist agitator to a homely old meddler. She rankled members of her husband’s administration-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Sr. (father of Bill’s Deputy Chief of Staff), complained that she should stop interfering and “stick to her knitting”-and she drove FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover crazy. But her spirit and commitment were indomitable, and she never let her critics slow her down.

So, what would Mrs. Roosevelt have to say about my present predicament? Not much, I thought. In her view, there was no point in agonizing over day-to-day setbacks. You simply had to press on and do the best you could under the circumstances.

Controversy can be terribly isolating, but Eleanor Roosevelt had good friends she relied on for support when she felt unsure or besieged in