Obama should appoint Roosevelt to Interior post

Key components of leadership are listening and learning. Obama seems to understand this to the relief of at least some of us who did not support him. He has exhibited careful, sure-footed leadership in this transition period. Obama projects stability, and in the shadow of a teetering economy, that is the leadership we need.

Obama campaigned in the Democratic primaries as a solid liberal, and his brief record as a U.S. Senator places him firmly in the liberal camp. He has not, however, behaved as a left-wing ideologue since his election. Maybe his liberalism was a strategy necessary for him to obtain his party’s nomination. Because of his sudden rise to national prominence we don’t know as much about him as many other political leaders of our day.

Obama is compared by some to Lincoln, and there is an intriguing basis for that comparison. Both served only briefly in Congress from Illinois after first serving in the Illinois legislature. Race was a pivotal factor in their elections. Like Lincoln, Obama is eloquent and intellectual. Perhaps most importantly, Lincoln was a pragmatist, and so it appears, is Obama.

It is well known that Lincoln’s cabinet was made up largely of his political rivals. They were not, however, his philosophical rivals. For the most part they were practical politicians like Lincoln, himself. They were on his team to help him succeed. 

Lincoln’s most prominent rival for the Republican presidential nomination was William Seward, a Senator from New York, whom Lincoln named as his Secretary of State. A fascinating perfect parallel for Hillary Clinton on the Obama team. While Lincoln the candidate was regarded as a radical, his approach as President, beginning with the selection of his cabinet was far more practical.

As he completes his cabinet selections, Obama has a great opportunity to reach deeply into the rival political party to fill the important position of Secretary of the Interior. It was recently reported in the Congressional Quarterly that Theodore Roosevelt IV, great grandson of the legendary “Rough Rider” is under consideration by Obama for the Interior cabinet post.

A solid conservationist in the spirit and tradition of his distinguished ancestor, Theodore IV may be on a similar philosophical wave length with Obama on issues in the purview of the Interior Department. But he is a credentialed life-long Republican in the sadly disappearing tradition of Lincoln, his namesake Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. No “Obamican” is he. Theodore Roosevelt IV addressed the Republican National Convention this year in support of John McCain.

In Lincolnesque fashion, by naming Roosevelt Secretary of Interior, Obama could reach out for an ally without retreating from his principles. Good politics and good policy.

In addition, a Roosevelt pick for Interior would be an historical first for Montana. No Montanan has ever served in the national cabinet. Roosevelt owns a ranch in the Snowy Mountains east of Lewistown. While that doesn’t necessarily make him a Montanan, it would be as close as we have ever come.

It would be good for political unification, good for the country, and good for Montana, if President Obama could listen to and learn from Secretary of Interior Theodore Roosevelt IV at the cabinet table. And it would be consistent with the kind of Presidential leadership Obama has, so far, provided us.

On a personal note, I will be leaving my position here at the University of Montana Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the end of this year to begin new work at the University Mansfield Center. I will be able to focus more directly on Asian and Pacific matters, particularly as they involve China, where I have taught and traveled. I am particularly excited about advancing the study of the Mandarin Chinese language in our public schools. Other languages are important, but one fifth of humanity speaks Chinese. English is required throughout China, and most young people there can speak to us in our language. Almost none of us can speak to them in theirs. In a shrinking and increasingly interconnected world that has to change.

I expect to continue to do an occasional column, but perhaps not as regularly as I have in the past.   

 Bob Brown, former Montana State Senate President and Secretary of State, and is a Senior Fellow at The University of Montana’s Center for the Rocky Mountain West.