The Pause That Depresses

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THE three-month “interregnum” between Barack Obama’s election and George W. Bush’s last day in office makes one long for a parliamentary system, where the defeated prime minister leaves and his successor takes over at once. As the country faces the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, you might think that it’s too bad it can’t happen here — but once it almost did, during another time of crisis.

In 1916, with the United States on the brink of entering World War I, Woodrow Wilson seemed likely to lose his bid for re-election. Despite a spectacular record of domestic legislation (establishing the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission and a graduated income tax, among other successes), the president was bound by the hard facts of political geography.

In those days, Wilson’s Democratic Party held the South and the interior West, but the Republicans controlled the Northeast and Midwest — which supplied them with a reliable majority in the Electoral College and control of Congress. The election that year was eerily similar to the 2000 race, with everything hanging on a recount in a single swing state, California. The result remained in doubt for nearly two weeks.

The precarious state of relations with the nations at war in Europe, particularly Germany, made Wilson fear for national security in the event of an interregnum — which then, before the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933, lasted more than a month longer than it does today. A former professor of political science who had studied and admired parliamentary systems, Wilson decided upon a drastic plan to shorten this uneasy period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/opinion/11cooper.html?th&emc=th