Hoover was preceded by the most conservative President of the 20th Century: Calvin Coolidge. Surely you don’t believe Coolidge set Hoover up for failure do you? Hoover’s error is that he didn’t allow the stock market collapse in 1929 play itself out with a short recession or depression. Instead he increased taxes and increased spending. In doing so he prolonged what should have been a short economic correction into a depression that lasted over a decade. Of course, FDR did plenty to prolong the depression as well. But Hoover could have made sure there wasn’t a depression in the first place.
I think Obama hates the Republicans so much that he would rather Hillary get elected than a Republican. I don’t think Obama really believes things are going to collapse, I think he believes the next President is going to reap the positive benefits of his work. Because of that he wants a progressive in the White House to take advantage.
You missed my point.
When things go bad, it’s the President in power and his party that usually take the big hit. Hoover was in power during the start of the Depression, he and the Republicans got crushed in the ‘32 elections and the Democrats were able to do whatever they pleased (aka The New Deal) starting in 1933.
Who was it (a Dem Senator I think) who said of the legislative juggernaut of FDR’s first hundred days: “We just saluted as the bills flew by” ... ?
Sure, there’s no way that Silent Cal set Hoover up for the fall. But that doesn’t mean that people (like Obama and his team) didn’t learn good lessons in cause, effect and timing from it.