Leadership Quote by Pete du Pont

Calling Franklin Roosevelt “great” is less a bipartisan compliment than an admission against type. Pete du Pont came from the pro-business, small-government wing of Republican politics, a tradition that often treats the New Deal as original sin. So when he praises FDR, he’s not signing onto the ideology; he’s saluting the craft. The tell is in the second sentence: not moral vision, not empathy, not even policy detail, but “levers of power.” Du Pont is admiring an operator.

That word choice frames leadership as machinery. Government becomes a control panel: agencies, executive orders, coalition-building, public persuasion, the strategic use of crisis. Roosevelt’s genius, in this reading, wasn’t simply that he wanted change; it’s that he understood how institutions actually move. The subtext is a quiet rebuke to politicians who have opinions but no torque, who campaign as purists and govern as bystanders.

Context sharpens the edge. FDR expanded federal authority at a scale that still structures American life, and he did it while selling the public on experimentation, urgency, and legitimacy. For a modern Republican like du Pont, acknowledging that competence is also a warning: power, once mastered, can be wielded by people you dislike. Admiring Roosevelt’s effectiveness doubles as a reminder that politics rewards those who can turn intention into infrastructure - and that “change” is never just rhetoric; it’s command of the system.