How did the ideas of the presidential candidates in 1932 about the role of the federal goverment differ?

The 1932 presidential election had the incumbent
Republican, Herbert Hoover, running against Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrat.  This
was the first presidential election of the Great Depression.  The contest revolved
mostly around the two men's ideas for ending the
Depression.

The caricature of Hoover is that he did not
want the federal government to do anything to end the Depression.  This is not quite
true.  He wanted the government to act to end the Depression, but he did not think that
it should do too much.  He wanted to take a relatively cautious approach, doing things
like lending money to businesses and providing a few jobs on things like the Hoover
Dam.

Roosevelt had a much more expansive role for
government in mind.  He promised a "New Deal" in which the government would take more
kinds of actions to end the Depression.  To FDR, the government needed to do things like
encouraging businesses to work together to set standards and wages (the NIRA).  It
needed to do things like reducing the amount of agricultural products that would be
produced (the AAA).  It needed to do things like providing income security for the old
(Social Security).  The government, then, was going to do many more kinds of things than
Hoover wanted.

Hoover wanted the government to do some
things (but not too many) to help end the Depression.  By contrast, FDR wanted the
government to do many different kinds of things.  This was the major difference between
them in terms of the role of the federal government.