Assuming Thomas Dewey died after 1945 but before he could run for the nomination in 1948, how do things go from there?
WI: 1948 Without Dewey
- Thread starter Emperor Norton I
- Start date
Actually the OTL was a close election. Truman only won Ohio, California, and Illinois by less than 1%. Had Dewey carried all three of these states he would have won. Even more interestingly had he only won 2 the election would have gone to the House of Representatives. With a Republican majority Dewey would have then become President.
If Dewey is out the Republican nominee is either Robert Taft or Harold Stassen. Taft has a major problem: his isolationist positions were not popular either in his own party or the nation at large. His opposition to NATO and the Marshall Plan, as well as the fact that he didn't think the Soviets were a major threat would have been played up by Truman. Stassen's major problem is that he was too liberal for much of the party. Still, he has a chance of winning, perhaps better than Dewey.
Stassen is the most likely. He could do a bit better than Dewey in the Midwest, but it is doubtful that any Republican other than Dewey could carry New York--even with Wallace taking a large number of 1944 FDR votes for Truman. Even Dewey only narrowly carried New York in 1948. And without New York, it is going to be hard for the Republicans to win. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1948.txt
What about Robert Taft? Could he engineer a situation similar to 1952 in 1948, where Dewey is out, Taft is the probable candidate, and Eisenhower is seriously tempted into running?
Japhy
Banned
Even if he were to theoretically gain the delegates like he did in 1952 but still can't have pulled off in 1948*, the convention would simply force though a Fair Play Rule and that will be that.
Taft can't win in the Big Swing states up North and in the West. If he can't win that, he can't win the nomination.
*Taft's domination of Southern Republican delegations was due to his taking over of Southern Delegations (Who's states never ever voted Republican and were in most cases by then simply appendages of Southern Democratic political machines ergo: Fair Play) which was only possible because of the number of northerners who were moving down South in the aftermath of WWII. Worth noting his numbers weren't over the top in 1952 down there anyway, and without more Northern Conservative transplants, he's not going to be able to sway the vote.
Taft didn't have the kind of support in '48 that he had in '52, though it was certainly significant. If Stassen still manages to win in Wisconisn and get flashed on the papers as the new front-runner for the Republican nomination as he was in OTL, then there is no question that the majority of Republicans will rally behind him, even more so than they historically did with Dewey after the Oregon Primary.
Eisenhower, for his part, wouldn't even entertain the idea of running at this time, and he actually had killed the draft movement for the Republican nomination earlier in the year when it became clear they were able to get him on the ballots in a couple of the primaries. As you said a strong Taft would have pressured him somewhat but, again, Taft doesn't have the kind of support yet that he did in '52. Its not outside the realm of possibility of course, I don't like to claim things are totally improbable, but I would lean heavily against him running.
Stassen, for his part, would defeat Truman comfortably in the Presidential Election given he would not have "learned" from the lessons of the '44 Presidential Campaign as Dewey claimed to have.
Eisenhower, for his part, wouldn't even entertain the idea of running at this time, and he actually had killed the draft movement for the Republican nomination earlier in the year when it became clear they were able to get him on the ballots in a couple of the primaries. As you said a strong Taft would have pressured him somewhat but, again, Taft doesn't have the kind of support yet that he did in '52. Its not outside the realm of possibility of course, I don't like to claim things are totally improbable, but I would lean heavily against him running.
Stassen, for his part, would defeat Truman comfortably in the Presidential Election given he would not have "learned" from the lessons of the '44 Presidential Campaign as Dewey claimed to have.
Orville_third
Banned
One wonders- if Taft ran, would he wind up siphoning away some of the Wallace vote? (Taft was in favor of civil rights, and opposed to NATO.)
Japhy
Banned
Taft being in favor of Civil Rights is somewhere as deep as say, Goldwater's extra noble favoring of Civil Rights.
And then there's the fact that Taft's opposition to NATO was tied to his (And most of the Ex-Isolationists) view that the place to fight Communism was in Asia, in China.
And of course he was "Mr. Conservative" and thus, have nothing policy wise in common with the "Progressives".
So no, no one who decided to waste their vote on the Fellow Traveler ticket is going to have much interest in voting for Taft. If any splitters are going to go over, it'd be Dixiecrats. If they even run mind you, Thurmond and his fellows have a lot to win by sitting on the side and praising Taft, as they 16 years later.
Would they do this openly this early, or just do it quietly and sit on their hands when it comes to GOTV for Truman?
Stassen would probably do better than Dewey in general, due to not having pointless speeches like "Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead." But I don't know if he can do well enough to overcome the aforementioned New York problem.
However, note than this is a time when a defeated nominee can easily win the nomination again. If Stassen does fairly well against Truman, and becomes high profile enough, he might be strong enough to block Taft in 1952, without Eisenhower needing to get involved.
However, note than this is a time when a defeated nominee can easily win the nomination again. If Stassen does fairly well against Truman, and becomes high profile enough, he might be strong enough to block Taft in 1952, without Eisenhower needing to get involved.
Japhy
Banned
At the end of the day, the only reason that Dixiecrats hadn't crossed over before hand was institutional inertia. When Thurmond did and Wallace almost went over in 1964 the logic was that any Democrat who crossed over would become at once, unelectable, and they were wrong then. I don't think the average segregationist would have had much of a problem voting against someone they knew was with them, the only issue being if the financial backers would have a problem, and in the upteeth New South of the late 1940's its the same financial backers who agreed to stand by Strom sixteen years later, so there is that.
With all that in mind the only issue then becomes if Taft wants them to cross over. In 1964 Strom Thurmond was talked into it by his best friend in the Senate (And only supporter in his infamous filibuster) Barry Goldwater. And of course Goldwater sold out, embraced George Wallace's "Law and Order" and tried to turn the campaign into Moral referendum on Civil Rights.
All that from the man who desegregated his private business, the city of Phoenix, and the Arizona National Guard. So one might argue Taft wouldn't sell out, but then, many thought Barry wouldn't have either.
If Taft goes full Goldwater, the GOP eastern establishment may go nuclear and quietly back Truman. 1964 really was a coup of sorts in the party. Dewey OTL nearly swept the whole northeast.
Taft was an older sort of Republican and conservative, contrasting with Goldwater being of the newer generation. Having a Nixon-style campaign aimed at getting the upper South seems likely, but I feel he'd be too traditional to think of switching the Deep South.
And would the Deep South switch without something as radical as the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
And would the Deep South switch without something as radical as the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
I looked at the numbers, and a Stassen victory looks easier than expected. Even if Stassen loses New York, a mere 1.5% swing is enough to deadlock the electoral college, and a 4% swing is enough to give him a narrow victory (and TBH, with a 4% swing towards the GOP from OTL, I would be surprised if New York didn't flip. Was Dewey really worth that much?)
Dewey was popular in NY, but Stassen is going to be more popular in the midwest. Dewey lost MN by 17 points, Stassen was state governor there. IL, WI and especially IA and OH are flippable.
Here is the map I made, with a 4% swing with New York swinging 4% against Stassen and going Democrat:
Stassen: 269 Electoral Votes, 49.1% popular vote
Truman: 224 Electoral Votes, 45.6% popular vote
Thurmond: 38 Electoral Votes, 2.4% popular vote
True, Stassen was governor of Minnesota, but that was almost 7 years before the election, and Humphrey's landslide is occurring regardless, and 17 points is a huge margin. But that's still a possibility, and I still think that if there's a 4% swing towards Stassen from Truman, New York could still go Republican.
So I would say that a Stassen vs. Truman match up has a good chance of being a Republican victory, or at least a hung electoral college.
And in the event of a hung electoral college, it would only take 6 very close Congressional Elections (in Idaho, Nevada, Minnesota, Ohio, Connecticut, and Colorado) to go Republican to give the GOP a 25-23 majority in House delegations and elect Stassen president.
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I think you are *way* overestimating Stassen's gains over Dewey--I am in fact not even sure that he would do better than Dewey (even outside New York) *at all*--let alone carry states like Virginia (which Truman won by 6.9 percentage points). As I said at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/wZOEAVWf0NA/IWfYcIBgz3MJ
***
Was Nixon right that Stassen could have defeated Truman?* Despite the
force of Nixon's arguments about Stassen's youth (which, however, could have
worried some older voters) and his appeal to his fellow World War II
veterans, I would still say No. Remember that Dewey only narrowly carried
New York state by 2,841,163 to 2,780,204--in spite of Henry Wallace getting
509,559 votes (almost all of which, one can assume, had gone to FDR in 1944,
and most of which would have gone to Truman in a two-way race).
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1948.txt If Dewey, who was
a popular governor of New York, could nevertheless only carry the state
narrowly, I find it hard to see any other GOP candidate carrying it at all.
And in those days, New York had 47 electoral votes. Without those votes, it
would be very hard for the Republicans to defeat Truman.
Could Stassen make up in the Midwest for his likely loss of New York? I
doubt it very much. Farmers were angry about the 80th Congress and would
probably have taken it out against any GOP presidential candidate. (To quote
an old post of mine: "In particular, farmers, normally a Republican-leaning
group, were angry with Congress. As the historian Allen Matusow has pointed
out, an obscure provision in the Commodity Credit Act passed by the 80th
Congress at the end of its first session made it impossible for the federal
government to build grain storage bins near farms. The fall of 1948 brought
a record-breaking harvest and drastic declines in farm prices. With no bins
available, farmers could not deposit their grain and collect support
payments. Truman took advantage of this, and warned farmers that next
Republicans would cut other programs farmers had come to depend on such as
price supports and funding for rural electrification.") Organized labor was
angry about Taft-Hartley, which Stassen basically supported despite urging
some modifications.
What confirms me in my belief that Stassen would not have been a stronger
candidate than Dewey is that he seems to have done an inept job campaigning
for Dewey. To quote Pietrusza (p. 331):
"...Dewey deputized Stassen to carry the inflation fight to Truman. But
while Truman personalized the issue for consumers, Stassen entangled himself
in a heavy-handed and largely pointless broadside on government bureaucracy,
attacking Washington for purchasing twenty-five million pounds of lard during
July 1947. 'This purchase,' Stassen contended...'compared with fifty million
pounds of lard for all the preceding year, has caused lard and all other
fats, including oils, to skyrocket.
"A foray to the Midwest to discuss farm prices proved even less salutary. At
Detroit's Masonic Temple on Tuesday, September 7, Stassen rebutted Truman's
Labor Day address--and merely alienated labor. Some suspected Dewey of
sabotaging his onetime rival. 'Stassen is the first casualty of the
campaign...In two times at bat, Stassen appeared to have lost...his greatest
source of political strength before--agriculture and labor,' pronounced
columnist Tris Coffin--and no one argued with him."
See also Robert G. Donovan, *Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S.
Truman, 1945-1948*, p. 420
http://books.google.com/books?id=d0uu-j32elUC&pg=PA420 on how a Minnesota
Republican congressman, August H. Andresen, wrote to Dewey that Stassen had
done the GOP ticket much harm among farmers (by attacking the administration
for trying to keep food prices up by making unnecessary grain purchases).
Now maybe Stassen would have made a more effective spokesman for himself than
he did for Dewey. But *pace* Richard Nixon's point about Stassen's appeal to
the GI Generation, I still think Stassen would have lost to Truman.
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