TL-191: Filling the Gaps

[Craigo]

I thought I had a great, obscure Socialist running mate in 1884 - a real life labor politician who would be nominated by virtue of being a Congressman and the only Socialist federal officeholder at the time.

Now I not only can't remember his name, I can't remember his state.

To be honest, these days when I let my mind wander over to 191, it's the postwar era.

 

[bguy]

Good to see you're back. This has always been my favorite of the various TL-191 threads.

Pretty good list for Sinclairs' cabinet as well. The only part I would disagree with is having Norman Thomas as Secretary of War in 1923. In The Center Cannot Hold, Thomas was still being described as the Assistant Secretary of War sometime after Sinclair's second inaugeration, so 1925 is the absolute earliest he could become Secretary of War.

 

[Nivek]

After watching a little marathon, How Will the Indiana Jones movie be in TL-191?Besides the Freedom Party remplacing the Nazis and the japanese the soviets, maybe here the German will have a support role here, like a reversal, being Inga , the Indy love Interest and Marrion the Confederate Spy?

 

[Trotsky]

I don't think Freedom would replace the Nazis; the latter actually had international presence and an active interest in antiquity, the occult, and pseudo-sciences that would naturally engage with Indy's career, areas completely outside the notice of Featherston and his crew.

 

[Craigo]

Good to see you're back. This has always been my favorite of the various TL-191 threads.

Pretty good list for Sinclairs' cabinet as well. The only part I would disagree with is having Norman Thomas as Secretary of War in 1923. In The Center Cannot Hold, Thomas was still being described as the Assistant Secretary of War sometime after Sinclair's second inaugeration, so 1925 is the absolute earliest he could become Secretary of War.

I just remembered the 1924 conversation when TR died, which would make my dates wrong anyway, but I'll take your word for it. Let's find someone else to stick there for a while.

I aimed for a mix of politicians, intellectuals, and union leaders. The only truly hard one was Navy - but then again, prior to world War II the Secretary of the Navy was often some obscure politico anyway.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

I just remembered the 1924 conversation when TR died, which would make my dates wrong anyway, but I'll take your word for it. Let's find someone else to stick there for a while.

I aimed for a mix of politicians, intellectuals, and union leaders. The only truly hard one was Navy - but then again, prior to world War II the Secretary of the Navy was often some obscure politico anyway.

But in Timeline-191, the Navy would surely be more important?

 

[Craigo]

But in Timeline-191, the Navy would surely be more important?

More important than in our timeline, maybe, but the War Department is going to get the lion's share of funding as always. and this is the Sinclair Administration, after all.

 

[bguy]

I just remembered the 1924 conversation when TR died, which would make my dates wrong anyway, but I'll take your word for it. Let's find someone else to stick there for a while.

I aimed for a mix of politicians, intellectuals, and union leaders. The only truly hard one was Navy - but then again, prior to world War II the Secretary of the Navy was often some obscure politico anyway.

It would have been fun to have Smedley Butler at Navy.

As for filling the 1923-1925 SecWar position, how about Frank Kellogg? He would likely be a Republican in TL-191 (assuming his family still moves to Minnesota in 1865), so his appointment would give Sinclair some additional tri-partisan cred, and Kellogg seems like the kind of idealistic, hard working person Sinclair would like in that position. Kellogg is also old enough that it would make sense he would want to step down after Sinclair's re-election and turn things over to Thomas.

 

[Craigo]

United States presidential election, 1920

Theodore Roosevelt/William Allen White - 40%, 140 electoral votes
Upton Sinclair/Hosea Blackford - 45%, 212 electoral votes
Charles Curtis/James Watson - 12%, 35 electoral votes

Notes: TR narrowly won New York State despite the rest of the Democratic ticket getting shellacked up and down the ballot.

The Republicans posted their best results in twenty years. They took Iowa, the quintessential farm belt state, narrowly won Kansas from the Democrats (the Socialists were, as usual, a nonfactor), and with Debs off the ballot, they captured Indiana, which shared with Missouri the distinction of the most closely divided state in the Union.

In addition to the mining states of West Virginia, Montana, and Nevada, the Socialist strongholds of New Jersey, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and a host of industrial and farm states, the Party came close in Massachusetts and Rhode Island to capturing a New England state for the first time ever, and won their first electoral votes on the Pacific coast. (They probably would have won Washington in 1916 as well, but the bloody suppression of the radical Seattle longshoremen by the Navy and state police cost them thousands of votes.)

Despite a healthy popular vote margin, the election would have been thrown into the House if Pennsylvania, which Sinclair took with less than a majority, had gone the other way. (Illinois and Ohio could have swung the election also, but the Socialists won those much more comfortably thanks a larger Republican vote west of the Appalachians.) Walter McKenna, the Philadelphia machine leader who had been dropped from the ticket, claimed that TR would have won if he'd been kept on. That may be true, but Pennsylvania's swing is more likely to be due to the mobilization of the Pittsburgh steel workers, and the devastation of the Democratic-leaning Susquehanna Valley.

Analysis of the votes of former Confederates in the newly acquired territories is mixed. A large majority of these men had been Whigs, and would seem to be natural conservatives, but a significant protest vote against TR is visible in these results. On the other hand, former Radical Liberals seem to have split their ballots evenly between the Democrats and Socialists, making it a wash. (Of the new territories, only Kentucky had anything other than a marginal number of white Socialists.)

Thanks to Turquoise Blue for the map template.

 

[Nerdlinger]

Nice update. You indicated earlier that James E. Watson was the Republican presidential candidate for 1916 and 1928. Wouldn't it be unlikely for him to be nominated as the VP candidate in 1920?

 

[Craigo]

Nice update. You indicated earlier that James E. Watson was the Republican presidential candidate for 1916 and 1928. Wouldn't it be unlikely for him to be nominated as the VP candidate in 1920?

totally forgot about that. Out the window with it. I actually thought I had Watson running in 1924, not either of those years.

On a serious note, it wouldn't be out out of line for the Republicans to have a few men, most likely Senators, dominate their leadership.

 

[Nerdlinger]

totally forgot about that. Out the window with it. I actually thought I had Watson running in 1924, not either of those years.

On a serious note, it wouldn't be out out of line for the Republicans to have a few men, most likely Senators, dominate their leadership.

Out the window with which? Watson running for VP in 1920, Watson running for president in 1916, or Watson running for president in 1928?

 

[Turquoise Blue]

What a mess you made of my electoral map!

Here's a cleaned up version.

 

[Craigo]

Speaking of the GOP, Willkie still doesn't make much sense to me. A lifelong Democrat and a New Deal supporter, Willkie only turned to the GOP after utilities regulation. He was a lawyer and a businessman, with no particular connection to farm interests. Is there any particular reason to think he'd be a Republican in TL-191 if he wasn't in OTL?

I can't change it, it just bothers me.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Speaking of the GOP, Willkie still doesn't make much sense to me. A lifelong Democrat and a New Deal supporter, Willkie only turned to the GOP after utilities regulation. He was a lawyer and a businessman, with no particular connection to farm interests. Is there any particular reason to think he'd be a Republican in TL-191 if he wasn't in OTL?

I can't change it, it just bothers me.

Turtledove likes Willkie running in 1940, he did the same in "Joe Steele". And perhaps that's because Willkie's more moderate? By 1940, the Democrats alienated their progressive branch? Makes sense, considering they nominated Mr. Conservative himself, Robert Taft.

 

[Craigo]

Turtledove likes Willkie running in 1940, he did the same in "Joe Steele". And perhaps that's because Willkie's more moderate? By 1940, the Democrats alienated their progressive branch? Makes sense, considering they nominated Mr. Conservative himself, Robert Taft.

That's as good an explanation as any (though the real explanation is likely "copy and paste.") I was big on the Democratic progressive wing in earlier years, but by 1940 I'm not even sure if there will be many left, what with the Socialists growing.

 

[Plumber]

The socialists are weak in Kansas? OTL that wasn't the case.

 

[bguy]

Interesting results from the 1920 election. I'm surprised Roosevelt did so poorly in the popular vote. I got the impression from the books that the election was relatively close. I do like though that you had TR win back New York.

Why did you have him lose Montana though? It was mentioned in The Center Cannot Hold that Montana was a Democrat stronghold because of TR's heroics there in the Second Mexican War. If just the memory of TR is enough to carry the state for the Democrats in 1928 then the man himself should certainly have carried it in 1920.

(Conversely, I don't think TR would have won Idaho or Wyoming, since OTL the west was the part of the country in the 1920s and 30s that was the most pacifistic and isolationistic, and I don't see any real reason why those attitudes would be different in TL-191.)

And White really was a complete dud wasn't he? He might have cost TR Pennsylvania, and he didn't even carry his own state.

What did TR actually campaign on during the election anyway? We have a pretty good idea of what Sinclair wanted to do if elected President, but the books never really made clear what TR's plans for a third term were.

Speaking of the GOP, Willkie still doesn't make much sense to me. A lifelong Democrat and a New Deal supporter, Willkie only turned to the GOP after utilities regulation. He was a lawyer and a businessman, with no particular connection to farm interests. Is there any particular reason to think he'd be a Republican in TL-191 if he wasn't in OTL?

Hmmm, how about this. What if President Sinclair nationalized the utility companies during his administration. (He talked about nationalization in his Inaugeral Address afterall, and the utility companies are certainly a nature target for such an initative.) With the utility companies government controlled by 1929 they have no need for a hotshot corporate attorney, so Mr. Wilkie instead ends up working for some major agri-business concern. Instant connection to the farm interests there. It's then pretty easy to imagine Wilkie getting alienated from the Democrats (after the Hoover Administration slashes farm price supports as part of its budget cuts), and then from the Socialists (maybe the Smith Administration hits his firm with a major anti-trust suit or maybe it's just because he doesn't like President Smith's foreign policy), so Wilkie decides to run for President as a Republican.

I was big on the Democratic progressive wing in earlier years, but by 1940 I'm not even sure if there will be many left, what with the Socialists growing.

The Democrats ran Dewey in '44 and had Harry Truman as his veep. That suggests that the progressive wing of the party is still pretty strong after 1940.

And perhaps that's because Willkie's more moderate? By 1940, the Democrats alienated their progressive branch? Makes sense, considering they nominated Mr. Conservative himself, Robert Taft.

Just remember the OTL Robert Taft supported federal funding for public housing, hospitals, and education. That puts him substantially to the left of the TL-191 Socialists.

 

[Trotsky]

The socialists are weak in Kansas? OTL that wasn't the case.

It's a huge Democratic bastion ITTL.

 

[Craigo]

The socialists are weak in Kansas? OTL that wasn't the case.

It was variously described as both a Democratic and Republican stronghold, but never a Socialist one. I split the difference. (HT did the samre thing with Indiana, for the Republicans and Socialists.) And in TL-191, the two largest sectors of employment are going to be agriculture and the military.

"Nonfactor" means different things in different universes. The socialists overperformed by a point or two in some years, and underperformed in others, but for the most part stuck to their low to mid single digit national average. In TL-191, I could see a Kansas which is split roughly 45D-35R-20S, or 40-40-20, or some combination of that. That would be a significantly higher vote than in OTL, but still not close to a plurality.