1912 WJB wins Democratic nomination

I don't see anything in the first post about not being the 1908 nominee. Assuming all else up to the 1912 convention went as it did IOTL, had Bryan not opposed Clark as a candidate with Wall Street ties, the deadlock could have gone on far longer than it did--perhaps even approaching what we knew as the 100+ ballots in 1924. If so, Bryan could propose himself as a compromise to an exhausted convention who, by then, would just want the thing done. You might see a complete reprise of the 1908 Dems' ticket, with Kern as the VP nominee.

To say Bryan was more charismatic than either McKinley or Taft is like saying Sacramento is closer to Boston than is San Francisco. In a three way Taft-Bryan-TR race (I don't see anything here preventing the Bull Moose split), Taft still finishes third in electoral votes, but TR will tie Bryan in knots. Then things get complicated. Bryan won't win squat in the northeast if previous elections are any indication. TR would somehow have to eke out enough electoral votes to keep the election out of the House: if it gets into the House, he's done, and he becomes a reluctant kingmaker for Taft. My sense is that he might just be able to do so with small pluralities (say, on the order of 35% of the popular vote) in the northeast and industrial midwest, which were GOP strongholds in the day. At the same time, Bryan goes down in history as a four-time loser in the presidential sweepstakes, and he's done permanently as far as the presidency goes.

Looks to me like either Taft is in the White House when the July Crisis and all that followed occurs, and the US goes to war perhaps after the sinking of the Lusitania, given that the situation then was far more nebulous than it came to be, or TR is in the White House, meaning either a similar 1915 declaration of war--or no war whatsoever, if TR can mediate a resolution similar to the end of the Russo-Japanese War. Either way, the world is spared the spectacle of Bryan in the White House, a general European war with US abstention, and thus a war that quite possibly lasts well into 1919 and perhaps even 1920 until the exhausted parties declare a stalemate. It'll take a long time for Europe to recover in that case, and the results might be as ugly as they were IOTL.
 

SsgtC

Banned
I don't see anything in the first post about not being the 1908 nominee. Assuming all else up to the 1912 convention went as it did IOTL, had Bryan not opposed Clark as a candidate with Wall Street ties, the deadlock could have gone on far longer than it did--perhaps even approaching what we knew as the 100+ ballots in 1924. If so, Bryan could propose himself as a compromise to an exhausted convention who, by then, would just want the thing done. You might see a complete reprise of the 1908 Dems' ticket, with Kern as the VP nominee
Actually, Wilson was about to conceed the nomination and withdraw his name from consideration when Bryan threw his support behind him. Wilson had already drafted a concession speech and was about to have it read.
 
I don't see anything in the first post about not being the 1908 nominee. Assuming all else up to the 1912 convention went as it did IOTL, had Bryan not opposed Clark as a candidate with Wall Street ties, the deadlock could have gone on far longer than it did--perhaps even approaching what we knew as the 100+ ballots in 1924. If so, Bryan could propose himself as a compromise to an exhausted convention who, by then, would just want the thing done. You might see a complete reprise of the 1908 Dems' ticket, with Kern as the VP nominee.

To say Bryan was more charismatic than either McKinley or Taft is like saying Sacramento is closer to Boston than is San Francisco. In a three way Taft-Bryan-TR race (I don't see anything here preventing the Bull Moose split), Taft still finishes third in electoral votes,

Unless Shranck's attempt on TR's life is butterflied away. The courage he showed at that time probably saved him from finishing third.


but TR will tie Bryan in knots. Then things get complicated. Bryan won't win squat in the northeast if previous elections are any indication.

How do you work that out? In 1908 Bryan got more votes in NY (667,468) than Wilson would in 1912 (655,475), and there's no reason for his performance to be much different this time. A few conservative "Parker" Democrats may switch to Taft, but OTOH some Bryan Dems who voted OTL for Eugene Debs [1] will likely return to the fold, so overall it's probably a wash. It's much the same in NJ, where Bryan got 182,567 in 1908, Wilson only 178,289 four years later.

Further west it was even worse. Bryan took 338,262 [2] in Indiana, Wilson only 281,890. In Ohio it was 502,721 against Wilson's 423,152 And the 1912 figures were out of a larger population.

And even if Bryan did somehow lose the Northeast, would it really matter? Wilson in 1916 would demonstrate that it was perfectly possible for a Democrat to write off the Northeast and yet still win on Southern and Western votes alone - even in a straight fight.


[1] Or just abstained. Percentage turnout in 1912 was well down on 1908, and in thirty states the absolute numbers were also down. Quite a bit of the fallback probably consisted of Bryan men who found the President of Princeton too "Establishment" for their taste. Whatever his limitations, Bryan was the best vote-getter the Democrats had.

[2] Less than 11,000 votes behind Taft, when the latter led a united Republican party as the hand-picked successor of a popular incumbent.
 
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Would WJB work to make the US the neutral arbiter of peace in Europe?

How would the US react to the Russian civil war?

(1) It doesn't much matter because both sides were interested in victory, not arbitration.

(2) A Bryan presidency might mean that the Central Powers would have won by 1917, in which case the February and October Revolutions--let alone the Russian Civil War as we know it--might never have taken place.
 
TR would somehow have to eke out enough electoral votes to keep the election out of the House: if it gets into the House, he's done, and he becomes a reluctant kingmaker for Taft.
As @Mikestone8 noted, there's no reason to think that Bryan wouldn't win a Wilson-esque Electoral College landslide, but even if the election ended up in the House, the Democrats would control a majority of the delegations.
 
As @Mikestone8 noted, there's no reason to think that Bryan wouldn't win a Wilson-esque Electoral College landslide, but even if the election ended up in the House, the Democrats would control a majority of the delegations.

And even if they didn't, after a courtesy vote for Taft on the first Ballot, enough Republican Congressmen would abstain to allow Bryan to win. Much as they might dislike him, he would be the lesser evil to TR, as the latter's victory could pose a threat to their control of their own party.
 
[1] Or just abstained. Percentage turnout in 1912 was well down on 1908, and in thirty states the absolute numbers were also down. Quite a bit of the fallback probably consisted of Bryan men who found the President of Princeton too "Establishment" for their taste. Whatever his limitations, Bryan was the best vote-getter the Democrats had.

And Bryan by then was not seen as quite the radical he once was. The country was already more progressive in 1912 then in 1896, and Bryan had become a party elder of sorts. Conservative Democrats would have been willing to vote for him, especially to stop TR and Debs.

Heck, while Taft could still win in Utah against Bryan, I think Bryan would do better than Wilson there and would probably win it. Taft might only win Vermont then.
 
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And Bryan by then was not seen as quite the radical he once was. The country was already more progressive in 1912 then in 1896, and Bryan had become a party elder of sorts. Conservative Democrats would have been willing to vote for him, especially to stop TR and Debs.

Heck, while Taft could still win in Utah against Bryan, I think Bryan would do better than Wilson there and would probably win it. Taft might only win Vermont then.

In 1908 UT voted Taft 61,165, Bryan 42,601, Debs 4,890. In 1912 it went Wilson 36,579, Taft 42,100, TR 24,174, Debs 9,023. So even if Bryan merely repeated his 1908 score, w/o any benefit from population increase, he would indeed carry the State.

It may or may not be a coincidence that the combined Democratic and Socialist vote is remarkably similar both years - 1908 47,491, 1912 45,602. Makes me suspect that Debs provided a home for some disgruntled Bryan men.

OTOH Bryan could well lose states in New England. Wilson outpolled him in all of them. In Maine TR was the close runner-up, while in Massachusetts (Wilson 173,408, TR 142,228, Taft 155,948) either might have benefited. In NH, RI and CT Taft was a close second. So Bryan may well lose several of them, and quite possibly all - a loss of up to 40 EVs. If he does lose them all while picking up UT, that drops his total vote, but only to 399 - still 133 more than he needs.

However, he could make gains elsewhere. In PA, the 1908 vote was Taft 745,779, Bryan 448,785, Debs 33,913. In 1912 it was Wilson 395,619, TR 447,426, Taft 273,305, Debs 83,164. So once again Bryan need only maintain his 1908 vote in order to win. And again the combined Dem/Soc vote - 1908 482,698, 1912 478,783 - stays remarkably constant. If Bryan takes PA his electoral vote climbs to 437 - two more than Wilson received OTL - even if he loses all of New England.

Finally there's CA. OTL, TR edged out Wilson by just 174 votes out of abt 675,000 cast, causing the electoral vote to split 11-2 in his favour. The near-doubling of the electorate from introduction of women's suffrage makes direct comparison with 1908 (total vote abt 386,000) impossible, but Wilson's crushing primary loss (72/28) to Champ Clark suggests a certain lack of appeal to California Dems, and the huge Socialist vote (79,201) may point the same way. A Bryan win here brings him up to 448 EVs, against 45 for TR, 20 for Taft and 18 (MA) uncertain. So he can write off the New England states while still outperforming Wilson.
 
Unless Shranck's attempt on TR's life is butterflied away. The courage he showed at that time probably saved him from finishing third.
How do you work that out? In 1908 Bryan got more votes in NY (667,468) than Wilson would in 1912 (655,475), and there's no reason for his performance to be much different this time. A few conservative "Parker" Democrats may switch to Taft, but OTOH some Bryan Dems who voted OTL for Eugene Debs [1] will likely return to the fold, so overall it's probably a wash. It's much the same in NJ, where Bryan got 182,567 in 1908, Wilson only 178,289 four years later.

Further west it was even worse. Bryan took 338,262 [2] in Indiana, Wilson only 281,890. In Ohio it was 502,721 against Wilson's 423,152 And the 1912 figures were out of a larger population.

And even if Bryan did somehow lose the Northeast, would it really matter? Wilson in 1916 would demonstrate that it was perfectly possible for a Democrat to write off the Northeast and yet still win on Southern and Western votes alone - even in a straight fight.


[1] Or just abstained. Percentage turnout in 1912 was well down on 1908, and in thirty states the absolute numbers were also down. Quite a bit of the fallback probably consisted of Bryan men who found the President of Princeton too "Establishment" for their taste. Whatever his limitations, Bryan was the best vote-getter the Democrats had.

[2] Less than 11,000 votes behind Taft, when the latter led a united Republican party as the hand-picked successor of a popular incumbent.

Your analysis has debatable bases. Comparing Bryan's performance in a two-way race in 1908 to Wilson's in a three way race in 1912 is tantamount to comparing apples to grapefruit. Furthermore, Bryan never challenged TR directly, and we all know that TR was a master at working a crowd. On top of that, comparing the ultra-narrow two-way race in 1916 to the three way race in 1912 is also a fallacy. What you say about the actual numbers is correct, but you can't draw those conclusions from those shaky comparisons.
 
What you say about the actual numbers is correct, but you can't draw those conclusions from those shaky comparisons.

Exactly. All 1912 proves that when one of the major parties is split into two, even if it’s the dominating majoritarian party, it will lose to the other major party. Why? Because in a state where the Republicans garner 63% of the vote while the Democratic vote is 37% in a two way race is a crushing defeat for the Democratic candidate in hat state. But split the GOP in two, and that 37% is all you need to win said state.
 
It may or may not be a coincidence that the combined Democratic and Socialist vote is remarkably similar both years - 1908 47,491, 1912 45,602. Makes me suspect that Debs provided a home for some disgruntled Bryan men.

To a certain degree I think so, but I believe that Debs' base was very much German and Finnish. It was northern European immigrant workers.
 
Your analysis has debatable bases. Comparing Bryan's performance in a two-way race in 1908 to Wilson's in a three way race in 1912 is tantamount to comparing apples to grapefruit. Furthermore, Bryan never challenged TR directly, and we all know that TR was a master at working a crowd. On top of that, comparing the ultra-narrow two-way race in 1916 to the three way race in 1912 is also a fallacy. What you say about the actual numbers is correct, but you can't draw those conclusions from those shaky comparisons.

They aren't as shaky as all that.

In 1904 TR won 7,630,557 votes as compared with 7,218,283 for McKinley in 1900 - an increase of 412,274.

The total vote cast in 1900 had been 13,964,094, so this represents an increase of 2.95%. However, even this overstates the case, as the population (and hence the size of the electorate) had not stood still during these four years. So having TR on the ticket was worth (at the outside) maybe 2.5 percentage points to the GOP.

TR did of course get a landslide in the electoral college, but this was due less to his popularity than to Parker’s unpopularity. The latter could glean only 5,077,911 votes as against Bryan’s 6,358,133 last time round. Some 1.3 million Bryan Dems could not stomach Parker, and either voted for Eugene Debs or just went fishing. Clearly, though, even in these circs few could bring themselves to vote Republican.

In short there's nothing to suggest that having TR in the race would harm Bryan in any significant way, or, if you prefer it the other way round, that running against Bryan instead of Wilson would be of any benefit to TR, save possibly in New England. .
 
Exactly. All 1912 proves that when one of the major parties is split into two, even if it’s the dominating majoritarian party, it will lose to the other major party. Why? Because in a state where the Republicans garner 63% of the vote while the Democratic vote is 37% in a two way race is a crushing defeat for the Democratic candidate in hat state. But split the GOP in two, and that 37% is all you need to win said state.

Also keep in mind that the GOP had already taken a hammering in the 1910 midterms, ie even before the Bull Moose revolt. So even had there been only one candidate in 1912, his vote would have fallen far short of OTL's combined Taft/TR vote. The party was deeply divided and even had they found a compromise candidate this would only have been papering over deep cracks.
 
Why not New York? He always got around 43% of the vote besides in 1896. NYC voters majority of times stocked with him.

New England I agree, but losing New England and losing the Northeast are two very different things.

By this time, Bryan is identified pretty strongly with prohibition. He was also known informally as "the Protestant Pope" by some. Couple those and the ethnic voters (Irish; Italian; German) in the Northeast-not just New York!- aren't going to like him one bit. You want to explain to a cop enjoying a day off, or a mason, or a jeweler (stereotypes, I know, but I'm exaggerating deliberately) why he should vote for a president who's going to take away his whisky / vino / beer that affords enjoyment? I don't think that'll work too well.
 
By this time, Bryan is identified pretty strongly with prohibition. He was also known informally as "the Protestant Pope" by some. Couple those and the ethnic voters (Irish; Italian; German) in the Northeast-not just New York!- aren't going to like him one bit. You want to explain to a cop enjoying a day off, or a mason, or a jeweler (stereotypes, I know, but I'm exaggerating deliberately) why he should vote for a president who's going to take away his whisky / vino / beer that affords enjoyment? I don't think that'll work too well.

Don't forget that many of these people are working-class, and Bryan as a pro-working class Democrat could definitely get some of their votes, especially the Irish during 1916 (different election but showing that prohibition is not the only issue) would vote for the vehemently pro-neutrality Bryan who also fight for the working class. But you are right that many would switch their votes to TR (none for Taft however).
 
It should also be stated that Bryan didn't want to run in 1912. Even Taft thought he would, but he stated he didn't. I think three defeats were too much for him. Have him not run in 1908 still is what I hold. Its amazing how relatively close he was to becoming President.
 
How would the WJB administration look like had it won in 1912?

A lot like Wilson's cabinet, I'd bet. Since Bryan would have been the first Democrat apart from Cleveland elected since 1856, there's going to be a lot of dispensing of jobs to southern Dems, which is why I suggest Wilson's cabinet and Bryan's would have looked very similar. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at Wilson getting the State department, Josephus Daniels getting Navy as he did IOTL, and so forth. Given that the Postmaster General was largely a reward / patronage position at the time, there's not much to suggest Bryan wouldn't have appointed Albert Burleson as Wilson did--and Burleson was the culprit who recommended segregating federal departments, with support from SecTreas McAdoo. Thus, look for similar events here; the difference is that Bryan wouldn't have been able to "defend" the policy as articulately as did Wilson in an interview with Oswald Villiard.

Bryan was a pedestrian SecState IOTL at best, so I wouldn't expect he'd be particularly astute with respect to foreign policy. I'd suggest his reaction to the events in Sarajevo and the subsequent July Crisis to be along the lines of, "That's interesting, but it's none of our business". Unlike Wilson, who offered to mediate but was rebuffed, Bryan wouldn't even do that. He'd probably put out some pious pronouncement about the horrors of war once things got rolling, and would largely ignore it, proclaiming American neutrality from the outset. Pacifist that he was, even the Lusitania wouldn't provoke any action other than an expression of sympathy--and a possible executive order keeping US shipping out of the war zone entirely. His statements following both the Lusitania and the Thrasher incidents would have been significantly different from Wilson's notes IOTL. Furthermore, I could see him angering the British with his pronouncements against the blockade of Germany. I could see Bryan also opposing Wall Street lending any funds to the Allies, based on his pacifist principles. Seems to me the war would drag on to a bloody stalemate sometime in 1919 or even 1920--but that's assuming that Bryan isn't kicked out after a single term.

I see Bryan having an extremely difficult time getting re-elected in 1916. He'd have too many people upset with him. It's unlikely the GOP would have TR as its candidate, so the 1916 election is probably Bryan vs. Hughes, with Hughes winning--and TR as SecState. If, however, by some miracle Bryan squeaked by, the US will have very few friends if any in Europe until 1921 at the earliest. The stalemate peace talks are going to drag on for a while, and when it's all over, Europe from one end to the other will be ripe for revolutions of one sort or another, all based on "we fought for six years and this is what we wound up with?" anger at the existing regimes. And each one of those nations will point a finger at the US, saying that it's at least in part America's fault that the war dragged on as it did since the US did nothing to intervene. In this scenario, Bryan's successor will have to do a lot of fence-mending quickly; otherwise, I could see fascism arising in Europe early in the 1920s, above and beyond Italy.

At home, the economic policies won't be largely different from those under Wilson. The big difference, though, will be an earlier enactment of Prohibition. With the president spearheading the effort, it might become law as early as 1915. That could cost Bryan ethnic votes in 1916, which means an uphill re-election fight. But again, assuming he squeaks by, by 1920, Prohibition will have been demonstrated to be unworkable and impractical. You'll have a wet GOP candidate, no question, and likely repeal in the early 1920s. (I have to wonder if the mob would have been organized enough in 1915 to take advantage of prohibition as it was in, say, 1922?)

I think a Bryan administration would be sufficiently inept to sour people in general on the Democrats for a while longer. It would also likely mean someone other than Harding as the GOP candidate in 1920--probably Frank Lowden, I'd guess--and a very different 1920s that may not have set the table for the crash of 1929.
 
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