1940 WI: GOP leaks Wallace mystic letters

IOTL GOP decided not to release those letters, but let's say they do and FDR retaliates by leaking news of Willkie's affair. Who inflicts greater damage? I seriously doubt FDR could lose, but how long would such a thing play out with the existing media consensus ruptured?
 
Given it seems as though Willkie's affair with Van Doren was already known to the press, just simply not reported, I'm not all that certain they would carry the story even should the Roosevelt Campaign make an issue of it, at least in any major way. The Roerich controversy has stronger staying power I think.

As you said though, I don't believe it is enough to bring down Roosevelt. As Octosteel points out Wallace could be dropped, at the cost of some credibility given the effort Roosevelt put into getting him on the ticket.
 
I would imagine the affair would be more damaging, if only because Willkie is the Presidential Nominee as opposed to Wallace as VP and FDR being so popular.
 
IIRC the letters were around DNC time, so FDR could swap him for Byrnes. None of the accounts I've read suggest FDR's hesitance was about the press covering that story. I also don't think the media culture will combust, since sociocultural forces guarding it are pretty much invincible in 1940. One and done.
 
IIRC the letters were around DNC time, so FDR could swap him for Byrnes. None of the accounts I've read suggest FDR's hesitance was about the press covering that story. I also don't think the media culture will combust, since sociocultural forces guarding it are pretty much invincible in 1940. One and done.
If Roosevelt doesn't have to pull an Eagleton then he still has to deal with the fallout from Byrne's nomination. Not sure how that would compare with how the voters would react to Willkie's affair.
 
Fallout from the affair would be way worse, since Willkie doesn't really have a base besides the elite media that would suddenly be forced to acknowledge the affair.
 
I think the pivot is a really brutal attack on Willkie's false imagery as the barefoot Wall Street lawyer, to use Ickes' wonderful phrase. As for the affair... Willkie's family knows, and there goes his Mr. Clean image to the public.
 
I think the pivot is a really brutal attack on Willkie's false imagery as the barefoot Wall Street lawyer, to use Ickes' wonderful phrase. As for the affair... Willkie's family knows, and there goes his Mr. Clean image to the public.
If this is the case how much of a loss in the vote are we talking? Are we looking at a loss of a few points, a return to Landon's performance, worse? Depending on the impact, and given this was the era of largely straight-ticket voting, it could seriously effect Republicans on all levels of government.
 
I don't expect this to dominate the campaign, since it'll be happening in late summer, before the GE is formally underway. Foreign affairs will take center stage per OTL. FDR can thank Willkie for the donation and agreeing with him on domestic issues (dunno if his D affiliation pre-1939 was known publicly) to troll conservatives. There will be severe strain, perhaps open conflict, between Willkie's amateurs and the regulars who were distrustful at best. Finishes Willkie's political career. Dems might not have to worry about the House.
 
He's still a rising star but has less chits and no power to use his oil knowledge. Could that flip IN & MI? Some farm states will stay with Willkie, but that's it.
 
He's still a rising star but has less chits and no power to use his oil knowledge. Could that flip IN & MI? Some farm states will stay with Willkie, but that's it.
Looking at the close states I wouldn't be surprised if Michigan, Indiana, Maine and Colorado flipped, and the argument could be made for Iowa. That would leave the column of four and Vermont for the Republican ticket. Still an improvement over Landon, but a far cry from what Republicans would have been hoping for.
 

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I don't see how it could damage much his political carrier, but then I am not an american, and lack fine tuned information of the public view about religious freedom. I know it was granted, but what the masses thought about it? I guess some people we today would call christian fundamentalists won't like to see such person as vice president.

However I would love to know more about these things. All I know that USA was all like puritans and catholics going to each other churches and (unlike Europe) being ok with it.

And then, blam, sixties and seventies and a New Age happens.
 
If the press deems it worthy to go after Wallace for his affairs, is it possible they discover/report on FDR's?
 
IIRC the letters were around DNC time, so FDR could swap him for Byrnes. None of the accounts I've read suggest FDR's hesitance was about the press covering that story. I also don't think the media culture will combust, since sociocultural forces guarding it are pretty much invincible in 1940. One and done.

Wouldn't the same problems that kept FDR from getting Byrnes to replace Wallace in 1944 in OTL stop him from doing so in 1940 in TTL? Byrnes would still cause problems among organized labour, Catholics, and African Americans.
Even if FDR does get him on the ticket in 1940, would the above mentioned problems result in him getting booted for Truman in 1944 like Wallace?

If not what would the presidency of James F. Byrnes (1945-19??) look like? I'd imagine we could take some hints from his tenure as governor of South Carolina, so likely no de-segregation of the armed forces while he's POTUS.
 
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So I decided to try and see how the scandal would effect matters in terms of the Presidential election and further down the ballot. In following RogueBeaver's opinion I effectively established Willkie's loss in votes as a middle ground between what he received in OTL and what Landon received in '36, the majority of the loss going to Roosevelt but those who abstained also being represented. As I had thought Willkie lost half the states he carried, but I was surprised that he nearly lost Vermont, carrying it by (~1,300) votes. His strongest state was South Dakota, which he carried (~53%) to (~47%), not particularly impressive. This of course doesn't really factor in how Byrnes nomination might have effected the race, his issues regarding Labor Unions and his Catholicism possibly nudging the results in varying directions here and there; let's just say virtually all fell in line behind Roosevelt.

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Down ballot races proved rather disastrous for Republican however, negating many of the gains they had made historically. That said I may have overstated straight-ticket voting a bit much in the case of the House elections. Essentially it seems as though the losses from the Recession of '38 would have been reversed. I don't have an infobox for the Gubernatorial elections given one doesn't really exist, but it seems like the Democrats could have managed to have either gained or held the Governorship in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and Washington, while the Progressives could have gained Wisconsin.

Arthur Vandenburg and Harold Burton are out. Joseph Martin came very close to losing. George Bender is out. Hugh Scott is out. I'm sure there are other notable casualties I've missed, but those are the ones I recognized. William Lemke made it through in North Dakota as the Independent.

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