Could Bryan have won in 1908? Given the decisive margin by which he lost
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1908.txt it may not seem so, but to quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
In January 1899, William Howard Taft received word (from his brother Henry
Taft) that he was being considered for the presidency of Yale. He wrote a
letter to Henry, declining the job, giving as one of his reasons his
religion. Yale's strongest support was from "among those who believe in
the creed of the orthodox evangelical churches," and with him as president,
Yale might be deprived of that aid, because he did not share that creed:
"I am a Unitarian. I believe in God. *I do not believe in the Divinity of
Christ*, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed
to which I cannot subscribe. I am not, however, a scoffer at religion but
on the contrary recognize, in the fullest manner, the elevating influence
that it has had and always will have in the history of mankind." (Emphasis
added)
Taft's biographer Henry Pringle thinks that "it was well that political
enemies did not have access to his private files" because the phrase "I do
not believe in the Divinity of Christ" if made public "would have been more
than enough to send Bryan to the White House in 1908." *The Life and Times
of William Howard Taft*, vol. 1 , p. 45.
Would it, though? Suppose in the heat of the campaign the letter had
somehow been made public--let's say some shocked janitor in Henry Taft's
office comes across the letter and decides he must make it public to save
America from the curse of an un-Christian president. Remember that Taft
made no secret of the fact that he was a Unitarian, and of course many
people denounced him for that and said that they would not vote for him
precisely because as a Unitarian he did not believe in the divnity of
Christ. But there were also no doubt people who had only a fuzzy idea of
what Unitarianism was--who thought it was just another Protestant
denomination--but would have been shocked at the phrase "I do not believe
in the Divinity of Christ" even if in fact it was implicit in his
Unitarianism. So I do not doubt that Taft would have lost *some* votes
(though there would also be some sympathy for him for the way in which
a private letter of his was made public). But I doubt that it would have
been enough to let Bryan win...