Happy Landin' With Landon
Held during a time in which America was only beginning to recover from the nadir of the Great Depression, the United States presidential election of 1936 was (for the Democratic Party at least) supposed to be a simple affair. With Franklin Roosevelt having all but destroyed the Republicans under the detested Herbert Hoover not four years earlier in the 1932 presidential election, as well as almost limiting their standing in the House of Representatives to only two digits in 1934; the executive administration's promises of "stability, strength, and recovery" resonated with the American people and they for the most party believed and trusted in the progress (however slow) their government was making to eliminate the effects of the worst recession in history. Going into 1936, it seemed, the Democrats were to have the full confidence of the public behind them. Perhaps it is for this reason why historians are just so perplexed to how and why the presidential election of 1936 ultimately turned out like it did.
The root of the issues that plagued the Democrats in the 1936 election cycle began one year earlier in 1935. Throughout that year, numerous cases taken before the Supreme Court began to overturn several key elements of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' program that had been passed since 1933 to fight against the poverty and unemployment brought on by the Great Depression. Taken by many justices in the court to be unconstitutional, the overturning of these pieces of New Deal legislation became major setbacks for Roosevelt and his administration; setbacks that needed to be dealt with a soon as possible if the United States were to ever recover at a good pace. Shortly following the August 1935 ruling by the Supreme Court that declared the
Agricultural Adjustment Act to be unconstitutional, Roosevelt began to lay in place the building blocks of a legislative initiative known today as the 'court-packing plan'.
With the legislation allowing for a sitting president to appoint up to six additional justices onto the Supreme Court for every member that was over the age of 70 years and 6 months, the plan immediately came under intense criticism. Even within Roosevelt's own party, there were many (including Vice President John Nance Garner) who felt that it was too great an overreach of presidential power, even for a man as widely admired as Roosevelt. The Democratic Party began to be struck with cases of infighting, and into early-1936 public and administration opinions regarding the court-packing plan were mixed and increasingly polarized. Coupled with the further turnover of New Deal legislation throughout this period, this controversial initiative proved toxic as election season neared; and it was in this foul atmosphere that one Huey Pierce Long came to national attention.
As Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long gained a reputation as somewhat of a populist demagogue. Operating under the motto of "Every Man A King", Long rallied against both the rich and the banks, promulgating a program similar (but at the same time opposed) to Roosevelt's New Deal; the 'Share Our Wealth' program. This program advocated for federal funding for schools, hospitals and other public services, as well as the institution of old age pensions; and for this Long was immensely popular within his home state (though also criticized for his similarities to the European fascist movements), and with the 1936 presidential election growing nearer, his star ever brightened on the national stage.
According to several biographers, Long initially never intended to run for president in 1936; but wait out under his movement could be fully consolidated before running in the following election in 1940. An attempted assassination in September 1935 all but wiped those plans from the table as the wounded Louisiana Governor moved quickly to develop and cultivate a public campaign for the upcoming election season. Exactly why these plans changed so dramatically are today a matter of conjecture, and all that can be said is that Long ultimately road off the immense public sympathy that came in the wake of his attempted assassination, and in late-1935 announced that he would front the increasingly challenged Franklin Roosevelt for the 1936 Democratic nomination.
What developed in 1936 ultimately became a trilateral affair; both in the Democratic primaries, as well as the presidential election itself. Roosevelt himself, still engulfed in the increasingly polarized debate surrounding his court-packing plan (an initiative that he now vowed would be taken to the election) was only seriously challenged for his party's nomination by both Huey Long and the anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, Henry Skillman Breckinridge. Whilst both candidates performed well given the circumstances (especially in relation to Roosevelt's personal popularity, despite his falling stature), they couldn't completely grasp the nomination for themselves, and in mid-1935 amidst a veritable sandstorm of public interest, Huey Long (who had further increased his popularity on a national scale during the primaries) announced that he would no longer be running for president as a Democrat, but on his own terms under the banner of the Share Our Wealth program as a member of the 'Union Party'.
The 'Union Party' of 1936 was a ticket solely formed for the purpose of electing Huey Long to the presidency, and though others in that years House of Representative elections largely campaigned as members of the Union Party, it wasn't a national movement; not yet in any case. Long believed that he could undercut Roosevelt both in the south and midwest, and perhaps from the Republicans also take hold of the Great Lake states such as Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio; and it was to this end he enlisted the support of Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. Having ran as Vice President alongside Robert La Follette Sr. twelve years earlier in the 1924 presidential elections, Wheeler was not Union Party's first choice for running mate with Long having initially considered Governor Floyd B. Olson of Minnesota. After Olson was struck down by stomach cancer, however, Long was forced to shift his sights to the experienced, albeit reluctant Montanan.
Amidst all the chaos and infighting that engulfed the Democrats and propelled the Long ticket to national prominence was the Republicans. Having been all but utterly defeated four years earlier under the uncharismatic and despised Herbert Hoover, the Republican party attempted to do some soul searching in the lead-up to the presidential election of 1936, and in that years national convention nominated Alf Landon, Governor of Kansas. Although Landon was chosen on behalf of the ostensibly separate wing of the Republican Party from the
laissez faire one of the 1920's, as well as having a grudging respect for New Deal initiatives, the Kansan candidate was nevertheless forced into attacking New Deal policies that neither the public nor he had any major disagreements with. During the first few weeks of the major campaign, Landon was largely idle, weak in his attacks on either the Democrats or Long's Union Party; and it wouldn't be until late-August in which his campaign finally began to dig into both major opposition parties.
Headed by his election manager John Hamilton, Alf Landon began an erstwhile speaking campaign that began to draw greater attention to the Republican candidate. Whilst it was clear that Landon would never be as electrifying as Huey Long or as eloquent as Franklin Roosevelt, Landon nevertheless had a base (however weak it may have been) to build off of. Presenting himself as a crusader against both the 'corrupt' (Roosevelt) and the 'demagogic' (Long), Landon successfully rallied a significant fraction of the populace to his side late in the election season with attacks against presidential overreach in the form of court-packing the "bloated unconstitutional failures" that were the more controversial aspects of the New Deal program. All whilst the Democrats were engulfed in the flames of infighting over executive overreach (fuelled by the grudging renomination of John Nance Garner as Roosevelt's running mate) and Long's Union Party were fighting against the now squabbling Democrats, Landon successfully portrayed himself as the compromise candidate that was neither overreaching nor a firebrand.
When election day finally came, many were left shocked by the final result.
Landon, despite the failures of the previous Republican administration; despite his own lack of public grace; won the presidency with a hefty plurality in the popular vote. Pre-election fears of Huey Long's campaign splitting votes enough ways to result in a hung-college ultimately proved unfounded as the Governor of Kansas, after the devastating defeat only four years earlier, successfully rallied the country once against around a Republican candidate, winning a solid majority in the electoral college. Whilst he personally remained less popular amongst the public than Roosevelt, he nevertheless (somewhat miraculously) convinced the American people to give the Republican Party another term in the White House.
Roosevelt was, reportedly, devastated by the news of his defeat when the final results ticketed in overnight. Believing that his own personal popularity and the popularity of his New Deal initiatives could win over the public despite internal squabbling over the court-packing plan and the defeat of numerous pieces of legislation in the Supreme Court, it turned out that Roosevelt severely miscalculated. By taking his divisive plans to the election and allowing infighting to completely engulf the Democratic Party by reluctantly allowing John Nance Garner to once again be his running mate, he failed to see what effect this would have on the public perception of the stability of his government during the struggles of the Great Depression and was subsequently punished for it.
Perhaps the greatest factor in the 1936 presidential election, however, would have to have been the candidacy of Huey Long. Despite winning a significant percentage of the popular vote and being the first third party candidate to win one or more states since Robert La Follette Sr. in 1924, Long nevertheless felt that his campaign was a failure. Ever electrifying in his speeches and magnetising in his mannerisms, the Union Party candidate did draw in a number of disgruntled voters who remembered the failures of the Hoover administration and were not fond of Roosevelt's executive infighting; however it was clearly not enough to win over those who were fearful of his populist and demagogic "Hiterlisms" (a term christened by a Republican campaign manager with a hint of hyperbole).
In the end, Long stated that his only 'true' success in the 1936 presidential election was that of the undercutting of the Democratic party; something which further fuelled infighting during the election season and allowed Landon to ultimately claim the plurality of popular votes in states in which Democratic and Union votes had been split (and example of this being seen in Kentucky). For the brief euphoria that followed in the wake of the Republicans publicly unexpected election to the presidency, a fear soon fell upon all those elected to executive offices in 1936; Landon more than most. America was switching horses midstream amidst the worst economic crisis in modern history, and Landon had to prove that he was worthy of the great trust the public placed with him; though with dark storm clouds descending across most the world in the late-1930's, Landon may have had to do a little more than simply demonstrate his worthiness to the American people.
