DBWI Warren Harding dies during his first term

What would have happened if Warren Harding had died sometime during his first term?
His legacy of corruption and being the worst president ever would not have been as strong as it is today and there wouldn't have been that close-run impeachment session in 1926. Coolidge would've been given some time as president, and as a sort of non-entity, I can't see him doing much good or bad in the office. If Harding died in the early 20's, the Great Depression may have been only a recession instead based on the fact that his horrid administration would be cut short; even Calvin "Fridge" Coolidge having a session as replacement POTUS would've been a step up from that.

Now my question is who would run in 1924 and later on '28, since the latter was a strong Dem year and was a year prior to the bubble bursting.
 
Harding has been the focus of revisionist and counter-revisionist historiography since the 1940s. The plurality (notice I didn't say "consensus" or "majority" for good reason) of historians point out that Harding himself was not corrupt; rather, it was his coterie of appointees (Daugherty; Fall; Denby) who were. It doesn't change much-Harding's reputation is ameliorated to better than that of Buchanan, Pierce, Tyler, and Fillmore--but the judgment of these historians is that he was guilty of epically bad judgment of character. And don't forget that he gave that nationally broadcast speech in early 1927, not long after the brush with impeachment, taking full responsibility for the actions of his subordinates (which speech, it's reported, caused Florence Harding to leave the White House and him within less than a week).

Had Harding been the recipient of better advice on cabinet choices, chances are he'd be recalled today as an amiable, very-sort-of-average president who let the cabinet and Congress handle things for the most part--roughly Rutherford Hayes 50 years later. (Recall that the few real accomplishments of the Harding administration were in fact initiated by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes.)
 
ooc: (can you please post a list of presidents?)

I think his reputation would had still been damaged, that, and maybe the 20s be a GOP decade unlike the gigantic political mess we had. Besides that, the 30's and 40's could be a Dem Decade instead of a GOP one.
 
Wait, wait, wait. Warren Harding took office in 1921 and died in 1923. Isn't that his first term?
 
Top