"Eleanor vs. Ike"

Could Eleanor Roosevelt have won the presidency in 1952?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 11.4%
  • No

    Votes: 23 52.3%
  • Chance better than 50%

    Votes: 5 11.4%
  • Chance less than 50%

    Votes: 11 25.0%

  • Total voters
    44
Adlai Stevenson drops dead as he's about to give his acceptance speech at the 1952 Democratic convention. Eleanor Roosevelt agrees to run with Sam Rayburn as her running mate. Could they have beat Ike/Nixon?
 
I would guess Truman is a more likely person to step in, but if it were to be Roosevelt, she'd get destroyed. The 'Draft Ike' movement was incredibly popular. Also the post-war backlash against women in the workplace was in full-swing.
Still, Ike's not likely to enjoy the prospect of fighting a woman. It'll probably embitter him against the process earlier. The question is, does it make him jaded enough to leave off at one term?
 
Had a different Republican run I think Eleanor might have had a chance. Of course her best chance would have been 1948, or perhaps in 1944 assuming FDR actually dies in the spring of that year.
 
Truman and 1948

Not a bad thought to have had Truman drop dead in 1948 instead of Adlai in 1952, but the parallels of 1952 to today were too tempting: unpopular war, communist scare, civil liberties fears, no incumbent President running. Eleanor Roosevelt against Dewey so soon after her husband died and the war ended would have made her more attractive, and she wouldn't have had the Truman scandals dogging the Democrats as in 1952. Or a hero General. Still, in '52 she had her huge victory in the UN passing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and she was the most admired woman in the world in Gallup polls. fyi, you can page through "Eleanor vs. Ike" here: http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061373213
 
Adlai Stevenson drops dead as he's about to give his acceptance speech at the 1952 Democratic convention. Eleanor Roosevelt agrees to run with Sam Rayburn as her running mate. Could they have beat Ike/Nixon?

Was Eleanor Roosevelt interested at all in running in the first place? I'm not sure myself, but it makes me wonder in regards to the prevailing social attitudes of the 1950s and all. I know Eleanor was an independent woman and all, but I've never read anything about her being interested.
 
Eleanor Roosevelt running for President

She was encouraged to run many times starting in 1935 when FDR's political adviser, Louis Howe, told her to let him know if she wanted to run in 1940 and he'd start getting the campaign ready. There were 'draft Eleanor' movements, and rumors that Truman would pick her as a running mate in 1948 and 1952. She always said the country wasn't ready for a woman President and declined to run. But I think she was interested if she thought the country was ready.
 
If she were to have been nominated, was this before Ike made his final decision about whether or not to run? I know that he could have really run for either party, so how about a Democratic ticket with Ike and Eleanor? We won the war, now we'll win the peace.
 
If she were to have been nominated, was this before Ike made his final decision about whether or not to run? I know that he could have really run for either party, so how about a Democratic ticket with Ike and Eleanor? We won the war, now we'll win the peace.
Except that Eleanor would (a) likely get more party support from the party of her husband, and (b) the reason Ike chose the Republicans over the Democrats was because the Democrats were against his own policy views in regards to Europe and the Soviets and were arguing against policies he had already advocated/made as Supreme Commander.
 
i think i got a way.
ok at the DNC Stevenson dies (who really cares how) Sparkman says he won't run as anything but VP. trys to get Truman to run are met with "hell no, i won't go!". it's Truman the says "why don't we run Eleanor? we're going to lose anyway". Roosevelt feeling that if the party was going to lose anyway they might as well make history doing it says yes to the namination. she picks Joseph Kennedy to be her campaingn manager.
on republican side MacArthur runs. Ike and Mac run neck to neck all the way to the RNC. however newpaper editorials hinting that Mac was more Caeser then American undo MacArther and the RNC picks Ike. Mac whose mad as hell runs on a third party (again who cares what party)
at first the whole election looks like a shoe in for Ike. then a bit more carzy Joe McCarthy goes after the army. most of the officers the McCarthy goes after are Europe vets, MacArthur goes after Ike for being weak on communism.
making things even better for Mac is a speech by Patton at VMI, in which he spoke of his plan to attack the soviets right after the end of the war claiming that "in less then a year we'd of had moscow and those russ SOB's won't be commie no more!" he also say that the plan was all ready but "those higher up" shot it down, most people and the MacArther camp thought Patton was talking about Ike.
Eisenhower's campaingn was losing a lot of support to MacArther when the real bomb fell. it was leaked to the pess the wail in london Ike had had an affair with a Kay Summerby. shortly after this was made known Mamie Eisenhower filed for divorce.
the south runs with MacArther but most of the nation won't vote for a third party or Ike so Eleanor wins as the last man standing so to speak.

hows that?
 
A bit fuzzy, but seems like it could work, with a bit of modification. For example, I'm not sure they would say, "well, we're going to lose anyway, so lets just run Eleanor." I don't think she'd go for that either.
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
Eisenhower was way too popular. There was no way she would have won. Besides, 1952 was a different time and I don't see her being nominated. Sexism was still far too strong.

It would be like asking whether or not Martin Luther King could have beaten Richard Nixon in 1968.
 
A bit fuzzy, but seems like it could work, with a bit of modification. For example, I'm not sure they would say, "well, we're going to lose anyway, so lets just run Eleanor." I don't think she'd go for that either.
i think if they thought they could win, they'd run a man. i don't really know why Eleanor would go for it; take one for the party? make history as first woman to run of president?
 
I don't if Eleanor would go for it, given the light society cast women in during the and 40s and 50s, but her husband was the president who pulled the United States out of the Great Depression and lead the Allies to victory in World War II. Those would bbe HUGE points in her favour, I think. When you cast her in that light, it becomes a long shot, but plausible.
 
Eleanor vs. Ike vs. MacArthur?

love the scenario Black Angel! not quite what i did, but i like the split the vote plan with MacArthur and Eleanor sneaking in. Truman was way too unpopular to run at the point that Adlai drops dead, which is only significant in that he DID drop dead of a heart attack ten years later, so I just moved it up a bit. They do push ER to run as a sacrificial lamb who can at least keep the new deal torch aloft. no one thinks Ike is beatable. Ike was a Republican not only for foreign policy reasons but also because he was a conservative economically. He hated Joe Mccarthy, but pandered to him in a speech in Wisconsin that became the 'blackest day' of the campaign, so he looks flip-floppy which could play into your MacArthur plan. Of course, he did have that affair with Kay, and sent Marshall a letter asking for a divorce which Truman claims to have destroyed. I use that as well for the spectre of campaign dirty tricks. (side note: according to Kay's persuasive memoir, poor Ike never consummated their affair, he was not, apparently, in command of everything in those pre-viagra days). Of couse, Ike's camp has a letter Hoover purloined from ER to her female lover...but that's in my book
http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061373213
 
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