If the Draft Eisenhower movement fails, how does Sen. Taft fair in 1952?
- Thread starter Sirius
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Adlai Stevenson wins the 1952 election because Robert Taft would piss off New Dealers and proponents of fighting communism abroad. Adlai Stevenson would campaign as someone who is going to fight communism and protect the popular New Deal programs. However it would make a interesting TL and @The Red made a excellent one though it is unfortunately unfinished called “Down the road to defeat.” Not to mention the possibility of Eisenhower endorsing Adlai Stevenson
Blue Sky
Blue Sky
Hmm. It wouldn't be so easy for Stevenson to win even against Taft due to voter fatigue. I'd say Taft wins albeit much more narrowly than Ike, or even loses in the case of Ike endorsing Stevenson or running a third party (?)
Once in office Taft will likely pull out of Korea. South Korea becomes less economically successful without US aid.
However, bear in mind Taft dies in October 1953 (7 months into his presidency!) so his VP choice makes a big difference. I saw somewhere that Taft had promised to make MacArthur his veep, and that really wouldn't do wonders for world stability. He might even return to Korea and FIFTY NUKES ON THE YALU
Once in office Taft will likely pull out of Korea. South Korea becomes less economically successful without US aid.
However, bear in mind Taft dies in October 1953 (7 months into his presidency!) so his VP choice makes a big difference. I saw somewhere that Taft had promised to make MacArthur his veep, and that really wouldn't do wonders for world stability. He might even return to Korea and FIFTY NUKES ON THE YALU
Well even with voter fatigue way more voters would be put off as New Deal liberalism was incredibly popular at the time which Robert Taft opposed including social security. Second Robert Taft would lose rightwingers because of his anti-interventionist stances during an era where most Americans were war hawks. So Robert Taft would lose even a good chunk of the Republican base.
Blue Sky.
Blue Sky.
I believe Eisenhower offered to hand Taft the nomination if he agreed to not pull the U.S. out of NATO. Taft refused and the rest, as they say, is history. That said, I don't think Taft would pull out of NATO that quickly. I think he'd know he'd get backlash for it and I don't he'd be President long enough to get his way on it, especially since he'd have bigger fish to fry. Namely Korea. I don't think Taft could finish the Korean War much faster than Ike did, especially since I don't see Taft making the nuclear threats Eisenhower made (a precedent that Nixon would follow when he was ending up the war in Vietnam). I imagine it'll probably end around the same time. Taft would be remembered for ending the Korean War... and that's probably it. However, it is important to recognize that Taft's ascension to the Presidency will be seen as a warning sign to Europeans that America would act in her own interest. You might see more willingness on behalf of the French to accept the necessity of the European Defence Community proposals.
As for his VP choice, I think it would probably still be Richard Nixon. Taft would desperately need the votes of moderate Republicans and I think Thomas Dewey would point him in Nixon's direction. People forget that Nixon was seen as a moderate but strongly anti-communist Republican and was picked due to his being seen as a bridge between the Dewey and Taft wings of the Republican Party. If he survives the Checkers Scandal, I think by November 1953, we'd have a President Nixon on Pennsylvania Avenue. I also think having a young and relatively inexperienced President would double down on Winston Churchill's view of Britain playing the Greece to America's Rome. I think we'd see Churchill traveling back and forth and tutoring the young Nixon on foreign policy issues (which I think Nixon would definitely appreciate because he held Churchill in a sort of semi-deity status).
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That's a fascinating scenario: Richard Nixon as president just as he's turning 40--and tutored by Winston Churchill in the bargain. The butterflies are damn near the size of B-52s. Consider:
- Now there's not much of a basis for Nixon's paranoia as exhibited IOTL.
- The US-UK special relationship is cemented that much deeper.
- The two nations present a united front in the Cold War (perhaps this accelerates the end of the Cold War by perhaps 10-15 years?)
- Churchill's tutelage somehow guides Nixon on a different sort of events dealing with revolutionary Cuba in 1959: perhaps Castro isn't in the US camp, but at worst he might be benevolently neutral--sort of a more free-wheeling, Spanish speaking, Caribbean Tito, if I'm allowed to stretch the point?
- Not sure what would happen with the Suez crisis. Perhaps the US backs Britain more forcefully than IOTL?
- Guessing also Churchill might caution Nixon to leave sleeping dogs lie in Iran: thus, no restoration of the Shah.
My own view is that while Stevenson-Taft would have been much closer than Stevenson-Eisenhower, Taft would still probably win because Truman was so unpopular, especially with the Korean War dragging on with no end in sight. It is very difficult for a candidate of the party in power to escape an incumbent president's unpopularity--Cox in 1920 and McCain in 2008 being obvious examples
One possible result of Taft winning by a much narrower margin than Eisenhower is that the Democrats might maintain control of the Senate and the House as well. Among the Republicans who narrowly won Senate races in OTL who might have lost in this ATL are Barry Goldwater (who defeated Ernest McFarland in AZ by 51.3-48.7) and Charles E. Potter (who defeated Blair Moody in MI 50.6-49.0). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_United_States_Senate_elections
(And if Goldwater isn't elected to the Senate in 1952, will he ever be? True, he easily defeated McFarland again in 1958, so one can argue that he could have been elected to the Senate for the first time then, even though it was a Democratic year nationally. But Goldwater was unlikely to have done as well in 1958 without the advantage of incumbency. And as for AZ's other Senate seat, Carl Hayden looks unbeatable, at least in 1956.)
In the House, the Republicans only won a very narrow majority in OTL--221-213. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections A few Republicans who would probably have lost without Ike's coattails: Frank Small, Jr., MD-05 (won 50.4-49.6); Clarence Clifton Young, NV-at-large (won 50.5-49.5); Edward J. Bonin, PA-11 (won 50.2-49.8); Louis E. Graham, PA-25 (won 50.4-49.6); and Joel Broyhill, VA-10 (won 50.2-49.8).
Assuming Taft's cancer is not butterflied away, his running mate will become president after several months as vice-president. William Knowland would have been in many respects an ideal running mate for Taft: geographical balance (from an important state distant from Taft's Ohio); relatively young; a veteran; ideologically compatible with Taft but acceptable to internationalist Republicans as well. (Though Knowland was sometimes labeled an "Asia-firster" for his strong support of Chiang Kai-shek, he rightly noted that this was unfair; he had supported the Marshall Plan--about which Taft was lukewarm--and the North Atlantic Treaty, which Taft opposed.) In fact, a biography of Knowland is entitled One Step From the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2567 The point being of course that if Knowland had deserted Warren for Taft, and Taft had won the nomination and general election with Knowland as his running mate, and Taft had died on schedule from cancer, Knowland would become president in 1953.
One possible result of Taft winning by a much narrower margin than Eisenhower is that the Democrats might maintain control of the Senate and the House as well. Among the Republicans who narrowly won Senate races in OTL who might have lost in this ATL are Barry Goldwater (who defeated Ernest McFarland in AZ by 51.3-48.7) and Charles E. Potter (who defeated Blair Moody in MI 50.6-49.0). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_United_States_Senate_elections
(And if Goldwater isn't elected to the Senate in 1952, will he ever be? True, he easily defeated McFarland again in 1958, so one can argue that he could have been elected to the Senate for the first time then, even though it was a Democratic year nationally. But Goldwater was unlikely to have done as well in 1958 without the advantage of incumbency. And as for AZ's other Senate seat, Carl Hayden looks unbeatable, at least in 1956.)
In the House, the Republicans only won a very narrow majority in OTL--221-213. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections A few Republicans who would probably have lost without Ike's coattails: Frank Small, Jr., MD-05 (won 50.4-49.6); Clarence Clifton Young, NV-at-large (won 50.5-49.5); Edward J. Bonin, PA-11 (won 50.2-49.8); Louis E. Graham, PA-25 (won 50.4-49.6); and Joel Broyhill, VA-10 (won 50.2-49.8).
Assuming Taft's cancer is not butterflied away, his running mate will become president after several months as vice-president. William Knowland would have been in many respects an ideal running mate for Taft: geographical balance (from an important state distant from Taft's Ohio); relatively young; a veteran; ideologically compatible with Taft but acceptable to internationalist Republicans as well. (Though Knowland was sometimes labeled an "Asia-firster" for his strong support of Chiang Kai-shek, he rightly noted that this was unfair; he had supported the Marshall Plan--about which Taft was lukewarm--and the North Atlantic Treaty, which Taft opposed.) In fact, a biography of Knowland is entitled One Step From the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2567 The point being of course that if Knowland had deserted Warren for Taft, and Taft had won the nomination and general election with Knowland as his running mate, and Taft had died on schedule from cancer, Knowland would become president in 1953.
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Indeed. Nixon's paranoia was largely attributable to being defeated twice. If you take that away, Nixon is still awkward and introverted (I vaguely recall reading somewhere that he was diagnosed with Aspergers in the late 60s but I could also very well be wrong), but he's not paranoid about being yanked out of office under dubious circumstance (ironically that did happen to him, only he had done it to himself).
A sitting American President actively having a sitting British Prime Minister help him out on world affairs would definitely further cement the Special Relationship. On some of the issues you have pointed out.
- Iran could go either way. Operation Ajax in OTL happened August 1953, when Taft would still be alive, and I just can't see him approving of the plan to overthrow Mossadegh. This brings up the option of Britain doing it themselves (plausible, I suppose although it probably won't be on the scale of OTL's Ajax) or not doing it at all (also plausible though it would visibly bother Whitehall). With Taft's death, Britain might feel emboldened to ask again, they also might not. I personally think we'd still see an Operation Ajax, just in 1954 not 1953.
- If Suez happens, Nixon probably backs Britain to the hilt (however he probably would've done this even without Churchill's tutelage as he thought it was wrong for the U.S. to drop its closest ally like we did in OTL). However, Suez was by no means a definite event. It was a series of blunders and mistakes, that led to an ultimate shit show. There is also a pretty good chance it might not even happen. Either way it would be much better for Britain and it's global position.
- You're right, Nixon might not be as rash in his hatred of Castro and he might neutralize Cuba. He also might not. In OTL he saw Castro as a Communist from the get-go. Ike did not. In addition to this, even if Nixon follows an Ike-esque path and doesn't topple Castro, it's highly probable his successor (probably JFK or Rockefeller) might still get rid of him. Still, neutralization is possible.
- The point you just made about the Cold War ending faster is very interesting. If Britain is decolonizing her Empire slowly and not as quickly as physically possible (which is what they decided to do after Suez in OTL), it'll probably stem the spread of Communism in the Third World.
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The combined, expanded argument is fairly persuasive, and I certainly would rather see Stevenson win over Taft myself.
But I have looked at the outcomes of the House of Representatives votes in '52, and I fear I must say that the backlash against the Democrats was pretty damn strong.
Let's consider what the Republicans had going for them in '52 despite the absence of such a winning figure as Eisenhower to run.
1) the Democrats have had control of the White House for 20 years, five terms, but their ability to push for yet more New Deal type reforms is at an apparent limit; Republicans have been strong contenders to control Congress in the second decade. The Democrats are accused of being too long in office and the Executive and judiciary in need of a fresh approach sweeping out incumbent dead wood. Truman failed to drive through a lot of reforms he wanted, and the ones he got are alienating powerful sectors.
2) the corporate sector was by no means a slam dunk for the Republicans of course; the truth was the New Deal was a good deal for them, WWII mobilization was a treasure trove, and by mid-1952 it would be plain that the mainstream of US opinion, especially the most influential, would be behind a massive new military buildup. That would contradict Taft's professed principles of course, but I don't doubt he'd make an exception for an explicitly anti-left crusade. Meanwhile, the corporate sector is quite willing to butter its bread on both sides, cover its bets no matter who wins (when the choices are as limited as they are in US elections anyhow) and certainly the Republicans were both the traditional party of big business and the safer refuge, outside the South anyway, for hardline anti-union policies.
3) the Solid South OTL split in the Presidential race; Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Maryland, Oklahoma and Delaware all went for Ike, in order of EV. (Not sure I should be regarding Delaware as "Southern," but anyway all the others listed definitely are and were). That's 65 of 531 EV not even counting either Maryland or Delaware. Against this to be sure every state that did vote for Stevenson was Southern, clearly so, to the tune of 89 EV. Now if the two parties had been more neck and neck nationally, I am sure some northern states would tip to Stevenson. But I can also believe the two Stevenson states of OTL closest to flipping for Ike might well prefer Taft to Stevenson, if very small shares of their voters believe Taft is less threatening to white supremacy than Eisenhower was seen as OTL--these are Kentucky, which favored Stevenson over Ike with just 700 votes, .07 percent, and South Carolina, where a compact with Strom Thurmond might swing the OTL 4922 vote margin, 1.4 percent of that state's PV.
That's 18 EV up for the Republicans and down for Stevenson, leaving him with just 71. There are, including MD and DE, OTL and here voting Republican, 166 EV accounted for, out of 531, leaving 365 none of which Stevenson got OTL. To get to 266 and a single EV win, he needs to pick up 195, over half these. Going down the list of states not already accounted for in order of Stevenson's OTL state percentages, we reach this when New York state flips for him. OTL NY was 55.45 to 43.35, the balance of 0.92 being for the Progressive (0.9) and Socialist Labor (0.02) candidates. Thus Taft can lose something like 6 percent of the popular vote, flipping from voting for Ike OTL to Stevenson here, in the non-Southern states versus Eisenhower's OTL appeal, and still win.
Taft can win. Stevenson certainly has a much better fighting chance than he did against Ike...but just look at the kinds of states Eisenhower won OTL; the only kind of Democratic stronghold that held was the Solid South and it was pretty well hollowed out.
Note too that OTL, the only state that could be construed as Southern that flipped from voting for Ike to voting for Stevenson, again the D candidate in 1956, was border state Missouri (indeed it was the only state in the union to so flip, period), and meanwhile Ike kept all the other states that voted for him in '52 and picked up Louisiana, Kentucky and West Virginia! Anyone saying that Republicans were too scary for the Solid South to support on civil rights grounds has to reckon with this net pickup of 28-13=15 more EV by Ike, all from Southern states. (Also, one of Mississippi's 11 EV went to a southern States Rights Democrat, via an "unpledged elector." That's in scare quotes because I believe the voters voting for that alternative in MS knew exactly what this allegedly "unpledged" elector candidate would do. Thus Stevenson was down 16 with Ike up only 15). Clearly in practice, nothing in Eisenhower/Nixon's allegedly moderate position was too alienating in the South--the core of the Solid South to be sure remained Democratic, give or take those "unpledged electors" also running in LA and SC, but major inroads in states that continued to vote Democratic downticket and that continued segregation and other Jim Crow practices including giving white supremacist terrorists who murdered people routinely a free pass in their legal systems, while disproportionally sentencing African Americans for all sorts of crimes, and FBI police methods lumped under COINTELPRO, suggests strongly to me voters in these states were giving Ike quite a lot of credit for protecting their "way of life."
I thought I would give at least a cursory once-over of Taft's biography, relying on Wikipedia to be sure.
Arguably a strong reason to suggest he was not going to win was that his support on the (mainstream) far right was rather equivocal;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft#cite_note-74
On the other hand:
Indeed OTL they did often vote for Eisenhower, and I think if anything Taft would have won more of them over, obviously.
Taft's relationship with Dewey was evidently pretty strained too, which throws some doubt on @Gracchus Tiberius 's confidence Taft would roll with Dewey's recommendation to give Nixon the nod as OTL. Of course "Draft Eisenhower" was OTL Dewey's own project.
I don't think Taft can win unless he plays up exactly what gave the far right qualms earlier, and presents himself as someone who would be a watchdog on "extremism" but not fundamentally massacre New Deal root and branch, and must therefore pick for VP someone seen as "moderate." I think he might prefer Nixon to more unambiguously liberal Republicans, especially relying on the Southern vote.
Mac being VP would be a world catastrophe if we assume Taft's death date is fixed in stone, and probably by 1952 it is.
But it contradicts your presumption that Taft would pull out of Korea, and I think that even if @Gracchus Tiberius 's suggestion it is Nixon instead of MacArthur getting this nod, there is no way Taft could possibly get away with doing that on taking office in 1953. GT also points out that Ike was only willing to let Taft take the lead on condition that the commitment to US support of Western Europe against the Soviets continue.
Note that one way to dodge what I'd call the near inevitability of Ike getting the nomination as OTL, is to kill off Eisenhower. Anyone can fall down stairs or get run over by a car or have some weird disease take them down any random time. So, what if Eisenhower is just not available as mediator and spokesman of a certain faction or rather very broad coalition of factions that can readily agree on backing him?
The same factions and spectrum of opinions remain. There are a great many reasons for the majority of opinion to back ongoing US power projection and global activism, and only certain ideological considerations with relatively little grassroots traction to oppose it. American individual fortunes are increasingly tied to a large and growing military industrial complex, the debacle of US weakness in purely conventional force in the Korean crisis and with the recent "fall" of China to Communist control; if the Republicans are going to win in '52 they will have been relying heavily on Red-baiting and on denouncing general military weakness as evidence of complacency at best, if not successful Red subversion. Their credibility is tied to hawkishness.
If they were to find some third candidate who had a less scary conservative reputation than Taft, then perhaps MacArthur might be positioned as a suitable VP candidate. With Taft in the lead, the Republicans cannot afford to load their ticket down. Dewey himself might be suitable if not tarred with double defeats; maybe Earl Warren, but we might as well roll with Nixon I suppose.
There will not be a withdrawal from Korea. There might be World War Three.
Bluntly , one way or another the Republicans are going to find someone to pick instead of Taft. Taft would be a walking disaster for them and they knew it, maybe Nixon gets the nod instead as president. I doubt very much they pick Taft.
If Taft made it all the way to the convention with roughly half the party's support, it's pretty late in the game to replace him if he edges out Ike in delegate count.
1953 wasn't 2020 and was far more doable. A possible replacement would be Nixon as I suggested.
It's a lot harder to play hardball replacing Taft with a greenhorn like Nixon than it is Ike, who had far greater stature and had at least done the hard work to walk into the convention basically tied in delegate count. It's going to be harder to unite the party that way, too.
There was certainly a fair bit of discussion of Nixon as a possible vice presidential pick, but to my knowledge, no one was mooting the idea of him as the nominee.
And Taft wouldn't have been a disaster. No, he won't do as well as Ike did. It's going to be a closer race, and if Taft wins, he's less likely to take both houses of Congress on his coattails. But Stevenson labored under the disadvantages being essentially charisma free, and an incumbent Democrat in the White House who was as radioactive as polonium.
I checked the Wikipedia page on the 1952 US presidential election. Eisenhower defeated Stevenson with a 10.9% popular vote margin.
With Taft I think it would be closer but he still wins by a closer margin. The voters clearly wanted a change of parties, remember though the Democrats won in an upset in 1948 it was still close, and momentum was with the GOP. I think Taft wins the nationwide popular vote with something like a 2.9% margin. There was not much divergence outside the South in how states voted in that period, so Taft wins the electoral college pretty heavily. Applied evenly, a 4% swing from the OTL result gives Stevenson his states, plus Tennessee, Texas, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. New York and Illinois remain just out of reach. Given how internationalist the state was, I could see Stevenson also wining Massachusetts, which would give him 100 more EVs for 189 EVs if he keeps the states he won IOTL and swings the other five states I listed. But Stevenson could have won Massachusetts and lost Kentucky and maybe South Carolina, both of the latter he carried IOTL. Anyway Taft gets about 350 EVs on a nationwide popular vote margin of just under 3%.
As another commentator pointed out, the Republican margins in the Congress elected in 1952 were so thin that without Eisenhower's coat tails, Taft and his successor likely face a Democratic controlled Congress.
With Taft I think it would be closer but he still wins by a closer margin. The voters clearly wanted a change of parties, remember though the Democrats won in an upset in 1948 it was still close, and momentum was with the GOP. I think Taft wins the nationwide popular vote with something like a 2.9% margin. There was not much divergence outside the South in how states voted in that period, so Taft wins the electoral college pretty heavily. Applied evenly, a 4% swing from the OTL result gives Stevenson his states, plus Tennessee, Texas, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. New York and Illinois remain just out of reach. Given how internationalist the state was, I could see Stevenson also wining Massachusetts, which would give him 100 more EVs for 189 EVs if he keeps the states he won IOTL and swings the other five states I listed. But Stevenson could have won Massachusetts and lost Kentucky and maybe South Carolina, both of the latter he carried IOTL. Anyway Taft gets about 350 EVs on a nationwide popular vote margin of just under 3%.
As another commentator pointed out, the Republican margins in the Congress elected in 1952 were so thin that without Eisenhower's coat tails, Taft and his successor likely face a Democratic controlled Congress.