1932: Al Smith / Cordell Hull (Democratic)
1936: Al Smith / Cordell Hull (Democratic) [1]
1940: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [2]
1944: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [3]
1948: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [4]
1952: Robert S. Kerr / Joseph P. Kennedy II (Democratic) [5]
1956: Joseph P. Kennedy II / Francis Biddle (Democratic) [6]
1960: Joseph P. Kennedy II / Francis Biddle (Democratic) [7]
1964: Francis Biddle / Ronald Reagan (Democratic) [8]
1968: Wally Hickel / Margaret Chase Smith (Republican) [9]
1972: Wally Hickel / Margaret Chase Smith (Republican) [10]
1976: Pat Buchanan / Victor Atiyeh (Republican) [11]
1980: Nick Galifianakis / Rob McNamara (Democratic) [12]
1984: Ross Perot / James Stockdale (Independent) [13]
1988: Ross Perot / Tonie Nathan (Independent-Republican) [14]
1992: Nick Galifianakis / Bob Casey (Democratic) [15]
[1] A fairly close race due to the well-oiled campaigning machine their opponent Alf Landon set up and due to Smith's Catholicism driving down support in the Midwest and West
[2] A deadlocked Republican convention leads to New Hampshire Senator Styles Bridges emerging as a compromise candidate, with Missouri Congressman Dewey Jackson Short as VP. President Smith opted to run for a third term due to the onset of World War Two and was the favourite for most of the campaign. His Presidency had seen a turnaround in the economic situation from the 1929 crash yet Smith's decision to offer military aid to Britain and France against a rising Nazi threat ultimately cost him, amidst an isolationist backlash and embarrassment about the defeat of France. Bridges was elected in one of the closest presidential elections on record.
[3] Was assuredly reelected due to the Pacific War starting with a surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl and a desire to not change horses in an election.
[4] While easily winning a third term this wouldn't go with out controversy as the Democratic party planned a term limiting amendment following the end of the Pacific War.
[5] In an election that would largely revolve around the controversial "Hoover Purges", Kerr won the Democratic primary by virtue of being the only Democrat not wanting to expand the size of government and having the Southern establishment prop him up. He selected the famously anti-communist Congressman from Massachusetts, who sought to establish relations with the more "moderate" German government to fight against Soviet communist expansion.
[6] President Kerr focused on resolving public trust in government and dealing with the post-war economic downturn. His two notable acts in office were dismissing FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, thus ending the Hoover purges, and passing an economic stimulus bill that gave mass funding to infrastructure and social services. However, tragedy would strike on April 30th 1954 when Kerr was killed by a lone gunman. Vice President Kennedy assumed office as President and focused primarily on foreign policy, signing nuclear and security treaties with Western allies, notably the amplified US-West Germany protection pact. Kennedy also appointed his younger brother Robert to oversee the Kerr infrastructure program as 'Director of American Infrastructure Rebuilding'. Kennedy would be elected to a full term in 1956, with Attorney General Francis Biddle as VP.
[7] As the economy continued to grow, and with American assistance with the South Chinese war effort having not yet turned for the worse, President Kennedy was re-elected by a strong margin and was well on his way to becoming America's second-longest serving president.
[8] On November 22, 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning in Dallas Texas, Vice President Francis Biddle was sworn in on Air Force 1 and would chose Governor Ronald Reagan as his running mate in the 1964 election. Controversy still runs rampant on Kennedy's assassination
[9] By 1968, American voters were simply tired. Tired of the Democratic machine, its soft-pedaling on civil rights, its empire-building abroad that sent thousands of servicemen home in coffins, its reliance on corrupt big-city machines. As long as it could have provided peace and prosperity, they were fine with it, but all that ended in the sixties. The crackdown on NAACP organizers in Florida after the brutal murder of Black organizer Harry Moore sparked a wave of protest, both North and South, put paid to that. So, too, did "stagflation" - a global economic crisis, sparked in some ways by the liberalization of Soviet foreign policy under Alexei Kosygin, as well as by deficit spending to finance the war in China. The inconclusive resolution to the War in China by the Treaty of Calcutta also hurt Biddle's chances of re-election. In the end, he didn't even run - the charismatic young Senator Ramsey Clark beat him decisively in the Michigan primary, and that was it for his campaign. Jack Kennedy, the well-liked Senator and brother of the slain president, was parachuted in at a contentious Democratic National Convention, but in the end Alaska Governor Wally Hickel won the election in a walk.
[10] President Hickel wins a landslide (losing only in Massachusetts and DC) over Senator Jack Kennedy, whose campaign is derailed by allegations of sexual misdeeds and concerns about his rapidly failing health.
[11] Following Vice President Smith's announcement of her decision not run in 1976, the Republican field blew wide open. Though the field was quite large, Former Governor Patrick Buchanan of Virginia found his niche as the most prominent conservative in a herd of moderates. He followed the Republican fiscal orthodoxy, though he broke ranks on both sides of the aisle when it came to the Arab-Israeli War, warning that the U.S. ought to stay out after the disaster that was the Chinese War. His non-interventionism was a striking contrast to the more hawkish Senator Vance, and a still-war-weary electorate combined with a still-strong economy led to Buchanan's narrow victory in '76.
[12] Buchanan's approach to the presidency was... unorthodox. He gave bombastic speeches both at home and abroad, criticizing Europe's governments for "submitting to Soviet economic dominance" and speaking of "protecting Western civilization". Some said he was naive (it didn't help that he was the youngest President at the time), some found him uncomfortable, but his tax cuts were favorable to his base and that was it for Buchanan. Then came the economic crash, Mexico fell to revolution, and Buchanan's credentials as a strong, conservative President came down the drain.
The 1980 elections were a bloodbath. Having just barely survived a primary challenge from Gov. Manuel Lujan Jr. of New Mexico, former Attorney General Elliott Richardson of Massachusetts and Gov. Bo Callaway of Georgia, Buchanan grew more and more desperate and unhinged, and after a number of gaffes was ultimately swept away by the Democratic ticket of Sen. Nick Galifianakis of North Carolina and Sen. Rob McNamara of California, noted for his credentials as a "defense realist".
That said, despite Buchanan's rabid accusations, Democratic victory didn't end in war. However, Galifianakis did go on to strengthen economic ties with the European Community, expand civil rights, implement an immigration reform bill, and give a "surplus" to small businesses across America, helping mitigate the effects of stagflation somewhat.
[13] And yet despite all this... the Recession of 1978 did not get better. It got worse in fact as the entire American Computer market freefell due to the insane price wars and slipshod product released by several outfits, Sygzy and IBM being the worst culprits. When all is said and done, only one person stood tall. Texas Businessman Ross Perot ran as an independent, citing the entrenched bipartisan system being a major issue that lead to this... and won in a split election.
[14] In the aftermatch of Crash of '78, the economy only continued to grow. Perot's efforts to digitize the nation were successful, causing a third of all Americans to live in a household with a computer by 1986. Of course, some claimed that the tax credits for computer purchases used to bolster the industry, his broadband-installation public works project, the mass transition from analogue federal record-keeping to digital were part of a plan to increase his own wealth, but the simple fact of the matter was that PDS computers were the best on the market. The American public didn't seem to mind about the supposed corruption, as the economy had recovered and America was a more efficient than ever. Then, Perot hit a midterm-shaped wall. Congressional Democrats, led by Speaker Rob Kennedy and Senate Majority Leader Inouye stood in opposition to his anti-worker, pro-business, pro-austerity legislation, forcing Perot into the arms of the Republicans, who aligned with him on budgetary issues. A deal was struck between the GOP leadership and Perot, in which they wouldn't run a candidate against the popular independent so long as one of their own was his new running mate. Perot accepted (Stockdale would later reluctantly take Defense), deciding to name the libertarian, non-interventionist House Minority Whip Tonie Nathan of New York as his running mate. That November, the Perot-Nathan ticket would triumph over the Democratic ticket of Senators Bronson La Follette and Dick Greco.
[15] By 1992, the Democratic Party seemed out of candidates and ideas. They were stunned by their near loss in 1984 that could be credited more to the popularity of an independent run, but by the early ‘90s, it was clear that Perot was a Republican in all but name. Republicans, as they were understood to be by this time, were against worker protections and against standing up for American ideals abroad. The Chaos would be the blackest market on President Perot’s legacy and the reason why an unseated President was able to make a comeback. Beginning in late 1986 and more or less continuing on to early ‘00s, Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe began to splinter and fall apart, unable to control their increasingly impoverished and rebellious populace. The Soviet Union tried to intervene militarily, but a mix of civil disobedience and guerilla fighters kept them bogged down in the Baltics and the Ukraine, allowing the other countries to collapse mostly undisturbed. There were massive calls domestic and abroad for Perot to denounce Soviet attrocities in these places and offer aid to the people there, but he remained silent. People were mad that they saw starving people on the streets and the news every night and the government refused to lift a finger, all while Perot focused all of his energies on getting computers into government. A corruption scandal that wound up being nothing would also seriously damage his reputation, as an edited recording of Perot aggressively negotiating prices to bring his company's own computers to a public school were leaked with the implication that this was from when he was in office. In fact, this recording had been taken without Perot's knowledge in 1981, but the months of Congressional investigations that lead to that conclusion seriously hurt him among the electorate. The silence was deafening and his biggest critic would be Nick Galifinakias, who had served a term as Governor of North Carolina in the years since his single term in the White House. Galifinakias had been president during a bad economic period and, twelve years after he had first taken office, it seemed the same or maybe even worse. The electorate was skeptical of a man who had already lost the presidency attempting to seek it, but as he narrowly won the Democratic nomination and moved into the general against a ticket headed by Perot’s VP, Tonie Nathan, with Lt. Governor Ed Clarke as the VP nominee, he was able to win in a blowout. “Libertarianism had failed Americans” was a famous quote from the 1986 midterms by Senator Bob Casey, Galifinakis’s second VP. This was proven on election day when the liberal hero won a second term with significantly lower voter turnout than the previous two elections.
1936: Al Smith / Cordell Hull (Democratic) [1]
1940: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [2]
1944: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [3]
1948: Styles Bridges / Dewey Jackson Short (Republican) [4]
1952: Robert S. Kerr / Joseph P. Kennedy II (Democratic) [5]
1956: Joseph P. Kennedy II / Francis Biddle (Democratic) [6]
1960: Joseph P. Kennedy II / Francis Biddle (Democratic) [7]
1964: Francis Biddle / Ronald Reagan (Democratic) [8]
1968: Wally Hickel / Margaret Chase Smith (Republican) [9]
1972: Wally Hickel / Margaret Chase Smith (Republican) [10]
1976: Pat Buchanan / Victor Atiyeh (Republican) [11]
1980: Nick Galifianakis / Rob McNamara (Democratic) [12]
1984: Ross Perot / James Stockdale (Independent) [13]
1988: Ross Perot / Tonie Nathan (Independent-Republican) [14]
1992: Nick Galifianakis / Bob Casey (Democratic) [15]
[1] A fairly close race due to the well-oiled campaigning machine their opponent Alf Landon set up and due to Smith's Catholicism driving down support in the Midwest and West
[2] A deadlocked Republican convention leads to New Hampshire Senator Styles Bridges emerging as a compromise candidate, with Missouri Congressman Dewey Jackson Short as VP. President Smith opted to run for a third term due to the onset of World War Two and was the favourite for most of the campaign. His Presidency had seen a turnaround in the economic situation from the 1929 crash yet Smith's decision to offer military aid to Britain and France against a rising Nazi threat ultimately cost him, amidst an isolationist backlash and embarrassment about the defeat of France. Bridges was elected in one of the closest presidential elections on record.
[3] Was assuredly reelected due to the Pacific War starting with a surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl and a desire to not change horses in an election.
[4] While easily winning a third term this wouldn't go with out controversy as the Democratic party planned a term limiting amendment following the end of the Pacific War.
[5] In an election that would largely revolve around the controversial "Hoover Purges", Kerr won the Democratic primary by virtue of being the only Democrat not wanting to expand the size of government and having the Southern establishment prop him up. He selected the famously anti-communist Congressman from Massachusetts, who sought to establish relations with the more "moderate" German government to fight against Soviet communist expansion.
[6] President Kerr focused on resolving public trust in government and dealing with the post-war economic downturn. His two notable acts in office were dismissing FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, thus ending the Hoover purges, and passing an economic stimulus bill that gave mass funding to infrastructure and social services. However, tragedy would strike on April 30th 1954 when Kerr was killed by a lone gunman. Vice President Kennedy assumed office as President and focused primarily on foreign policy, signing nuclear and security treaties with Western allies, notably the amplified US-West Germany protection pact. Kennedy also appointed his younger brother Robert to oversee the Kerr infrastructure program as 'Director of American Infrastructure Rebuilding'. Kennedy would be elected to a full term in 1956, with Attorney General Francis Biddle as VP.
[7] As the economy continued to grow, and with American assistance with the South Chinese war effort having not yet turned for the worse, President Kennedy was re-elected by a strong margin and was well on his way to becoming America's second-longest serving president.
[8] On November 22, 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning in Dallas Texas, Vice President Francis Biddle was sworn in on Air Force 1 and would chose Governor Ronald Reagan as his running mate in the 1964 election. Controversy still runs rampant on Kennedy's assassination
[9] By 1968, American voters were simply tired. Tired of the Democratic machine, its soft-pedaling on civil rights, its empire-building abroad that sent thousands of servicemen home in coffins, its reliance on corrupt big-city machines. As long as it could have provided peace and prosperity, they were fine with it, but all that ended in the sixties. The crackdown on NAACP organizers in Florida after the brutal murder of Black organizer Harry Moore sparked a wave of protest, both North and South, put paid to that. So, too, did "stagflation" - a global economic crisis, sparked in some ways by the liberalization of Soviet foreign policy under Alexei Kosygin, as well as by deficit spending to finance the war in China. The inconclusive resolution to the War in China by the Treaty of Calcutta also hurt Biddle's chances of re-election. In the end, he didn't even run - the charismatic young Senator Ramsey Clark beat him decisively in the Michigan primary, and that was it for his campaign. Jack Kennedy, the well-liked Senator and brother of the slain president, was parachuted in at a contentious Democratic National Convention, but in the end Alaska Governor Wally Hickel won the election in a walk.
[10] President Hickel wins a landslide (losing only in Massachusetts and DC) over Senator Jack Kennedy, whose campaign is derailed by allegations of sexual misdeeds and concerns about his rapidly failing health.
[11] Following Vice President Smith's announcement of her decision not run in 1976, the Republican field blew wide open. Though the field was quite large, Former Governor Patrick Buchanan of Virginia found his niche as the most prominent conservative in a herd of moderates. He followed the Republican fiscal orthodoxy, though he broke ranks on both sides of the aisle when it came to the Arab-Israeli War, warning that the U.S. ought to stay out after the disaster that was the Chinese War. His non-interventionism was a striking contrast to the more hawkish Senator Vance, and a still-war-weary electorate combined with a still-strong economy led to Buchanan's narrow victory in '76.
[12] Buchanan's approach to the presidency was... unorthodox. He gave bombastic speeches both at home and abroad, criticizing Europe's governments for "submitting to Soviet economic dominance" and speaking of "protecting Western civilization". Some said he was naive (it didn't help that he was the youngest President at the time), some found him uncomfortable, but his tax cuts were favorable to his base and that was it for Buchanan. Then came the economic crash, Mexico fell to revolution, and Buchanan's credentials as a strong, conservative President came down the drain.
The 1980 elections were a bloodbath. Having just barely survived a primary challenge from Gov. Manuel Lujan Jr. of New Mexico, former Attorney General Elliott Richardson of Massachusetts and Gov. Bo Callaway of Georgia, Buchanan grew more and more desperate and unhinged, and after a number of gaffes was ultimately swept away by the Democratic ticket of Sen. Nick Galifianakis of North Carolina and Sen. Rob McNamara of California, noted for his credentials as a "defense realist".
That said, despite Buchanan's rabid accusations, Democratic victory didn't end in war. However, Galifianakis did go on to strengthen economic ties with the European Community, expand civil rights, implement an immigration reform bill, and give a "surplus" to small businesses across America, helping mitigate the effects of stagflation somewhat.
[13] And yet despite all this... the Recession of 1978 did not get better. It got worse in fact as the entire American Computer market freefell due to the insane price wars and slipshod product released by several outfits, Sygzy and IBM being the worst culprits. When all is said and done, only one person stood tall. Texas Businessman Ross Perot ran as an independent, citing the entrenched bipartisan system being a major issue that lead to this... and won in a split election.
[14] In the aftermatch of Crash of '78, the economy only continued to grow. Perot's efforts to digitize the nation were successful, causing a third of all Americans to live in a household with a computer by 1986. Of course, some claimed that the tax credits for computer purchases used to bolster the industry, his broadband-installation public works project, the mass transition from analogue federal record-keeping to digital were part of a plan to increase his own wealth, but the simple fact of the matter was that PDS computers were the best on the market. The American public didn't seem to mind about the supposed corruption, as the economy had recovered and America was a more efficient than ever. Then, Perot hit a midterm-shaped wall. Congressional Democrats, led by Speaker Rob Kennedy and Senate Majority Leader Inouye stood in opposition to his anti-worker, pro-business, pro-austerity legislation, forcing Perot into the arms of the Republicans, who aligned with him on budgetary issues. A deal was struck between the GOP leadership and Perot, in which they wouldn't run a candidate against the popular independent so long as one of their own was his new running mate. Perot accepted (Stockdale would later reluctantly take Defense), deciding to name the libertarian, non-interventionist House Minority Whip Tonie Nathan of New York as his running mate. That November, the Perot-Nathan ticket would triumph over the Democratic ticket of Senators Bronson La Follette and Dick Greco.
[15] By 1992, the Democratic Party seemed out of candidates and ideas. They were stunned by their near loss in 1984 that could be credited more to the popularity of an independent run, but by the early ‘90s, it was clear that Perot was a Republican in all but name. Republicans, as they were understood to be by this time, were against worker protections and against standing up for American ideals abroad. The Chaos would be the blackest market on President Perot’s legacy and the reason why an unseated President was able to make a comeback. Beginning in late 1986 and more or less continuing on to early ‘00s, Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe began to splinter and fall apart, unable to control their increasingly impoverished and rebellious populace. The Soviet Union tried to intervene militarily, but a mix of civil disobedience and guerilla fighters kept them bogged down in the Baltics and the Ukraine, allowing the other countries to collapse mostly undisturbed. There were massive calls domestic and abroad for Perot to denounce Soviet attrocities in these places and offer aid to the people there, but he remained silent. People were mad that they saw starving people on the streets and the news every night and the government refused to lift a finger, all while Perot focused all of his energies on getting computers into government. A corruption scandal that wound up being nothing would also seriously damage his reputation, as an edited recording of Perot aggressively negotiating prices to bring his company's own computers to a public school were leaked with the implication that this was from when he was in office. In fact, this recording had been taken without Perot's knowledge in 1981, but the months of Congressional investigations that lead to that conclusion seriously hurt him among the electorate. The silence was deafening and his biggest critic would be Nick Galifinakias, who had served a term as Governor of North Carolina in the years since his single term in the White House. Galifinakias had been president during a bad economic period and, twelve years after he had first taken office, it seemed the same or maybe even worse. The electorate was skeptical of a man who had already lost the presidency attempting to seek it, but as he narrowly won the Democratic nomination and moved into the general against a ticket headed by Perot’s VP, Tonie Nathan, with Lt. Governor Ed Clarke as the VP nominee, he was able to win in a blowout. “Libertarianism had failed Americans” was a famous quote from the 1986 midterms by Senator Bob Casey, Galifinakis’s second VP. This was proven on election day when the liberal hero won a second term with significantly lower voter turnout than the previous two elections.
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