Logical means to T Roosevelt wining 1912 election.

If TR becomes President in 1912, it might change the decision by Germany to go to unrestricted submarine warfare. TR was a far more enthusiastic about armed force and the use of the Navy (and national sovreignty) than Wilson was. I could see TR insisting on an armed US neutrality with USN convoys for trade with both the Entente and the Central Powers.I don't know whether TR was as total an Anglophile as FDR was. He might have seen his role as one of acting as a peace broker as he had in 1905 in the Russo-Japanese War


Indeed. He was certainly on record as saying that he would send the mails to Europe on warships or on convoyed vessels, so the Allies could not intercept them.

Not to mention the possibility that he is distracted from the European conflict by getting drawn into war with Mexico, against whom he was also very bellicose. This area is a lot more complex than most WIers assume.
 
Perhaps Schrank can't get a shot off and loses a little bit more of his mind. He makes his way to D.C and shoots Taft, whom can either die then, die later like Garfield, or just have a very long recovery. Either way Taft is incapacitated and Sherman is acting President...at least until the 30th when he passes away. Beside the constitutional issues and question of whose President (between the ill and perhaps near-death Taft and Secretary of State Philander Knox), the Republicans don't have a ticket. Perhaps the Republicans decide to nominate TR in an emergency session and created a fusion ticket.


Not a chance.

It is conceivable that some sort of reconciliation might have been patched up back in the Spring, but by October (indeed long before) the bridges had been burned. TR was espousing a radical programme totally unacceptable to most Republican leaders, and unless he repudiated everything he had been saying since the start of the campaign (most unlikely) they could not possibly have embraced him. Think of the Democrats in 1860. Indeed, Taft frankly admitted that he was staying in the race only to defeat TR and block his irresponsible programme. He knew the Dems would win, but didn't mind as long as TR lost.

His supporters concurred. In this situation they would have gone straight to another candidate - most probably Knox, but Root is also possible - and gone down fighting. Indeed, the sympathy aroused by Taft's shooting means they now have a chance to push TR into third place.
 
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Wolfpaw

Banned
Why not? Tsarist Russia was ferociously antisemitic.
Well, first of all, something like the Holocaust isn't a "Why not?" event. It didn't have to happen, nor was it even likely. Was there precedent for discriminating against Jews in Europe? Of course. Pogroms? By the 20th Century, not outside of Eastern Europe, and even those had gone down in number since the last decades of the 1800s. Nothing at all suggested that it would turn into outright state-sponsored industrialized mass-murder.

In many ways, Tsarist Russia was more anti-Judaic than anti-Semitic, i.e. their rhetoric and beliefs had more to do with Jews being Jewish rather than Jews being Jews. Nor was it at all in the interests in the Tsars to kill off the Jews; they were convenient scapegoats for Russia's discontented populace.

The Nazis, on the other hand, hated Jews simply for existing, it had absolutely nothing to do with Judaism. Nazi racial ideology dictated that it was absolutely necessary to destroy the Jews.

There's a difference between the populist and pogrom-spawning anti-Semitism of Russia and the industrialized genocidal ideology of the Nazis.
 
The AHs I've run into on this generally have TR appearing at the RNC, making a speech, and taking the nomination by sheer charisma.

Don't know how realistic that would strike people here...
 
No, it's quite plausible, and a dynast thing. That's why LBJ rescheduled RFK's address in Atlantic City to after the balloting. If Quentin dies of malaria you might get the same emotional effect for TR.
 
HOLD IT!!!

What about a Democrat split? A congregationalist for example? Would fuck up American politics, but also give Roosevelt a fairer chance, right?
 
A Congregationalist? WTF? :confused: Clark and Wilson were much closer ideologically than TR & Taft. TR by this time is a full blown progressive with proto-New Deal and Californication as his domestic platform. Wilson's
"New Freedom" , which rhetorically echoed the Bourbon classical liberalism then predominant in the Democratic Party, was much closer to Clark's rural conservatism than TR was to Taft's Old Guard policies.
 
I'm not saying an insignificant PoD like a kid splashes in the water at a beach. I'm talking about a scenario where somebody wants the Democratic nomination but doesn't get it -- thus do what TR did (as a more liberal way to put it).

Also, one thing I love about TR + AH is that had he not gotten shit faced at his bachelor's party, America would have perhaps lost arguably one of its greatest presidents in history.
 
HOLD IT!!!

What about a Democrat split? A congregationalist for example? Would fuck up American politics, but also give Roosevelt a fairer chance, right?

They don't really have anything to split about. The free silver issue is ancient history now, and the questions of Prohibition and the Klan which would mess them up in the 1920s are as yet barely a gleam on the horizon - if even that in the case of the Klan.

If the Dems were going to split any year, it would have been 1904, but it didn't happen. Bryan swallowed his disappointment and reluctantly campaigned for Parker, despite having feelings toward him not unlike TR's for Taft. He did, in fact, what TR should have done in 1912.

Anyway, after their crushing success in the 1910 midterms, they now smell victory. If they could resist the temptation to split in 1904, how much more so in 1912?
 
God I find it amusing people talking about the Dems splitting right after their huge gains in 1910.

Reading through the thread now, it seems less like "what is the best way" and now more "Here is my way, ITS the best"

Building on comments from some of the more sane here, especially Wolfpaws. I am going with Roosevelt winning the nomination over Taft by:
1) Reconciliation between Root and Roosevelt, planting more votes in Teddy then Taft.
2) Taft persuaded by 'worried' delegates about his Health. (we know now he was a healthy man, but there was a LOT of doubt during the election)

ANd as for winning the election. Wilson was a louse and a scoundrel even before the election. It shouldn't be too hard to dig up some dirt to leak to the media, which during the 1900's was even more obsessed with scandals then today.
 
You really can't think of one scenario where there is a schism among dems?

Just have someone enter politics rather what they did IOTL in 1905 and you got butterflies writing history for you.
 
You really can't think of one scenario where there is a schism among dems?

Just have someone enter politics rather what they did IOTL in 1905 and you got butterflies writing history for you.
I don't think of it because it isn't required. This isn't "How many different ways could Roosevelt win" its "which is the best" IE simplest and the least convoluted.

Trying to get "Someone" entering into things as a unknown, having no idea what it would do other then "Hope" it splits the dems is a needless complication.
 
You really can't think of one scenario where there is a schism among dems?

Just have someone enter politics rather what they did IOTL in 1905 and you got butterflies writing history for you.


Simply introducing another politician doesn't cause a split - though it can accentuate divisions that are already there.

The Democratic Party did not rip itself apart in 1924 over whether it liked Smith better than McAdoo or vice versa. They caused a deadlock because they stood for radically different things. Had they both dropped dead a year before the Convention, the party would still have been split - just between two different "standard bearers".

Four years earlier, the Republicans had deadlocked in a superficially similar way between Wood and Lowden, and had to do (superficially) what the Dems had to do four years later - drop both of them in favour of a compromise choice. But this did them no particular harm because the split was purely personal and not a symptom of any deep underlying rift such as had existed in 1912. The compromise choice - despite being one of the most mediocre dark horses ever nominated - went on to romp home in a landslide. Had the Democratic convention deadlocked in 1912, that is how it would have been for them. That year it was the Reps who had the deep divisions.
 
Trouble is, if Wilson's stroke is anything like OTL's, the Democrats will have to choose another candidate. Main options would seem to be Marshall, Clark or Bryan, any of whom would win easily enough in a three-way race.

I disagree, respectfully but most vehemently. In 1912, Bryan was already a three time loser and would have been viewed as a last resort retread at best. Marshall was a relative nonentity from Indiana who never got more than favorite son consideration for the big job. Clark...he might have had a shot in a conventional race, but not when facing TR.
 
I disagree, respectfully but most vehemently. In 1912, Bryan was already a three time loser and would have been viewed as a last resort retread at best. Marshall was a relative nonentity from Indiana who never got more than favorite son consideration for the big job. Clark...he might have had a shot in a conventional race, but not when facing TR.


In a straight fight, that might well be so, but not in a three-cornered one like 1912. All that any of these men need do is get the normal Democratic vote out, and the Republican split ensures that he will coast home - shopworn nonentity or not. Whatever label TR is currently using, he's still a Republican as far as the average Democrat is concerned, so his inroads into the Democratic vote are likely to be relatively modest - certainly no greater than in 1904, and probably less.

Bryan may frighten off some of the more conservative wing of the Party, but the beneficiary from that is likely to be Taft rather than TR - conservatives have no reason to switch from one dangerous radical to another. Of course TR could in theory run a more conservative campaign, but if he were being as cool and calculating as that, he wouldn't be on the ballot in the first place, but would be sitting things out, waiting for Taft to self-destruct, and making his plans for 1916.

As for Clark, he won more Primaries than Wilson, and scored extremely well in Progressive-leaning states like Illinois, where he beat Wilson approx two to one, and California where it was almost three to one. These results suggest he will run at least as strong as Wilson among progressive Dems, and might even do slightly better - perhaps winning California, which Wilson lost. This might be offset by a loss or two in New England, and maybe New Jersey, but even that is uncertain as I understand he won the Massachusetts primary by a comfortable margin.

Marshall, I agree, is the weakest of the three, and perhaps the least likely to be chosen (my money would be on Clark) but I can't see it mattering. He's an acceptable, middle of the road Democrat, whom all wings of the party can live with if they can't enthuse for. All he has to do is equal Alton B Parker's 1904 performance (the worst in the Party's history at that date) to give himself a popular lead over TR of between five[1] and ten percentage points - enough for an Electoral College walkover.

Marshall, in fact, would be the Democratic equivalent of Warren G Harding - uninspiring but uncontroversial, and more than adequate against a bitterly divided opposition. Harding, you'll remember, was plucked out of nowhere in preference to half a dozen more impressive figures - and still won easily against a Democratic Party hopelessly unpopular and at odds with itself, much as the GOP had been in 1912. That would have been Marshall's position - even without factoring in the sympathy vote he would probably get for having to replace Wilson in such circumstances.


[1] Five on the very unlikely assumption that all of Marshall's "losses" translate into TR gains. In fact, they would probably split between him and Eugene Debs, a former Democrat who would find it easier to win Democratic defectors. If none of Marshall's losses go to TR (equally unlikely of course) his lead increases to around ten points.
 
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