Martin G. Brumbaugh in 1916 (or 1920)?

Getting my info from this article: http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/governors/1876-1951/martin-brumbaugh.html

Of the several men considered for the Republican nomination for President in 1916, one of the men who turned it down has struck my interest somewhat: Pennsylvania Governor Martin Grove Brumbaugh.

Much like Wilson, Brumbaugh had a background in academia, specializing in pedagogy. He was appointed by President McKinley to be commissioner of education for Puerto Rico, and was chosen by the Penrose political machine to run for governor of Pennsylvania. Brumbaugh is described as a conservative, but he seems to have been a decidedly weird one: he came from a firmly pacifist upbringing, and while he supported prohibition, he also supported women's suffrage.

If Hughes declines the nomination, could Brumbaugh become the Republican nominee for 1916?
 
I don't think so. In addition to his pacificism, he opposed labor reform. The first makes him something of a me-too when compared with Wilson, and it would never fly with TR and his branch of the party. The latter ensures that the GOP is tagged as the party of the rich / management / however you want to term it, making certain that the Democrats carry industrial cities emphatically. Unless a proto-department of education comes about, I can't even see Brumbaugh in a cabinet post.
 
There really seems little point in the Republicans nominating a conservative from Pennsylvania in 1916. Pennsylvania was a safe Republican state since the ACW except 1912--and even that was not really an exception, because TR had the backing of powerful Republicans like boss William Flinn of Pittsburgh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Flinn Moreover, however conservative the Republican delegates were at heart, they realized they had to nominate someone with an at least mildly progressive reputation like Hughes to have any chance of getting the 1912 Bull Moose vote. Anyway, TR in 1914 had condemned Brumbaugh as a "wooly lamb"--a reference to his steel-gray hair and his background as a pacifist preacher--for not condemning boss Penrose. https://books.google.com/books?id=2W5H1Pxs0QgC&pg=PA256 Yet Penrose had only reluctantly supported Brumbaugh for governor in 1914 and opposed Brumbaugh's presidential candidacy in 1916!
 
It seems Hughes may well have been the only choice in 1916. TR isn't an option for obvious reasons, Lodge is in TR's good books, but too many Republicans dislike him, Root is unwilling and too conservative for TR anyway, among others. I think Leonard Wood or maybe John W. Weeks could work, maybe?
 
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