Would it be possible that instead of the conservative Republicans like Harding and Coolidge, progressives like Lafollette and Hiram Johnson take control? Would it be possible, or will the bitter taste of teddy’s 1912 run still turn off republican delegates to a progressive candidate?
Robert Lafollette becomes president in the 20s?
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Not just La Follette's progressivism but his opposition to US participation in World War I made him a pariah to the national Republican Party. La Follette got 24 votes at the 1920 Republican national convention--all from Wisconsin. https://books.google.com/books?id=kNamDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT423&lpg=PT423 In 1924 he got 34 votes--24 from Wisconsin, 10 from North Dakota. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Republican_National_Convention
The real question is whether he could have won as a third-party candidate. The answer is almost certainly No. If the economy was a little worse in 1924, he could have carried several western states which he narrowly lost in OTL (and where he far outperformed Davis). But see Walter Lippmann's comments ("Why I Shall Vote for Davis," in the New Republic, October 29, 1924, reprinted in the chapter on the election of 1924 in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Fred L. Israel, and William P. Hansen, eds., History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968, Vol. III, p. 2578) about the futility of the 1924 La Follette Progressives' dream of replacing the Democrats as America's second party:
"First, the practical politics of the La Follette movement. Here in the East its supporters, the New Republic among them, are arguing that the new party is to destroy and supplant the Democratic party as the opposition to conservative Republicanism. This seems to me impossible. The Democratic party is more or less indestructible because of the solid South. [My emphasis--DT] A party which enters every campaign with roughly half the electoral votes [I assume that what Lippmann meant was "half of the electoral votes necessary for victory"--DT] is not in my opinion going to disappear. It seems extremely unlikely that La Follette will break the solid South, and almost as unlikely that the Southern Democrats will coalesce, as the New Republic has suggested, with the Eastern Republicans. If the Democratic party survives, and if the Republican party survives, there is not under the presidential system of government any permanent future for a third party..."
There were plenty of voters in the South who were quite "radical" on economic issues and in that sense closer to La Follette than to Coolidge or Davis. But the tradition that only a white vote united behind the Democratic Party could preserve white supremacy in the South was hard to overcome.
The real question is whether he could have won as a third-party candidate. The answer is almost certainly No. If the economy was a little worse in 1924, he could have carried several western states which he narrowly lost in OTL (and where he far outperformed Davis). But see Walter Lippmann's comments ("Why I Shall Vote for Davis," in the New Republic, October 29, 1924, reprinted in the chapter on the election of 1924 in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Fred L. Israel, and William P. Hansen, eds., History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968, Vol. III, p. 2578) about the futility of the 1924 La Follette Progressives' dream of replacing the Democrats as America's second party:
"First, the practical politics of the La Follette movement. Here in the East its supporters, the New Republic among them, are arguing that the new party is to destroy and supplant the Democratic party as the opposition to conservative Republicanism. This seems to me impossible. The Democratic party is more or less indestructible because of the solid South. [My emphasis--DT] A party which enters every campaign with roughly half the electoral votes [I assume that what Lippmann meant was "half of the electoral votes necessary for victory"--DT] is not in my opinion going to disappear. It seems extremely unlikely that La Follette will break the solid South, and almost as unlikely that the Southern Democrats will coalesce, as the New Republic has suggested, with the Eastern Republicans. If the Democratic party survives, and if the Republican party survives, there is not under the presidential system of government any permanent future for a third party..."
There were plenty of voters in the South who were quite "radical" on economic issues and in that sense closer to La Follette than to Coolidge or Davis. But the tradition that only a white vote united behind the Democratic Party could preserve white supremacy in the South was hard to overcome.
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Not sure I see how this is going to happen. New England Republicanism was popular in the 20s, and Coolidge did not even run a campaign and still coasted to a landslide; the old issues of tariffs and federal patronage still held firm as the issue of the day.
La Follette might be able to win over a few low electoral college vote holding western and mountain states, but if it gets pushed to the House, Coolidge wins. La Follette greatly outran the Farmer-Labor and Progressive House tickets, after all.
La Follette might be able to win over a few low electoral college vote holding western and mountain states, but if it gets pushed to the House, Coolidge wins. La Follette greatly outran the Farmer-Labor and Progressive House tickets, after all.
Follette needs to get the 1920 nomination or be Harding's VP. If he only becomes president in '24 he's going to catch a bad case of Harrisonitis
There is no chance of the Republicans nominating La Follette for president or vice-president in 1920 (or in 1924). The delegates in 1920 wouldn't even nominate La Follette's colleague Irvine L. Lenroot (even though Lenroot, once a La Follette progressive Repubnlcan, had long since broken with La Follette and become much more conservative).for vice-president, largely because of resentment of Wisconsin:
"By this time Harding had already been nominated and McCormick excitedly nominated Lenroot for vice-president. He was seconded by, among others, Senator Calder of New York. But during McCormick's speech someone cried out "Coolidge! Coolidge!" and after Calder uttered the words "of Wisconsin" following Lenroot's name, another voice shouted "not on your life." Wisconsin--the state whose delegates each day held themselves righteously apart; which voted for La Follette when nobody else would; and which had within the hour refused to make Harding's nomination unanimous--was not exactly the most popular state at the convention. By contrast, when Coolidge's name was placed in nomination, a loud cheer went up, and there were many seconding speeches. Coolidge won with 674 1/2 votes to 146 1/2 for Lenroot. (Lenroot got only 2 votes from Wisconsin; the other 24 went to Asle Gronna of North Dakota, who had La Follette's support.)" https://www.alternatehistory.com/shwi/President Irvine Lenroot.txt
You can't win either the presidential or vice-presidential nomination with 24 votes.
(If La Follette were to be nominated at all in 1920 it would have to be by a third party, like the newly formed Farmer-Labor Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer–Labor_Party But the Farmer-Laborites' platform was too radical for La Follette: "A near stampede developed when the name of Wisconsin's "Fighting Bob" La Follette was presented to the delegates. A huge red banner with white letters reading "Bob La Follette" was unfurled over the balcony and an enlarged portrait of the senator draped in an American flag suddenly appeared on the platform when Lester P. Barlow, president of the World War Veterans, placed the Wisconsin lawmaker's name in nomination. A noisy, forty-five minute demonstration followed. According to one of La Follette's biographers, the convention might have been stampeded for the aging progressive right then and there if his son, Robert La Follette, Jr., hadn't stepped to the podium to inform the delegates that his father wouldn't run without an acceptable platform." https://books.google.com/books?id=Jb8VUKAZqpUC&pg=PA26 Some of the so-called Forty Eighters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_48 hoped to nominate La Follette anyway as the candidate of a "Liberal Party" but La Follette declined. Even if the Farmer Labor Party had nominated La Follette, he would have no chance of winning or even doing as well as he was to do in 1924. For one thing, unlike 1924, he would not have the support of the Socialists, who were determined to run Debs.)
My point is that if Follette becomes president in 1924, he is not going to have much of a presidency unless the POD is stopping his cardiovascular disease
I have seen it argued that disappointment at the failure of his 1924 campaign hastened his death. But there is no point in questioning how long a La Follette elected president in 1924 would live, because he simply had no chance to win in 1924 (at least not without a much, much earlier POD).
This makes sense, but if Roosevelt beat Taft in the 1912 republican National Convention, would that possibly cause the Republican Party to become more progressive in the 20s?
It would probably cause the Republicans to be more progressive after 1912 than they were in OTL as long as TR is in office. But one should not exaggerate this: even when TR was president in OTL, congressional Democrats often provided more support for his "Square Deal" policies than did Republicans. David Sarasohn has noted in The Party of Reform, p. 3, "From 1905 to 1908, the nation grew accustomed to the spectacle of congressional Democrats providing the strongest support for a Republican president." And whether any progressivism TR could bring to the party would survive when he left office is questionable. See my post at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...onservative-party.421348/page-2#post-15208325 on why I think the Republicans have been structurally more conservative than the Democrats even when as in 1904 the Republican presidential candidate is relatively progressive and the Democrat relatively conservative (and by the way, I think 1904 is the only election of which this can be said). I quote the New York Sun (the newspaper closest to Wall Street) on why it backed TR over Parker: "'We prefer the impulsive candidate of the party of conservatism to the conservative candidate of the party which the business interests regard as permanently and dangerously impulsive."
Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that congressional Republicans in the early twentieth century were the party of Joe Cannon, not of TR. Note that Norris' anti-Cannon coup of 1910 depended primarily on Democrats for its success: "coalition of 42 progressive Republicans and the entire delegation of 149 Democrats in a revolt..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gurney_Cannon
Besides, it is not even certain how progressive a TR elected as a Republican in 1912 would be. He would probably have to modify some of the more "radical" of his proposals of 1910-12 to get Taftites to vote for him in November. [1] (And those proposals were in any event not typical of his political career as a whole; as president, he had been careful to keep a balance between the conservative and progressive wings of his party.) And it is possible that in a couple of years, the World War and the preparedness issue would largely divert his attentions from domestic reform.
[1] That there was a real danger of Taftite defections after a bitterly contested convention is shown by the vote in California that year. California was in those days a heavily Republican state--it had gone for Taft over Bryan by 55.46 to 32.98 in 1908. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1908_United_States_presidential_election_in_California In 1912 TR's running mate Hiram Johnson kept Taft off the California ballot so that--except for the Socialists--California had a straight TR vs. Wilson fight. Taft supporters were so angry at TR and Johnson that many came out for Wilson, who finished only 174 votes behind TR in the state and actually won two of its electoral votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election_in_California
mspence
Banned
The problem is that America circa 1920 was a more conservative place in general; there was the first Red Scare and anarchist bombings which helped the Republicans post World War One, the desire for a "return to normalcy" which had helped Harding, and a general reaction against the progressive era...maybe La Follette could get black votes in the North but in the South most blacks (and poor whites) were still disenfranchised. There also wasn't as big a labor coalition as there would be for FDR.
Thomas1195
Banned
@David T how about a pre-1900 POD. Let's say Benjamin Harrison getting re-elected in 1892 and then the Gold Republicans and protectionists getting blamed for the panic of 1892. Then in 1896 a Gold Democrat running a pro-Gold, pro-business platform and winning the Presidency similar to what McKinley did IOTL. Meanwhile, the GOP field would be a more open field for more progressive candidates including LaFollette.
And even though the Republicans were always more pro-business, it did, however, always had a significant liberal wing (Liberal Republicans, Mugwumps, Half-breeds, and then Progressives...) during the 19th century because of its anti-slavery background.
And even though the Republicans were always more pro-business, it did, however, always had a significant liberal wing (Liberal Republicans, Mugwumps, Half-breeds, and then Progressives...) during the 19th century because of its anti-slavery background.