Roosevelt vs Bryan, 1912

How could such a Presidential race come about? Who would win? What course would America take afterwards?
 
How could such a Presidential race come about? Who would win? What course would America take afterwards?
Bryan winning the nomination is a stretch, but he could get in as a compromise candidate if the convention remains deadlocked and/or the Democrats think they have no chance of winning and just want to run a token candidate.

Against a Republican party unified under Roosevelt (presumably Taft steps down/cuts a deal; difficult but plausible) Bryan has little chance of winning.
 
How could such a Presidential race come about? Who would win? What course would America take afterwards?


It requires two changes, neither of them particularly likely.

First off, Roosevelt has to defeat Taft for the Republican nomination. Not totally impossible, but a long shot, and still leaving the possibility that some of Taft's supporters are so embittered that they run a third-party candidate. Best way (if a bit crude) is perhaps for Taft, who is grossly overweight, to die of a heart attack early in the year, before TR has declared his candidacy. Vice President James Sherman, iirc, is in poor health (OTL he died in October) so may well decline the nomination, in which case TR gets it almost by default - and before he's opened his mouth too much and frightened the (Conservative) horses. Since his main opponent for the nomination is probably LaFollette, adopting a more centrist position mightn't be too hard.

Second, Bryan has to change his mind about not running. If he really wants the nomination, he might get it, but the big issue is motive. If he wouldn't make the effort in OTL's 1912, when victory in November would have been certain, why do it in a situation where his chances (in a straight fight with TR) would be a whole lot slimmer?
 
On the Republican side, TR would have to come to some sort of accommodation with the more conservative wing of the party. Not the easiest task in the world, but brokered by such figures as Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge, certainly feasible. Perhaps the deal would include having certain more prominent conservative types in the cabinet, assuming a GOP victory (e.g., former VP Charles Fairbanks as attorney general) or a not-quite-promise that Taft himself would be the next Supreme Court appointee.

On the Democrats' side, the convention would have to be all-but-impossibly deadlocked--and that's close to what happened at Baltimore's Fifth Regiment Armory in 1912 as it is. Wilson and Clark would have to hit high water marks just short of a majority, and neither would budge. Given Baltimore's enervating summer weather (I should know: I grew up there) and intransigence on the part of both major candidates, likely the delegates would be scrambling frantically for a solution of some sort. If the Democrats' convention took place after the Republican conclave in Chicago, a deadlock of this sort might well lead to an undercurrent of defeatism that would push the convention more quickly to a compromise candidate: in short, an unprecedented fourth nomination for Bryan. With Bryan's ego, he'd be largely blind to his less-than-optimum chances.

So we now have Roosevelt and generally acceptable running mate Missouri governor Herbert Hadley facing off against William Jennings Bryan and Thomas Marshall. The 1912 election will turn out to be one of the most one-sided in history, with the Democrats carrying only eight of the former Confederate states (TR's Rough Rider legacy would gain him Texas by a whisker, as well as narrowly carrying Virginia and Tennessee) plus the newer states of Oklahoma and Arizona. The rest: solidly Republican.

Woodrow Wilson, by the way, would finish his term as governor of New Jersey, but would not be re-elected. Out of work briefly, he would accept a post as president of the University of Virginia, returning to his native state. Wilson would be a constant critic of the Roosevelt administration, and would serve in the US Senate from Virginia, but would never again gather serious consideration for the presidency.
 
So we now have Roosevelt and generally acceptable running mate Missouri governor Herbert Hadley facing off against William Jennings Bryan and Thomas Marshall. The 1912 election will turn out to be one of the most one-sided in history, with the Democrats carrying only eight of the former Confederate states (TR's Rough Rider legacy would gain him Texas by a whisker, as well as narrowly carrying Virginia and Tennessee) plus the newer states of Oklahoma and Arizona. The rest: solidly Republican.


I don't see why they should do any worse than Parker in 1904 - all the Solid South plus Kentucky. If Texans could swallow a New York goldbug, they'll have no trouble voting for Bryan. In fact, if the Republican reconciliation is only skin deep, he may pick up a few more - Maryland, Missouri and maybe Arizona and/or Colorado. I agree that TR will win.
 
First off, Roosevelt has to defeat Taft for the Republican nomination. Not totally impossible, but a long shot, and still leaving the possibility that some of Taft's supporters are so embittered that they run a third-party candidate. Best way (if a bit crude) is perhaps for Taft, who is grossly overweight, to die of a heart attack early in the year, before TR has declared his candidacy. Vice President James Sherman, iirc, is in poor health (OTL he died in October) so may well decline the nomination, in which case TR gets it almost by default - and before he's opened his mouth too much and frightened the (Conservative) horses. Since his main opponent for the nomination is probably LaFollette, adopting a more centrist position mightn't be too hard.


Hmm, what I really wanted was two progressives (small p) facing off for the Presidency.
 
I don't see why they should do any worse than Parker in 1904 - all the Solid South plus Kentucky. If Texans could swallow a New York goldbug, they'll have no trouble voting for Bryan. In fact, if the Republican reconciliation is only skin deep, he may pick up a few more - Maryland, Missouri and maybe Arizona and/or Colorado. I agree that TR will win.

Why? Bryan is a three time loser going in with no new ideas--he hasn't had any for a dozen years--and he's running against an enormously popular former president with a long record of accomplishments. He'll get his head handed to him rather efficiently.

Now, on to the second Roosevelt tenure...

Determined to make the most of his mandate, TR seeks to mend fences with all factions of the GOP. With the help of Elihu Root and Cabot Lodge (again!) he meets with Charles Evans Hughes: the two men, both solid progressives, work out differences and reach an amiable accord that will allow them to work together neatly and efficiently. That makes Hughes the new Secretary of State.

From the conservative wing, Philander Knox would be tapped for Attorney General once more. And a relatively unknown McKinley protege with impeccable credentials in the financial world would be named as secretary of the treasury: Charles Dawes.

I'll follow with more if I don't get howled down and told to mind my own business.
 
Since no POD is given, we could easily make it 1908: Bryan declines to run, and perhaps Taft does, too, with a more conservative (and weaker) Republican winning the nomination in 1908. The Republicans still take the White House in 1908, with, say, Philander Knox beating John Albert Johnson rather handily. By 1912, TR is ready to step back in, and Bryan's ready for a go after 12 years' break.
 
Why? Bryan is a three time loser going in with no new ideas--he hasn't had any for a dozen years--and he's running against an enormously popular former president with a long record of accomplishments. He'll get his head handed to him rather efficiently.


So he may, though probably little if any worse than he did in 1908 against TR's hand-picked successor, or Parker in 1904 against TR himself. Keep in mind that for all his personal appeal TR now heads a badly divided party which got creamed at the polls in 1910, so he has more handicaps than formerly.

As for Bryan, he may be a three-time loser, but one who is dear to the hearts of core Democratic voters. And the South in particular is natural Bryan country, where his style of campaigning is more popular even than in the west. It is conceivable that he might lose Kentucky and/or Maryland to TR, but as far as I can see, any talk of breaking into the Solid South is pure ASB. In Texas Bryan never won by less than two to one, and TR lost it in 1904 by more than three to one against an opponent without a fraction of Bryan's appeal. In OTL's 1912, the combined vote for TR and Taft was barely 18%, and TR ran only 1,000 votes ahead of the Socialist candidate. As for the other southern states, even in 1920, at the nadir of their post-WW1 unpopularity, and with a ticket of two northern "wets", the Democrats held on to Kentucky and lost Tennessee only by a whisker, while the rest of the South wasn't even close. In 1912 they are not unpopular, and Bryan has far more natural appeal in the region than James M Cox. He'll take the South and probably one or two Border states, three time loser or not. If Republican divisions run too deep for a quick fix, he may do better still.

Regarding "new ideas", Wilson didn't offer very many OTL, running a pretty standard Democratic campaign. He didn't even call for women's suffrage, which Bryan strongly supported. It didn't seem to do him any harm.
 
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