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Who will be the next President of the United States?



Elihu Root of the Republican Party; the incumbent President, Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of State and War, as well as his chosen successor after leaving office in 1908. But as had been suspected by many commentators, his past as a corporate lawyer and many ties to Wall Street, led him to eventually abandon his predecessor's progressive, trustbusting policies in favor of a staunchly pro-business platform, which precipitated a break in the political and personal relationship between Roosevelt and Root. The President campaigns on a platform of pro-business policy, mostly stressing the prosperity and sound economic success of the incumbent Republican administration. His running mate is the Vice President and former New York Governor, Charles Evans Hughes.


William Jennings Bryan of the Democratic Party; in what has been hailed as an astonishing political comeback, after twelve long years of wilderness, the Great Commoner has returned to the forefront of national politics and has for the third time, secured the Democratic nomination for President, with the defeats of 1896 and 1900 overshadowed by renewed hopes that the third time will be the charm for Bryan and that 1912 will be the year of vindication for the Commoner's cause. Bryan campaigns on a platform of opposition to the Root administration's pro-business policy, tariff protectionism, anti-Imperialism, prohibition, women's suffrage and "moral opposition" to Darwinism. At stake for Bryan is his life's work and legacy. If to loose this election again, he will be cast into political and historical oblivion. His running mate is New Jersey Governor and former President of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson.



Theodore Roosevelt of the Progressive Party; The Hero of San Juan Hill, Cowboy of the Dakotas, 26th President of the United States, Roosevelt emerged from the unbearable inactivity of retirement, unable to contain the urge to return to fame and power, hoping to seize the Republican nomination from his onetime friend and successor Elihu Root, whom he believed to have betrayed the cause of reform, but failing to do so at the hands of the Party bosses. Undeterred, Roosevelt gathered his supporters at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago to announce the creation of a great third party, the Progressive Party or the Bull Moose Party, after his statement of being "as strong as a Bull Moose".

In his bid for an unprecedented third term, Roosevelt campaigns on a platform which aims to "dissolve the unholy alliance between crooked business and crooked politics", to continue the ardent trustbusting and zealous opposition to monopoly from his previous administration, to enact even more extensive and far-reaching conservation policies, the establishment of a Department of Labor and an arbitrary public health system, Civil Service Reform, women's suffrage, pensions for veterans, immigrant rights, among other things. The Progressives advertise Roosevelt as the rational balance between the Root Administration's "shameless subservience to business interests" and Bryan's "dangerous socialistic extremism". Roosevelt's running mate is former Chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot.
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