alternatehistory.com

Here goes my first timeline here (although not the first one I've done in any context, at least.) It's part of a metasetting I may later post about on the ASB forum, but the only things about that that will show up are the timeline designations.

I. The Kingbreaker: Campaign '32

The earliest known macrodivergence in in the immediate locality of the United State between timelines of the (17)Z1 family and the (18+)Z group occurs early in June of 1932, although we believe that earlier, smaller events not preserved in the historical record led to this event. In particular, we strongly believe that there was a major personal falling out between political allies Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Huey Long, leading the two to a state of mutual loathing underneath a facade of political support. There is an alternate theory which holds that Long foresaw Roosevelt's potential political strength and judged he would have a better shot at the job himself in 1936 against any other imaginable candidate. In any event, the difference in the two timelines became apparent during the third ballot of the Democratic National Convention, when Roosevelt's support in Mississippi and Arkansas crumbled. The 30-vote shift, largely to Newton Baker, still left Roosevelt with a large majority of the delegates, but with a 2/3s majority required for the nomination, the loss of momentum would prove fatal. By the fifteenth ballot, at the end of the first day of voting, Roosevelt's delegate total appeared to have reached a bottom at 397-just enough to deny any combination of remaining contenders Smith, Baker, and Garner the 2/3s needed to win. The prospect of a repeat of the disastrous 1924 convention, which had been a looming danger throughout the convention, now seemed a reality.
The next morning, Roosevelt is nowhere to be found in the convention halls. After a short delay, the balloting continues, while his delegates holding firm. This goes on for three votes before Roosevelt makes his appearance. He gives a brief speech, citing a worsening in his health due to the stress of the repeated ballots, withdraws from the contest and endorses Al Smith. (Years later, in his memoirs, Roosevelt would reveal that the events of the day were entirely a sham and that his physical condition was a strong as it had been in years. According to his account, Roosevelt and Smith met during the small hours of the night. Roosevelt rejected the offer of the Vice Presidency as worthless and instead asked for and received assurances of being offered the position of Secretary of Commerce. The two agreed that openly revealing some of Roosevelt's health problems would help prevent the rank-and-file primary voters who had supported FDR from feeling betrayed by the convention's result.)
With the vast majority of Roosevelt's delegates in hand, Al Smith was only a handful of delgates away from the 2/3 mark. A quick deal was made with the Garner camp, offering the vice presidency, and the convention had a nominee on the 19th ballot.
The actual election of 1932 was almost an afterthought. The Great Depression had rendered Hoover and the Republicans literally unelectable, and even though the combination of anti-Catholic prejudice and lack of charisma relative to Roosevelt meant that the popular vote majority was only 54.2% to 42.1% and the electoral margin 422-109, Al Smith's victory was still a landslide by any definition.
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