In 1952, Eisenhower only ran for President because the moderate internationalist wing of the GOP convinced Ike that he was the only man capable of stopping the isolationist Robert Taft from gaining the GOP nomination. In 1948, Ike was subject to a similar draft, but he declined to run. He felt that generals should not get involved in politics, and the successes of Tom Dewey and Harold Stassen over Robert Taft in the primaries fullfilled the need for a center-right internationalist to run that year. The POD is Truman succeeds in vetoing Taft-Hartley in 1947. This provokes an enraged, engergized Taft to put all his resources into running for President so he can enact his pet legislation himself. Taft surprises many observers by winning the early primary states (to give some perspective: in OTL his '48 candidacy was extremely weak in contrast to his aggressive '52 campaign where he almost won), and he quickly assumes a vast lead in delegates. The Eastern Establishment is horrified, and convinces General Eisenhower to jump into the race. Taft gains more primary votes, but to stop him at the convention all the moderates unite their delegates under Eisenhower who narrowly comes out on top. Ike easily defeats Truman and is inaugurated on January 20, 1949. What would Eisenhower's Presidency be like four years earlier? How does he handle the issues that plagued Truman (China, Russian A-bomb, Korea, McCarthy), and would he be reelected?
 
We had 16 years of very competent presidents (Truman and Ike) following the very competent FDR. That's the longest good run in U.S. presidential history (three of the top ten presidents, including two of the top five), and right when we needed it. Ike running in 1948 makes it four years shorter probably, so I'd save him for 1952. The caveat is that Ike would never have put MacArthur in charge of the Korean War, or at least would have kept him on a very tight leash. No one else could have done that. Ike had served as MacArthur's aide in the Philippines in the 1930s and knew how unstable he was. And then there's the question of Nixon: he was not well known enough in 1948 to emerge as Ike's vice president, and even if he did become vice president in 1952 and won the presidential election in 1956, he probably would not have gotten embroiled in Vietnam deeply enough in 1956-64 to be driven into self-protective fanaticism by an anti-war movement that would not yet have started. Would he have mishandled relations with the Soviets? He didn't do so as President later on. As to Nixon possibly promoting McCarthyism, Senator McCarthy had already fallen by 1954 in OTL, and indeed might not have arisen in the first place if Ike's Presidency had begun in 1948. So Ike in 1948 is a question that can be answered either way.
 
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Marc

Donor
While I can't imagine any rationale for Eisenhower to run in 1948, here's a rather intriguing notion if he somehow did (and won, no sure thing): Earl Warren was the vice-presidential nominee with Thomas Dewey. Consider the implications of a successful Eisenhower-Warren ticket...
 
And if so, how many times ?

Good question. I think the 22nd Amendment would still be ratified. It was a Republican policy after all, first proposed by Dewey in the 1944 campaign. It was meant to prevent any future FDR from winning four consecutive elections (and therefore keep the GOP out of power for so long). And it would have still applied to Eisenhower in 1956 as in 1960, it was Truman (President when the amendment was drafted and sent to the states) who was exempt.
 
First: good call on the Ike/Warren ticket for '48 (I'd had similar thoughts). Second: it's not a given that there will be something we would recognize as a "Korean War": quite possibly China would be somewhat wary of starting trouble when one of the allies of South Korea was led by the general who was the supreme commander in Europe in the late war. That might well give them pause to the point where there might not have been a war, but a lot of armed tension along a border where the two sides glare at each other but no shots are fired. Third: you know John Foster Dulles will be SecState, so expect NATO, SEATO, etc. to come about more or less as we know / knew them. Fourth: not sure about Warren possibly succeeding Ike (in 1947, John Gunther called him a man who would "…make a tolerable President of the United States…" in Inside USA). Dewey would be only 54 in 1956, and Ike got along fairly well with Dewey (whom I would project to be Ike's Attorney General). So...Dewey on top of the GOP ticket in '56 is not unreasonable. Fifth: with no Korean War, and China pretty well isolated, would Joe McCarthy have gained much traction? Got my doubts about that. And since he made much of his anti-communist stances, that might delay or largely obviate the rise of Richard Nixon (my money is on the former: possibly he finds a way to work with Estes Kefauver in his organized crime hearings and his--that is, Nixon's--reputation grows from there).

Would Ike get re-elected in '52? Barring something crazy, I'd say he's all but a walkover. Not sure who his opponent might be: perhaps Averell Harriman? Anyhow, the Dem nomination in '52 would be a rather hollow honor, given the formidable task of trying to unseat Ike. In '56, I'd look for Dewey with Richard Nixon as his running mate (that's practically a textbook balanced ticket), opposing the same '56 ticket as we knew it for the Dems: Stevenson and Kefauver. That one's going to be close, and either way the country gets a centrist, competent president. Stevenson was sufficiently cerebral that IOTL he puzzled, if not put off, a noticeable segment of the voters; on the other hand, Dewey had a (largely deserved, as I understand it) reputation of being cold and arrogant. So it would seem to come down to whichever competent executive shoots himself in the foot fewer times when appealing to the voters. My hunch is that with Ike's backing, Dewey would make it by the skin of his teeth.
 
Stevenson was sufficiently cerebral that IOTL he puzzled, if not put off, a noticeable segment of the voters;

I remember as a kid that Stevenson was regarded as highly intelligent and well educated. Later I learned that he rarely read a book. The Democrats had a view of Eisenhower as some kind of dummy. Ike cultivated this image (and developed the art of obfuscating his answers to questions from the press), but actually he was far more "cerebral" (I'm talking about the workings of his mind, not his public image) than Stevenson and probably much better educated.
 
I remember as a kid that Stevenson was regarded as highly intelligent and well educated. Later I learned that he rarely read a book. The Democrats had a view of Eisenhower as some kind of dummy. Ike cultivated this image (and developed the art of obfuscating his answers to questions from the press), but actually he was far more "cerebral" (I'm talking about the workings of his mind, not his public image) than Stevenson and probably much better educated.

Interesting. You're right about Stevenson's image: I was four years old when he ran in '56, and although my parents, aunts and uncles all favored Ike, they regarded Stevenson as intelligent. Perhaps this was carefully cultivated as well, aided and abetted by his speechwriters. I can't fathom how Ike got a reputation as you described, given his accomplishments in the European theater of operations.
 
The Democrats had a view of Eisenhower as some kind of dummy. Ike cultivated this image (and developed the art of obfuscating his answers to questions from the press), but actually he was far more "cerebral" (I'm talking about the workings of his mind, not his public image) than Stevenson and probably much better educated.
I’ve never heard this, but I’ve actually always suspected this about Ike. Maybe it’s his midwestern upbringing.
 
Eisenhower in 1948 probably has a Republican congress in both houses. While the New Deal and major entitlements will not be touched, small parts will be chipped away, especially after makes a likely deal Eisenhower would probably be forced to make with Taft-you let me run the cold war and don't destoy that part of my agenda, and I'll sacrifice a little and go slightly further than OTL against the New Deal. The TVA, for example, is probably done for and a stable currency will be established.

In return, any and all internationalist legislation will probably be passed. Perhaps US membership in a world court?

Also, no Korean war and an earlier strategy of containment.

Assuming Ike is president for 2 terms minimum, the biggest change is that Republicans don't move temporarily as far to the left economically before the Reagan Revolution as the New Deal is knocked down from an 11/10 to a 7/10 4 years earlier and as a result don't in the long run have to move to the right socially as much. Conservatism wouldn't appear again out of thin air but a an overall slight tick to the right would occur. Many forget that Ike's landslides made it OK to be a Republican again, a necessary step for Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan to spread their ideas and set agendas.

An Eisenhower in 1948 might also pursue civil rights. See this bill as a possibility. http://volokh.com/posts/1143071737.shtml

My 2 cents. Not saying this is 100% what would happen, but a possibility.
 
I’ve never heard this, but I’ve actually always suspected this about Ike. Maybe it’s his midwestern upbringing.

He retained a good part of his Kansas accent. Like most midwestern & southern dialects regarded as hick, redneck, or low social status by many educated people from the middle and upper classes. Ike was also prone to plain clear speaking style which favored a simpler vocabulary. A lot of educated & well read people of that era thought a dense and varied vocabulary more precise and meaningful. If you listen carefully to his speeches and compare to a variety of others of that era you can hear contrasts that are not so evident our media homogenized time.

Ike was well read by 1920. During the 1920s he was deeply engrossed in a reading program on politics, strategy, and some aspects of the social sciences of that era. This was under the guidance of Brigadier Fox Connor one of Ikes commanding officers of the era and a mentor. Unlike your average modern PhD candidate Ikes reading or study was drawn out at a digestible pace, had plenty of breadth and depth, & was designed for a overarching understanding vs a narrow expert application.
 
There is another way for Eisenhower to win in 1948: as a Democrat. In OTL, President Truman privately urged Eisenhower to seek the Democratic nomination in 1948, fearful that Douglas MacArthur would win the Republican nomination. Truman offered to serve as Eisenhower's running mate.

Truman Wrote of '48 Offer to Eisenhower
A newly discovered diary kept by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 tells of a private conversation in which he urged Dwight D. Eisenhower to seek the Democratic presidential nomination the next year, with Truman as his vice-presidential running mate, the National Archives announced today.

Although there was speculation of such a plan at the time, Truman always denied it. The diary, however, shows that he was concerned that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then the military governor of Japan, might win the Republican nomination. So he had the idea of countering with another popular World War II hero, Eisenhower.

''Ike and I think MacArthur expects to make a Roman triumphal return to the U.S. a short time before the Republican convention meets in Philadelphia,'' says the relevant entry, dated July 21, 1947. ''I told Ike that if he did that,'' then Eisenhower should ''announce for the nomination for president on the Democratic ticket and that I'd be glad to be in second place, or vice president.''

In the end, MacArthur's Republican supporters failed to win the nomination for him, Truman won the Democratic nomination and defeated Thomas E. Dewey in the general election, and four years later Eisenhower became Truman's successor, as a Republican.

Have MacArthur somehow win the Republican presidential nomination in 1948, and Eisenhower might be motivated enough to seek the Democratic nomination. I think Eisenhower would defeat MacArthur and win the election. But I don't know how big his margin of victory would be.
 
Here is a quick list of Presidents if Eisenhower Runs and Wins as a Republican:
33. Harry S. Truman (1945-1949), D-MO
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1949-1957), R-NY
35. Earl Warren (1957-1961), R-CA


Ike's VP is pretty important in this scenario. In OTL he picked Nixon under pressure from Thomas Dewey. He recognized that Nixon would be a good choice to unite the party and bring in younger and Western voters. In 1948 the closest figure to this is Harold Stassen, although Warren would still be an appealing pick due to California's strategic importance and his popularity with GOP moderates.
 
While I can't imagine any rationale for Eisenhower to run in 1948, here's a rather intriguing notion if he somehow did (and won, no sure thing): Earl Warren was the vice-presidential nominee with Thomas Dewey. Consider the implications of a successful Eisenhower-Warren ticket...
There'd be no Warren on SCOTUS in this TL--or at least not until a later point in time.
 
There'd be no Warren on SCOTUS in this TL--or at least not until a later point in time.

Brown v Board will still be decided in favor of integration, however it's impossible to know whether or not the decision would be unanimous under a different Chief Justice. Eisenhower's court appointees were generally quite liberal on civil rights; it would be Roosevelt-Truman Democrats that need to be worried about.
 
Good question. I think the 22nd Amendment would still be ratified. It was a Republican policy after all, first proposed by Dewey in the 1944 campaign. It was meant to prevent any future FDR from winning four consecutive elections (and therefore keep the GOP out of power for so long). And it would have still applied to Eisenhower in 1956 as in 1960, it was Truman (President when the amendment was drafted and sent to the states) who was exempt.
If Ike became President in early '49, he would be exempt from its provisions:
But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
 
If Ike became President in early '49, he would be exempt from its provisions:

Actually he still would've been term limited. The Amendment allowed whoever was President at the time it was proposed (1947) to run for a third term. As for whoever was President at the time of ratification, (1951) the amendment only allowed them to finish their term uninhibited. It didn't allow that President to run for a third term.
 

Marc

Donor
Does Strom Thurmond run for President in 1948 on the "States Rights Democratic Ticket" i.e. the Dixiecrat party?
Which also raises the question of whether Eisenhower would roll back, or slow down the integration of the armed forces that Truman started with Executive Order 9981.
When it came to civil rights, Eisenhower was a staunch supporter of, gradualism.
 
Does Strom Thurmond run for President in 1948 on the "States Rights Democratic Ticket" i.e. the Dixiecrat party?
Which also raises the question of whether Eisenhower would roll back, or slow down the integration of the armed forces that Truman started with Executive Order 9981.
When it came to civil rights, Eisenhower was a staunch supporter of, gradualism.

Certainly. Thurmond's candidacy was a rebellion against Truman. And Eisenhower wouldn't roll back the order. According to Jean Edward Smith he was the one who actually enforced the order in 1953, since the military resisted the order under Truman. So if anything getting Ike in 1949 means greater progress for civil rights.
 
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