WI: 1932 Democratic Nominee without FDR

Without FDR, who gets the Democratic Nomination?

  • Al Smith

    Votes: 9 21.4%
  • John Nance Garner

    Votes: 4 9.5%
  • Someone else

    Votes: 29 69.0%

  • Total voters
    42
As we know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt handily got the Democratic nominee in the 1932 election. He then went on to easily defeat Herbert Hoover. But what if FDR was removed from the picture? Either his illness killed him in 1921, or for whatever reason he doesn't end up pursuing the presidency. The most promising nominees were 1928 candidate Al Smith and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner. The only difference in this timeline is that FDR is out of the picture, so the Democrats are most likely going to take it. So which nominee will it be without his presence? Is Al Smith going to finally beat Herbert Hoover, or should America dance with the Nance? Or will it be someone else, and who?
 
Without FDR to occupy the left progressive space, I think Huey Long is the most likely to fill that vacuum, since Garner is way too conservative and associated with his opponents in Louisiana and Smith is way more moderate than FDR and not enough progressive for his taste, that's the reasoning I've come to in a TL I'm working on. Here, FDR didn't get on the ticket in 1920 (Marshall ran with Tyson of Tennessee), gets beaten by Theodore Roosevelt Jr in NY 1924 gubernatorial race (because Smith got the nomination and ran in the presidential election that year) and subsequently fades from the forefront of the political scene.
 
In 1932, a stuffed squirrel could have beaten Hoover. That said, I think Smith's out because he had his chance, and Garner's out because he alienates progressives. Without Roosevelt, I think you get someone else.
 
Joseph Robinson, perhaps?

Without FDR to occupy the left progressive space, I think Huey Long is the most likely to fill that vacuum, since Garner is way too conservative and associated with his opponents in Louisiana and Smith is way more moderate than FDR and not enough progressive for his taste, that's the reasoning I've come to in a TL I'm working on. Here, FDR didn't get on the ticket in 1920 (Marshall ran with Tyson of Tennessee), gets beaten by Theodore Roosevelt Jr in NY 1924 gubernatorial race (because Smith got the nomination and ran in the presidential election that year) and subsequently fades from the forefront of the political scene.
Huey Long is too fresh to be a reasonable 1932 pick, no? His only major political experience at that time was four years as Governor and he was only 39 years old. He hasn't built any reasonable power base on the national scene and isn't all that liked by regular politicians anyway.
 
Fresh but ambitious and he already got a national standing by then. He was very charismatic, to the point he got Carraway elected in Arkansas in landslide while she started a distant last for the primary race, and had audience across the South. All in all, his meteoritic rise to fame was similar to that of William J Bryan in 1896.
 
As for Robinson, I doubt. With Garner in the race, there is no much room for other conservative candidate, especially as both are from the South.
 
Ritchie and Newton Baker emerges as dark-horse candidates but William Randolph Hearst hated Baker (and Smith) so Garner agrees to withdraw and endors Ritchie who wins. But the South has his price and William "Alfalfa Bill" Murray is chosen as running mate. I can see McAdoo as SoS.
 
Ritchie may have a shot as compromise candidate, but I think that against Long, no matter how Hearst is behaving, Garner would cut a deal with Smith. Only a combination of these two may have had the possibility of countering Long's ambitions at the Convention.
 
Perhaps A Harry moore, could get into the cabinet. I know he won;t get the nod. Perhaps Mcadoo will push his disability homeland in alaska.
 
Al Smith would have been the heavy favorite given that he was the second choice for a sizable number of Roosevelt delegates, especially in the Northeast and the Midwest, but I hesitate to say that he would actually carry the nomination; victories in the 1930 Midterms allowed for a more balanced representation in the delegations that was not reflected at the 1928 Democratic Convention, and that would have been to Smith's disadvantage. I suppose it would still be possible that he could attain a majority, but the South would probably have not acquiesced to giving him another shot at Washington. I'm not sure who would be a decent compromise candidate in that kind of situation, especially as Smith was against such efforts in the first place when he was running against Roosevelt and losing by a far larger margin.
 
Though the most pressing question is, what will each of the domestic and foreign policies look like.

Though if anything, I enjoy the idea of Al Smith finally getting his due
 
Whoever it is, I am pretty sure it is not going to be Al Smith. The reason Smith was nominated with such little opposition in 1928 was that Democrats figured that Hoover was probably going to win anyway, so they might as well take a risk. Indeed, some 1924 McAdoo supporters thought that Smith should be nominated in 1928 precisely because they were sure he would lose--and thus discredit the northeastern "wet" wing of the party. "George Fort Milton described this sentiment to McAdoo in August 1927 as a desire to rid the party of the eastern 'menace' by 'nominating Smith and letting him have the terrific trouncing he is doomed to get.'" Douglas B. Craig, After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, p. 108. (This was pretty much the same line of thought which led Bryan to mute his criticisms of Alton B. Parker in 1904: https://books.google.com/books?id=53zojBsecxcC&pg=PA157)

Indeed, even the northeastern conservatives like Raskob, who backed Smith as part of their stop-FDR strategy, did not expect Smith to be nominated. They were using him as a stalking horse for a more likely nominee (Newton Baker is often mentioned as their first choice.) In fact, it is doubtful that Smith himself thought he could win the nomination: "Smith's supporters ran a highly localized campaign, limiting their major efforts to Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Although Smith's name was entered in the California primary, for instance, he did not visit the state, and his campaign committee spent only $250 there." Craig, p. 232.
 
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