WI: Healthy FDR runs again in 1948, 52

RousseauX

Donor
Let's say FDR, who was 63 when he died (younger than the current president was at inauguration), has a serious heart attack scare in the 1910s-20s, and as a result he does the LBJ thing and give up smoking and decides to only drink moderately from then on.

Let's say by 1946 he's still healthy and feel responsible for giving Stalin too much at Yalta, he nuked Japan and enacts Truman's otl containment policy against Communism. Let's say in 1948 he runs again because he feels America needs his leadership in the Cold War. Does he win, can he pull off a 6th term in 1952 (he would be 70) if he does? How does America look if FDR is in office for 24 instead of 16 years?
 
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I think he'd get elected in '48, but '52 is really stretching it IMO. I don't think he'd run, but in the event he did the American people are going to be tired of a guy who was president for 20 years no matter how much people like him. He probably tries to get more of his second bill of rights implemented. It would be interesting to see what happens with the 22nd amendment with a living FDR. I'm pretty confident he'd advocate against it, and if he got enough democrats to take his side it wouldn't pass (or would pass later.)
 
Agreed, FDR wins a landslide for sure in 48' getting all the benefits for winning the war. But in 52' it depends on the economy at that point and the USA relations with Russia. I suspect that if FDR had lived there would be no Cold War. The whole rationale for the Cold War was because of this Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe that had all been agreed to at Yalta. I think Republicans could easily hammer FDR for "Losing Europe" and IOTL losing China as well. There probably would be no Korean War to sink FDR like Truman if relations with Russia were better. By 52' it seems there wouldn't be much of a rationale for another term when FDR would have accomplished everything he could have wanted to. Throw in the coming Civil Rights Movement and the hypocrisy of black men who were asked to sacrifice their lives for the freedom of the World being treated like second class citizens in their own land. I don't think FDR loses in 52' but it would have been closer than any election he had run and that's why he wouldn't run. Like an undefeated Mayweather, why blemish your mystique with the possibility of a loss?
 
If Eisenhower runs IOTL he would swamp FDR. 20 years is more than enough time for fatigue to set in. Since Ike was apolitical and was deciding the year before which political party to run on, a seasoned political animal like FDR would have known which way the winds were blowing. What were the odds that FDR would cultivate a relationship with Ike and maybe even offer him the VP in 48' to guarantee a Democratic Dynasty for generations.
 
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Agreed, FDR wins a landslide for sure in 48' getting all the benefits for winning the war.

Yeah, just like Churchill in 1945 :p And of course the Democrats were sure to win in 1920, having won the First World War.

FDR would not run in 1948 and if he did he IMO would not only not win by a landslide but probably not win at all. First of all, let's not forget that FDR's 1944 victory was his narrowest ever, despite the fact that the War was going well. Significantly, polls indicated that "If the war was still going on, 55 percent of voters said they preferred Roosevelt, but if it ended, only 42 percent of the electorate was ready to give him a fourth term. Roosevelt's support declined to 51 percent if the war seemed likely to be over in weeks or a few months after the election.

"There were also underlying doubts about allowing anyone to hold the presidency for more than eight years. When asked if they favored an amendment to the Constitution barring future officeholders from more than two terms, 57 of a survey endorsed the idea..." Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, p. 547.

The fact that FDR won third and fourth terms in wartime is hardly proof that Americans would have no objection to his winning a fifth term in peacetime. FDR explicitly made the war the justification for both the third and fourth terms, especially the fourth. And polls showed that a lot of people were willing to make exceptions to the no-third-term tradition on that basis and only on that basis.

Some people seem to think that if Truman could win in 1948, surely FDR could have. But that ignores two things. First, Truman had only served in the White House for three years, and was hardly vulnerable to charges that he was trying to make himself president-for-life. Second, even apart from the fifth term issue, Truman had some advantages over FDR--above all the fact that as Samuel Lubell noted, Truman was able to win a considerable number of Catholic voters who had defected from the Democrats in 1940 and especially 1944. (Lubell argues that Truman even did well among Coughlinites who had voted for Lemke in 1936!)
 
If Eisenhower runs IOTL he would swamp FDR. 20 years is more than enough time for fatigue to set in. Since Ike was was apolitical and was deciding the year before which political party to run on, a seasoned political animal like FDR would have known which way the winds were blowing. What were the odds that FDR would cultivate a relationship with Ike and maybe even offer him the VP in 48' to guarantee a Democratic Dynasty for generations.

Ike only ran in OTL, because Robert Taft was the lead Republican and Ike wanted an internationalist policy. FDR wasn’t an isolationist so I think Ike may not be swayed to run leaving the second stringers to run. Taft would get swamped, Vandenberg would be dead, Dewey would be seen as a loser. Frankly, other than fatigue, a fifth term isn’t impossible to see. Anything after is overkill.
 
While I think FDR could win in '48 if he was healthy, I'm not entirely sure he'd want to run again. I remember hearing on the Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelts that he was actually considering resignation before the next election.

Even so, I think George Washington was correct on his belief that no matter how indispensable a leader might be, he is ultimately replaceable. That would definitely apply to FDR.
 
FDR might win '48 election but only with small marginal. He would be accused as power-hungry modern era Julius Caesar who just want remain in power instead stepping down. Hardly even Democrats would be pleased about FDR who just remain in power even with democratic process. And '52 not any chances. If Korean War and economic troubles in end of 40's still occur FDR is going to lost election if Democratic Party even allows him run again. And probably would lost anyway in '52. Americans just not stand with guy who tries remain in power rest of his life.
 
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