WI: President Taft?

What if Senator Robert Taft won the Republican nomination in 1952, and went on to be elected president?
 
Well, he would only be president for a few months, since he died in July of 1953, of cancer I think. So really, we need to figure out who would have been his running mate.
 

Cook

Banned
So you’d have had two Tafts, two Roosevelts, two Adams, two Johnsons and two Bushes. Did I miss any others?

I’m getting that ‘ol déjà vu feeling all over again Scooby!
:eek:
 
So you’d have had two Tafts, two Roosevelts, two Adams, two Johnsons and two Bushes. Did I miss any others?

I’m getting that ‘ol déjà vu feeling all over again Scooby!
:eek:
Wm H & Benjamin Harrison

Edit: 2 numbered presidents were Grover Cleveland, but it was the same guy<g>
 
It would likely be Tricky Dick. Ike partisans liked his internationalism, Taft partisans liked his unassailable anti-Communist credentials. So you have a President Nixon in 1953. :D
 
Presumably Taft does this by winning over some swing bloc or other at the convention, so he's not going to have his hands free when choosing his number two. It's almost certainly going to have to be someone from the liberal/party establishment to balance things out - probably Stassen or Warren. (again)
 
Oh, and you'd better keep Truman in the race, because Taft was both politically long in the tooth and by all accounts had the force of personality of a lump of coal. Taft-Stevenson would not, to put it mildly, be notable for it's thrills and spills and when it inevitably comes down to the issues I'm not sure how robust Taft would be.
 
No guarantee that he'd actually have been picked, but the CW in '52 was that MacArthur would have been Taft's VP. He was a strong Taft supporter and it was thought that putting MacArthur on the ticket would allow him to overcome Eisenhower's support.
 
Given how MacArthur's health began to falter towards the end of the 1950s, Taft's cancer, and the fact that MacArthur would be 73 years old in 1953, I find that very disturbing. Personally, I believe Nixon would be a better choice for VP given his connections in both camps.
 
Would Taft have turned against the New Deal? IOTL, it was Ike's implicit acceptance of it that turned it into a political holy cow, to the point where even Reagan couldn't touch most of the core programs. Taft was, IIRC, extremely conservative on this front, so it's possible his administration could come out against at least parts of it.

What would be the result?
 
Bob Taft was always against the New Deal, except on housing and federal aid to education. If Nixon is selected as VP and becomes POTUS late in 1953, I suspect he'll try to offload or privatize the smaller parts while keeping the heavyweights like Social Security.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Bob Taft was always against the New Deal, except on housing and federal aid to education. If Nixon is selected as VP and becomes POTUS late in 1953, I suspect he'll try to offload or privatize the smaller parts while keeping the heavyweights like Social Security.

Actually, Taft was eventually won over to the cause of Social Security. He only railed against it during the Depression. When he saw that it actually worked, he got on board. That being said, I very much doubt we'll see the HEW get set up, at least under Ol' Bob.

Taft was also a big proponent of a strong military (part of his isolationism), so expect preparations for a military expansion to be laid down and probably put into effect by his successor.

Foreign affairs are going to be weird under him, especially given his hostility to NATO and the UN. He might begin making overtures to pull the US out of these, but he probably won't succeed and any headway he does make will most likely be undone by his successor, even if its MacArthur, especially if its Nixon.

Taft's also going to be looking to end the Korean War ASAP, perhaps by sending a war hero like Ike over there to take a look at the situation. I was going to include something like that in Tail-Gunner, but I didn't want people to think I was copying the ever-brilliant A World of Laughter, A World of Tears :p

Personally, I think a Taft presidency starting in 1948 (or better yet, 1940 :eek:!!!) would be more interesting since he actually gets to serve a full term, deal with the post-war recession, the housing and labor crises, and Korea hasn't started yet.
 
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bguy

Donor
Well, he would only be president for a few months, since he died in July of 1953, of cancer I think. So really, we need to figure out who would have been his running mate.

I seem to recall that the James Patterson biography of Taft, "Mr. Republican" implies that Taft would have gone with Senator William Knowland from California. Such a choice seems plausible.

Knowland is similar to Nixon in a lot of ways, a young Senator from California with a reputation for being a strong anti-Communist. Knowland was also a political ally of Earl Warren, so selecting him could help Taft win over some moderate Republicans. (Knowland is actually deeply conservative, probably more so than Taft even, but I don't think his conservatism was that well known in 1952.)

Knowland was deeply hostile to Communist China. If Taft doesn't end the Korean War before he dies, Knowland might very well escalate the fighting and try to bring in the Nationalist Chinese.

He will likely still appoint Earl Warren as Chief Justice and otherwise follow a domestic policy similar to Eisenhower, though he will likely support the Bricker Amendment, make a stronger push for civil rights than Ike did and be more hostile to labor unions.
 
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