William Borah as the Republican nominee, 1936

While William Borah, the Senator from Idaho with a very progressive reputation, probably never had a strong chance to win the GOP presidential nomination in 1936, due to the opposition of party bosses, he did do quite well during the primary season, such as it was back in the day. So, let's wave our hands and say Borah wins the Republican nomination. How does the general election go?

Just thought it'd be interesting to see a 1936 election with an explicitly progressive Republican.
 
Not much different from OTL. Landon had a fairly progressive record, too--indeed, he was a Bull Mooser in 1912, when Borah supported Taft out of party loyalty. The issue was FDR and his record, not who the Republicans nominated.
 
. . . How does the general election go? . . .
Maybe he tries to outflank FDR on the left, just in his own way.

For example maybe Bill says, Instead of having a handful of major companies, maybe we succeed in regulating them well, maybe we don't, why don't we break this thing up and have competition work like it's supposed to?

Still faces an uphill battle given that FDR had a largely successful first term. But if Bill does better than expected, maybe sets the tone for future Republican candidates.
 
Maybe he tries to outflank FDR on the left, just in his own way.

For example maybe Bill says, Instead of having a handful of major companies, maybe we succeed in regulating them well, maybe we don't, why don't we break this thing up and have competition work like it's supposed to?

Still faces an uphill battle given that FDR had a largely successful first term. But if Bill does better than expected, maybe sets the tone for future Republican candidates.

In the mid-1930's Borah's particular kind of progressivism--with its emphasis on trust-busting and suspicion of government--was probably not what the electorate wanted; it seemed a bit old-fashioned. The public was more concerned with economic security. And given that "The most rapid growth came in 1936, when real GDP grew 13.1 percent and the unemployment rate fell 4.4 percentage points" https://web.archive.org/web/2016062...edu/economics/tow/papers/hausman-fall2012.pdf and given the public's memories of what had happened during the last Republican administration, they were pretty sure to find the Democrats the party to deliver it, regardless of who the Republicans nominated.

Another point: Borah would be a very bad candidate if the Republicans were looking to salvage something of their traditional hold on the African American vote. His opposition to the anti-lynching bill http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...le/borah-charges-ohio-opponents-with-trickery (which he called "as unconstitutional as the AAA and NRA") would hurt him in northern industrial states without helping him in any real way in the South, which was still solidly Democratic. (I say "any real way" because it might give him marginally more popular votes than Landon got in the South, but would be most unlikely to change any southern state's electoral votes.)
 
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Roosevelt had massive support among the working class due to what basically amounts to vote buying in the form of New Deal programs, so while the Republicans had extensive support in both the middle and upper classes, the sheer size of Roosevelt's support base meant he was almost unstoppable unless something could be done to chip away at that monolith.

In truth, his victory was not as inevitable as many today assume, but as things are? I don't see Mr. Borah winning.
 
. . . Borah's particular kind of progressivism--with its emphasis on trust-busting and suspicion of government--was probably not what the electorate wanted; it seemed a bit old-fashioned. The public was more concerned with economic security. . .
Probably a key distinction, and a good example of different ways of going about things.

And the interesting thing is, at least in the banking industry, people believed we had both! And maybe through the (?) '50s and 60s (?) we largely did have both effective regulation and a number of different banks, including enough separate 'big enough' sized players. I remember the story that a banker he had dealt with a lot told Henry Kaiser that he would be happy to lend money for any project Henry had in mind, except for Kaiser Motors. But I bet if Henry had shopped around, he could have found one or two more major loans. Probably to some extent, he accepted the judgment of this banker he had worked with.
 
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