Richard Ballinger was mayor of Seattle, Governor of Washington, and breifly President of the United States. He was known as a corrupt but unifying moderate Progressive. He was the first chairmen of the Equality_League and is often called the first Equality_Republican. His work has been discredited, mostly after his death.
Early Career Ballinger was a sucessful Mayor of Seattle from 1904 to 1906 (as per OTL. His main opponents were Progressive Republicans. To recieve funding, Ballinger decided to put up a front against the rising progressive movement, which many Old-Guard_Republicans including president Elihu_Root despised.
The funding provided by the party helped Ballinger run for governor of Washington. He became one of the very few sucessful traditional Republicans in the west-coast.
Ballinger was dealing in several secret corruption scandals, and scholars often accuse him of having few actually political motivations, at least early in life.
1915 Scandal
After the death of former general and very popular Vice_President Arthur_MacArthur, President Henry_Cabot_Lodge tried to appoint Ballinger as his vice president in order to gain needed west-coast support. Arround this time, many of Ballinger's former corrupt dealings were revealed.
When Cabot-Lodge was assasinated, shortly after Ballinger's attempted appointment, member of both the Progressive_Party and the Democratic_Party agreed that they wanted Ballinger to become president, mostly because they believed that they could easily beat him in the upcomming election. In the end it was agreed that Ballinger was the rightful president.
President Ballinger
Ballinger attempted to appeal to all political spectrums instead of staying true to one political spectrum.
He allied with the Progressives in many economic fights, and also took up an anti-immigration stance. He put in as much an effort as possible to withdraw troops from Mexico.
However instead of just pandering to the Progressives, Ballinger purposefully encouraged mild legislation that made him seem quite moderate when compared to Robert_LaFollete and other Progressives.
He failed to gain any major support for the eleciton of 1916.
Equality League
In 1920 when LaFollete prepared to leave office, many major Progressive leaders met to try to find a way to keep the progressive movement alive, even after the imminant fall of the party throug the Equality_League. It was agreed that Balliger should be the chairmen partly because he was a much more unifying figure then other major Progressive leaders, and appealed to a much wider variety of Americans.
He made an effort to keep the League centrist, and was partically sucessful, though he was not an extremely active leader.
He died on January 12, 1923.