1928; 1940 redux
It’s a bit difficult to “reading a book about every presidential election”, as I have scattershot been doing.
Tends to be limiting in picking up whatever it is I’m looking for.
Example: I picked up a sense of the election of 1928 from the vantage point of the Democratic nominee, Alfred Smith, through this biography, read sometime last year. Touched upon as well are traces of 1924, 1932 (running to FDR’s right, although FDR was a little wavering on how he was running) and especially the bitterness that he had in 1936, an act I compare to Zell Miller (except that Zell Miller was on the winning side.)
Where does that leave Herbert Hoover? There was an interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition with the author of a book on the Mississippi River Flood Disaster of 1927. Herbert Hoover’s management of the situation earned him the acclaim that catupulted him to the White House. I did know that (and it is in the High School History Books nobody bothers to read — and, I may as well add, my Junior Year High School teacher skipped the 1920s completely with a cursory “that was a decade of fakery”), but there was something said that I’ve never thought about…
“This started to change the public’s attitude about the role of government.”
That makes sense. Herbert Hoover wasn’t as laissez-fare as his predecessor, Calvin “the business of America is business” Coolidge — who it’s difficult to ascertain how he would have dealt with the onslaught of the Great Depression within his narrow ideology.
This book on Wendell Willkie’s 1940 run for presidency was ultimately a disappointment. Given the evidence the author presents me, I reached conclusions counter to what he believes. If Wendell Willkie’s nomination was enough to give Roosevelt enough rope to help Great Britain withstand the German advance, it’s threading the needle very thinly. Public support was with Roosevelt — even if the strongest opinions were held by the isolationists — and I’m guessing Roosevelt would have judged the political winds with him taking the “responsible” stance.
Further, Willkie was pretty much an elite institution — he was thrown at the Republicans from on high from a relatively small number of influential publishers. (And thus, public debate is thrown into that weird “Skull and Bones” realm that I allude to from time to time.)
In the end, I ponder something: the Republicans in 1940 nominated a Democrat for the presidency — (and not just a Internationalist Republican amongst a party of isolationists). I’m not comfortable with a party rallying around someone they don’t really like. (The party wasn’t in totally bad shape — they did stop the bleeding and battered Roosevelt around in the 1938 midterm elections.) This is why Zell Miller referenced Wendell Willkie in his RNC speech — though I don’t know who the Democrats were supposed to nominate in 2004 to placate Zell. (perhaps Zell?)