Huey Long was an up-and-coming senator from Louisiana in the Democratic Party if he wasn't assassinated what do you think would have happened do you think he would have had presidential ambitions do you think Roosevelt would have tried to curtail his political career for fear that he might run as an independent or by 1940 decide to go with him to replace his vice president John Nance Garner who was trying to undermine FDR in 1940 to keep him under control.
Huey Long doesn't get hurt during assassination attempt
You're overlooking one key thing: he was from Louisiana. Not a snowball's chance in hell the Democrats would choose a southerner to lead the ticket in those days. That would be handing the election to the GOP on a silver platter.
Consider:
Consider:
- After Wilson (nominally elected from NJ but a southerner by birth and upbringing), the next time a southerner was on a national ticket was Joseph Robinson, Al Smith's running mate in 1928. He was on there purely for balance: a rural Protestant dry to offset Smith's urban Catholic wet stances.
- Cactus Jack Garner, FDR's first VP, was from Texas, but decidedly thought of himself as a westerner.
- After Garner, the next southerner to get on a national ticket was Alabaman John Sparkman, Stevenson's running mate in 1952. Needless to say, that didn't go well.
- Neither did it for the more moderate southerner, Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who was Stevenson's running mate in 1956.
- Lyndon Johnson identified himself as a westerner in 1960.
- Not until Jimmy Carter in 1976--111 years after Appomattox--did a true southerner head a national ticket.
When Long was assassinated he was planning to run in 1936, hoping to split the Democratic vote enabling a conservative anti-New Deal republican to be elected, then to wait the outcome and run in 1940 against him and win.
He would be involved in many scandals and even indicted for tax evasion by Henry Morgenthau but Louisiana was his Kingdom and I think his corrupt machine can shield him from prison, at least for a while: I don't know if he could allow republicans to win in 1936 but he could force the 1940 to the House campaigning successfully on isolationism and then FDR could realize his idea of a national unity government with Republican nominee Wendell Wilkie. Long will scream about a "corrupt bargain" but his time will be finish and he will fade away.
In 2004 Philip Roth will write his "The Plot against America" in which he imagines Long (instead Lindbergh) winning the presidency and pushing America toward Fascism.
He would be involved in many scandals and even indicted for tax evasion by Henry Morgenthau but Louisiana was his Kingdom and I think his corrupt machine can shield him from prison, at least for a while: I don't know if he could allow republicans to win in 1936 but he could force the 1940 to the House campaigning successfully on isolationism and then FDR could realize his idea of a national unity government with Republican nominee Wendell Wilkie. Long will scream about a "corrupt bargain" but his time will be finish and he will fade away.
In 2004 Philip Roth will write his "The Plot against America" in which he imagines Long (instead Lindbergh) winning the presidency and pushing America toward Fascism.
A great figure. Accused FDR of having government employees pay him a part of their salary btu when it was denied and someone pointed out it was Louisiana to pay him part of the salaries (all state employees also had to give him signed resignations, which he could fill the dates in at will), he said it was not against state law. He also threatened the Governor of Mississippi to go over there and campaign against him. I will need to reread a book called Kingfish to remember all these in details, as it was a decade back that I read it. He actually entertained a German diplomat and submarine captain, I think. Not a high ranking one, but acted like it was a state visit.
Thinking of the power of Huey Long though, he is no longer Governor, but a Senator I believe. One who was rude to the governor by shoving him out of the elevator in the state house and who resigned from all Senate committees early on so he didn’t need to do work. He was the richest person in the state and was popular among rural areas but, as was stated above, he wanted to split the vote to get what he expected to b a disastrous Republican administration. He might just embarrass himself in the election and lose a lot of influence outside of Louisiana. If the election does end up with Republicans winning then there is the issue that they might do a good job. And if they do a bad job? Might be Long is seen like many saw Nader.
Thinking of the power of Huey Long though, he is no longer Governor, but a Senator I believe. One who was rude to the governor by shoving him out of the elevator in the state house and who resigned from all Senate committees early on so he didn’t need to do work. He was the richest person in the state and was popular among rural areas but, as was stated above, he wanted to split the vote to get what he expected to b a disastrous Republican administration. He might just embarrass himself in the election and lose a lot of influence outside of Louisiana. If the election does end up with Republicans winning then there is the issue that they might do a good job. And if they do a bad job? Might be Long is seen like many saw Nader.
IMO, the political prospects of Long had he survived are much overrated. To quote an old post of mine:
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Had Long survived, I don't see any realistic chance of his winning the presidency in 1936. What bothered FDR was not the prospect of Long actually winning but of his getting four million votes--about one-tenth of the electorate. That was the figure given by a secret poll commissioned by Jim Farley in early 1935. Of course we now know that even had Long gotten that many votes it couldn't possibly have changed the outcome, FDR having defeated Landon by over eleven million votes. (For that matter, four million votes for Long couldn't even have prevented FDR's victory over Willkie in 1940, even if we make the unrealistic assumption that Long's votes would all come at the expense of FDR.) But FDR had no way of knowing that in 1935; many people expected the 1936 race to be close. And FDR even suspected that Long, despite his rhetoric about redistribution of wealth, was in a secret alliance with the conservative Liberty League to bring about a Republican victory in 1936.
In any event, it is very doubtful that Long could even win those four million votes. In general, third party candidates do worse in actual elections than in polls, especially polls taken several months before the election. (The "novelty factor" wears off and the "it's a wasted vote because he can't win" argument becomes more widely accepted as Election Day approaches.) Furthermore, in this case, there is an additional reason to expect Long's support to decline--the economy improved considerably between the time Farley's poll was taken in 1935 and Election Day of 1936. ("The U.S. recovery from the Great Depression was nearly as exceptional as the Depression itself. After falling 27 percent between 1929 and 1933, real GDP rose by 43 percent between 1933 and 1937. Indeed, the economy grew more rapidly between 1933 and 1937 than it has during any other four year peacetime period since at least 1869.1 The most rapid growth came in 1936, when real GDP grew 13.1 percent and the unemployment rate fell 4.4 percentage points. [emphasis added--DT] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5fe6/9df4347b6492d8ed108401b4078897350bf5.pdf)
Anyway, after Long would lose in 1936, he would be much more likely to end up in jail than in the White House, given the indictments and convictions of so many Long cronies in OTL--some of whom would probably be all too glad to testify against him for lighter sentences. (I know that Long's defenders say that if he had lived, he would have kept them honest. Let's just say that I'm skeptical.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Leche
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Had Long survived, I don't see any realistic chance of his winning the presidency in 1936. What bothered FDR was not the prospect of Long actually winning but of his getting four million votes--about one-tenth of the electorate. That was the figure given by a secret poll commissioned by Jim Farley in early 1935. Of course we now know that even had Long gotten that many votes it couldn't possibly have changed the outcome, FDR having defeated Landon by over eleven million votes. (For that matter, four million votes for Long couldn't even have prevented FDR's victory over Willkie in 1940, even if we make the unrealistic assumption that Long's votes would all come at the expense of FDR.) But FDR had no way of knowing that in 1935; many people expected the 1936 race to be close. And FDR even suspected that Long, despite his rhetoric about redistribution of wealth, was in a secret alliance with the conservative Liberty League to bring about a Republican victory in 1936.
In any event, it is very doubtful that Long could even win those four million votes. In general, third party candidates do worse in actual elections than in polls, especially polls taken several months before the election. (The "novelty factor" wears off and the "it's a wasted vote because he can't win" argument becomes more widely accepted as Election Day approaches.) Furthermore, in this case, there is an additional reason to expect Long's support to decline--the economy improved considerably between the time Farley's poll was taken in 1935 and Election Day of 1936. ("The U.S. recovery from the Great Depression was nearly as exceptional as the Depression itself. After falling 27 percent between 1929 and 1933, real GDP rose by 43 percent between 1933 and 1937. Indeed, the economy grew more rapidly between 1933 and 1937 than it has during any other four year peacetime period since at least 1869.1 The most rapid growth came in 1936, when real GDP grew 13.1 percent and the unemployment rate fell 4.4 percentage points. [emphasis added--DT] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5fe6/9df4347b6492d8ed108401b4078897350bf5.pdf)
Anyway, after Long would lose in 1936, he would be much more likely to end up in jail than in the White House, given the indictments and convictions of so many Long cronies in OTL--some of whom would probably be all too glad to testify against him for lighter sentences. (I know that Long's defenders say that if he had lived, he would have kept them honest. Let's just say that I'm skeptical.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Leche
run as a third-party I honestly think Huey long is smart enough to not do something that stupid the most he might do is run as a Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in 1940. probably losing in a landslide. he is probably re-elected to the Senate though if he is stuck as a senator how do you think he reacts to the World War II
Dt, assuming Fdr is absent or killed in 1932, what about Long in 1936? It's too early for him to be arrested or retiring from politics to not be persecuted further from corruption. Could he win or he's overrated?
Care to evolve? I made a few threads asking about a garner presidency, but everybody ignored them...
What about his stooge governor Allen? There was some talk of him, running with Lemke on the 36 ticket.