Could TR won the presidency in 1912 as either a Progressive or as the GOP nominee, or is that just ASB?
Is Theodore Roosevelt winning in 1912 ASB?
- Thread starter King Nazar
- Start date
GOP nominee: probably, but him getting the nomination is ASB. Winning as a third-party candidate in any election is pure ASB.
How early can the POD be? Can he have a different political career?
Roosevelt winning in 1912 isn't ASB, ASB is Roosevelt leading a successful Sealion. He would win the popular vote as a Republican, assuming just about all of the people who voted for either him or Taft would vote Republican (although getting him the nomination wouldn't be that easy).
Roosevelt winning in 1912 isn't ASB, ASB is Roosevelt leading a successful Sealion. He would win the popular vote as a Republican, assuming just about all of the people who voted for either him or Taft would vote Republican (although getting him the nomination wouldn't be that easy).
There is the small matter of his death. Of course, zombie Teddy Roosevelt could lead Sealion to victory.
Perhaps if Wilson has a stroke while on the campaign trail, then TR may have performed better by taking away some Wilson voters.
GOP nominee, sure
He'd have won as the GOP nomination, which nearly happened after all.
On the Progressive ticket? That's harder, though it's potentially doable if the Dems nominate a conservative. And in fact in 1912, TR and the Bull Moose strategists were pretty demoralized when Wilson won the nomination, feeling their only chance of winning was against Champ Clark.
Pretty tough, though. Essentially, Democrats could poll no higher than the high 20s, which, alongside Taft winning 25%, could enable Roosevelt to win a big plurality. (That's not totally ASB, seeing as in 1924, Dems did only poll 28%.) And he would need a LARGE margin of victory over the Clark in the popular vote in order to win an Electoral College majority.
He'd have won as the GOP nomination, which nearly happened after all.
On the Progressive ticket? That's harder, though it's potentially doable if the Dems nominate a conservative. And in fact in 1912, TR and the Bull Moose strategists were pretty demoralized when Wilson won the nomination, feeling their only chance of winning was against Champ Clark.
Pretty tough, though. Essentially, Democrats could poll no higher than the high 20s, which, alongside Taft winning 25%, could enable Roosevelt to win a big plurality. (That's not totally ASB, seeing as in 1924, Dems did only poll 28%.) And he would need a LARGE margin of victory over the Clark in the popular vote in order to win an Electoral College majority.
Roosevelt wins Republican nomination closely, but nominates Taft for VP. Woodrow Wilson suffers a debilitating injury, or dies, and Thomas Marshall is to pick up the remains. Roosevelt wins the election.
So, we have TR leading the US in World War I, and if he runs for a 4th Term, he doesn't go on Safari, doesn't get Malaria, and doesn't die in 1919, and he will have another years in his life.
So, Teddy Roosevelt...
POTUS
1901-1909
1913-1921?
So, we have TR leading the US in World War I, and if he runs for a 4th Term, he doesn't go on Safari, doesn't get Malaria, and doesn't die in 1919, and he will have another years in his life.
So, Teddy Roosevelt...
POTUS
1901-1909
1913-1921?
Except, of course, that the internal divisions which caused the Dems to do so badly in 1924 did not yet exist in 1912. Both Prohibition and the Klan were little more than gleams on the horizon.
There was little of substance to choose between Wilson and Clark. The Democrats' situation in 1912 was akin to that of the Republicans in 1920. They might deadlock between the principal personalities, and have to settle for a compromise candidate similar to Harding (Marshall?) but such a one (or indeed Clark or Bryan) would have polled just as well as Wilson did.
If you're desperate to have TR, the only hope I can see is for Taft to die in the Winter of 1911/12 (ie before TR burns his bridges with the party regulars) and have Vice-President Sherman decline an elected term for health reasons. That leaves TR an open road to the nomination. The Reps will still be more divided than the Dems, but not necessarily fatally.
If we would never step down in 1908 he wouls been reelected again in 1912.
TR POTUS from 1901-1921?
TR POTUS from 1901-1921?
As it was he received more in the popular vote and substantially more in the electoral college than the Republican nominee so if he had gotten the nomination in 1912 I can't imagine Teddy losing the 1912 election.
Certainly the nation and world would have been better off without Wilson.
Certainly the nation and world would have been better off without Wilson.
From the Armenian-Polish Genocide: The Republican Convention was held in Chicago from June 18 to June 22. Taft, however, had begun to gather delegates earlier, and the delegates chosen in the primaries were a minority. Taft had the support of the bulk of the party organizations in Southern states. These states had voted solidly Democratic in every presidential election since 1880, and Roosevelt objected that they were given one-quarter of the delegates when they would contribute nothing to a Republican victory (as it turned out, former Confederate states supported Taft by a 5 to 1 margin). When the Convention gathered, Roosevelt was challenging the credentials of nearly half of the delegates. By that time, however, it was too late. The delegates chose Elihu Root — once Roosevelt's top ally — to serve as chairman of the convention. Afterwards, the delegates seated Taft delegations in Alabama, Arizona, and California on tight contests of 597-472, 564-497, and 542-529, respectively. After losing California, where Roosevelt had won the primary, the progressive delegates gave up hope. They voted "present" on most succeeding roll calls. Not since the 1872 election had there been a major schism in the Republican party. Now, with the Democrats holding about 45% of the national vote, any schism would be fatal. Roosevelt's only hope at the convention was to form a "stop-Taft" alliance with LaFollette, but Roosevelt had alienated LaFollette, and the alliance could not form.
I respectfully disagree most vehemently. All it would have take is a simple and entirely plausible POD: have someone other than Taft-most likely Elihu Root-succeed TR in 1908. And that wouldn't be difficult at all: TR accepted Taft's protestations that he belonged in Manila when approached for a Supreme Court position in 1903; reverse that-not difficult-and hey presto, Taft is out of the possible successor's role. Then TR needs to turn his force of personality on Elihu Root to succeed him (Root was ideally his first choice in OTL in '08 anyhow), and do a similar selling job of Root to the nation, especially the more radical west.
Root would probably have accepted the idea of the presidency reluctantly, with the tacit but not publicized condition of one term only. As such, 1912 rolls around, TR and Root meet, and Root calls in his one term marker, in effect drafting TR. With solid backing from an Establishment source (Root) and his already rock-solid popularity among progressives, TR is a shoo-in for the '12 nomination. It's reasonable he then takes someone fully acceptable to all-say, Herbert Hadley of MO-as his running mate, and the GOP is rather solidly united.
There's nothing to undo the Dems' disarray as in OTL. Chances are it'll take the forty-odd ballots to nominate Wilson.
While it's fallacious to predict a TR victory by assuming that the TR and Taft votes in 1912 would sum for TR, it's still a more-than-reasonable bet to presume the national election would have broken out along the same lines, yielding a return to the White House for TR. Thus, someone with enormous prestige and respect is in office at the time of Sarajevo--meaning there just might not be a general war in Europe in 1914.
There is a thought. Perhaps not the most likely turn of events, but it'd be fascinating to explore.