WI: 1920 Cox Victory

[Evilman2011]

Ok so this is practically impossible, but I have a few things that I am writing about that could have possibly changed the outcome.

1. both Harding's affairs are revealed and confirmed in late September
2. Woodrow Wilson dies the week before the election from another stroke
3. Palmer commits voter fraud in both Indiana and Ohio trying to help push Cox over the top

 

[Odinson]

Despite being a Democrat and a supporter of Wilson, if Cox somehow won the election, this does not necessarily guarantee an American entry into the League of Nations.
Besides the fact it might not get approved by the senate anyway, Cox only reluctantly supported Wilson's LoN. If he beats Harding, I don't think he would push the issue too hard and he would move onto other things. His first term, if he won again in '24, he would probably sign an act to assist those suffering from unemployment during the 1920/21 depression.

As for who he would nominate to replace Chief Justice White, maybe James F. Byrnes?

 

[Evilman2011]

Despite being a Democrat and a supporter of Wilson, if Cox somehow won the election, this does not necessarily guarantee an American entry into the League of Nations.
Besides the fact it might not get approved by the senate anyway, Cox only reluctantly supported Wilson's LoN. If he beats Harding, I don't think he would push the issue too hard and he would move onto other things. His first term, if he won again in '24, he would probably sign an act to assist those suffering from unemployment during the 1920/21 depression.

As for who he would nominate to replace Chief Justice White, maybe James F. Byrnes?

In my timeline I will probably go with someone like Byrnes, but it was known that Cox was a progressive of sorts. I have made some wikiboxes for Cox's cabinet, which is:

The Cabinet of President James M. Cox (D-OH)
Vice President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY)
Secretary of State: John F. Shafroth (D-CO)
Secretary of Treasury: J. Swager Sherley (D-KY)
Secretary of War: Henry L. Stimson (R-NY)
Attorney General: Charles Allen Culberson (D-TX)
Postmaster General: James Farley (D-NY)
Secretary of Navy: Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (R-NY)
Secretary of the Interior: Gilbert M. Hitchcock (D-NE)
Secretary of Agriculture: Henry Cantwell Wallace (FL-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover (R-IA)
Secretary of Labor: Rueben G. Soderstrom (I-IL)

 

[The Lethargic Lett]

Grover Cleveland was caught having a possibly rape-based secret affair lovechild in 1884 in the middle of the election and it didn't particularly hurt his campaign. Scandalous affairs were not good for a candidate, but since at the time it would have been a 'he-said she-said,' Harding probably would've gotten through mostly unscathed.

The only chance Cox would have of winning in 1920 is if the Republicans are the incumbent party and they get blamed for all of the problems of Wilson's second term.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

Cox gets elected President with a POD that he joins the Republican Party when he starts his political career, and he is the GOP nominee in 1920 instead of Harding.

For a Democrat to win, you have to keep the USA out of World War I, which is doable, but you may need no Wilson administration or at least no Wilson second term. The Republicans were the dominant party in that era, and after two terms of a Democratic administration, voter fatigue would have set in.

 

[Odinson]

For a Democrat to win, you have to keep the USA out of World War I, which is doable, but you may need no Wilson administration or at least no Wilson second term. The Republicans were the dominant party in that era, and after two terms of a Democratic administration, voter fatigue would have set in.

Or have a Republican with a less popular message than Harding run, as hard as that is. Harding's message of a return to normalcy was well received. Maybe a more interventionist republican, or more likely, a republican that was formerly more intervention oriented is nominated in 1920?

 

[Bomster]

Grover Cleveland was caught having a possibly raped-based secret affair lovechild in 1884 in the middle of the election and it didn't particularly hurt his campaign. Scandalous affairs were not good for a candidate, but since at the time it would have been a 'he-said she-said,' Harding probably would've gotten through mostly unscathed.

The only chance Cox would have of winning in 1920 is if the Republicans are the incumbent party and they get blamed for all of the problems of Wilson's second term.

Easy. Have Wilson lose in 1916.

 

[SandroPertini98]

Harding had a relationship with Carrie Fulton Philllips, a married woman noted for her pro-German stances (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Fulton_Phillips). She tried to blackmail him to vote against Declaration of War against Germany but failed; then she successfully blackmailed the GOP to avoid a major scandal during the 1920 campaign.
But let suppose the order is switch: she is successful in 1917 and Harding votes against Declaration of War, then she tries again in 1920 but this time Harding, tired to be exploited, refuses. At opposite then Nan Britton (the other famous Harding's lover with which he fathered a daughter), Fulton Phillips had keep hundreds of Harding's love letters as prove of their relationship.
When the multiple adulterous affairs emerge Harding's reputation is seriously damaged (the Cleveland example doesn't stand: in 1884 the accusation were made by Republicans, not by the woman, he could easily counterattack them as partisan allegations and wins easily) but when Carrie's role in Harding's Declaration of War vote is made public, an almost treasonous act, he is painted as a German spy and loses the election to Cox by a wide margin.

 

[Mikestone8]

when Carrie's role in Harding's Declaration of War vote is made public, an almost treasonous act, he is painted as a German spy and loses the election to Cox by a wide margin.

Or the Republicans drop Harding and switch to Coolidge of Knox - who then probably wins by much the same margin as OTL.

As others have noted the only realistic way the Dems can win in 1920 is by losing in 1916.

 

[SandroPertini98]

Or the Republicans drop Harding and switch to Coolidge of Knox - who then probably wins by much the same margin as OTL.

As others have noted the only realistic way the Dems can win in 1920 is by losing in 1916.

Not if it happens too late, as in October.

 

[manav95]

Grover Cleveland was caught having a possibly raped-based secret affair lovechild in 1884 in the middle of the election and it didn't particularly hurt his campaign. Scandalous affairs were not good for a candidate, but since at the time it would have been a 'he-said she-said,' Harding probably would've gotten through mostly unscathed.

The only chance Cox would have of winning in 1920 is if the Republicans are the incumbent party and they get blamed for all of the problems of Wilson's second term.

It was scandalous but Grover Cleveland admitted to the truth that he did have sex with that woman and paid support for the child.

 

[Mikestone8]

Not if it happens too late, as in October.

By which time 90% of voters would have already made up their minds. And unless the lady had something in writing, Harding could simply insist that he had followed his conscience and that anything his mistress said had only confirmed a choice he had already made = and 90% of those who had decided to vote for him would have chosen to believe him. He might have lost Tennessee but probably not much else would have changed.

Of course this all begs the question of whether a man who voted against war in 1917 would have got the nomination in the first place. With the election in the
bag, they'd probably have gone for someone less controversial.

 

[Comte de Geneve]

1. In 1920 the media and communication infrastructure to push such a revelation to the voting public in general did not exist.
2.

 

[Comte de Geneve]

2. Wilson dying in the last week of the campaign has no impac.
3. ASB
QED: Cox has no path to victory

 

[Odinson]

So, the general consensus is that in order for Cox to win in 1920, Hughes has to win in 1916 because what ever party leads the United States into World War I will become unpopular in the next election?

 

[SandroPertini98]

By which time 90% of voters would have already made up their minds. And unless the lady had something in writing, Harding could simply insist that he had followed his conscience and that anything his mistress said had only confirmed a choice he had already made = and 90% of those who had decided to vote for him would have chosen to believe him. He might have lost Tennessee but probably not much else would have changed.

Of course this all begs the question of whether a man who voted against war in 1917 would have got the nomination in the first place. With the election in the
bag, they'd probably have gone for someone less controversial.

But Fulton Philipps had hundreds Harding's love letters, enough to convince and make indignant hundreds of thousands of good family men and women who all had their right to vote. The GOP will spent

I don't know: the First World War made Wilson incredibly unpopular, voting against it could be so damaging for an opposition candidate?

 

[Mikestone8]

But Fulton Philpps had hundreds Harding's love letters, enough to convince and make indignant hundreds of thousands of good family men and women who all had their right to vote. The GOP will spent

No, just a bit embarrassed. The voters were so cheesed off with the Wilson Administration and all its works that no amount of scandal could have saved Cox.

I don't know: the First World War made Wilson incredibly unpopular, voting against it could be so damaging for an opposition candidate?

Quite. Maybe if Harding had raped a little girl at high noon on the steps of the Capitol, before an audience of 100 reporters and photographers - but short of that forget it.

 

[Mikestone8]

So, the general consensus is that in order for Cox to win in 1920, Hughes has to win in 1916 because what ever party leads the United States into World War I will become unpopular in the next election?

Yes - unless just *possibly* if the US stays out of WW1.

Journalist Charles Willis Thompson observed that in 1920 the GOP could have won w/o nominating any candidate at all. They could have just put up slates of *unpledged* Electors, and the people would have voted for these and let them choose any POTUS they wanted - just so long as it wasn't Wilson or anyone associated with him. That's how unpopular the Dems were.

 

[Evilman2011]

Despite being a Democrat and a supporter of Wilson, if Cox somehow won the election, this does not necessarily guarantee an American entry into the League of Nations.
Besides the fact it might not get approved by the senate anyway, Cox only reluctantly supported Wilson's LoN. If he beats Harding, I don't think he would push the issue too hard and he would move onto other things. His first term, if he won again in '24, he would probably sign an act to assist those suffering from unemployment during the 1920/21 depression.

As for who he would nominate to replace Chief Justice White, maybe James F. Byrnes?

On the issue of Chief Justice White's replacement, I am having Cox nominate Roscoe Pound who OTL was Dean of Harvard Law from 1916-36, Dean of Nebraska Law from 1908-1916, and he is one of the most cited Legal Scholars of the 1900's

 

[Odinson]

On the issue of Chief Justice White's replacement, I am having Cox nominate Roscoe Pound who OTL was Dean of Harvard Law from 1916-36, Dean of Nebraska Law from 1908-1916, and he is one of the most cited Legal Scholars of the 1900's

That would be a more likely candidate to be selected by a progressive