WI: TR Wins the 1912 Republican Nomination

Amadeus

In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt came close to winning the Republican nomination for President but he lost to incumbent President William Howard Taft. What if Roosevelt had dethroned Taft and become the 1912 nominee?

Who would be Roosevelt's running mate? According to biographer Edmund Morris, Missouri Governor Herbert Hadley was a likely choice. Would Roosevelt win the general election? Most would say yes, though others on this site (such as @David T ) have cast doubt on that. Would the conservative Taftites refuse to support TR? The Democratic Convention began three days after the Republican one ended. Would the Democrats still have nominated Wilson? Or would Democratic bosses support Champ Clark instead, hoping to save Wilson for 1916?

If Roosevelt wins, would he run again in 1916? What would he manage to pass in domestic policy? How does he approach WWI? I am inclined to think that he'd attempt to use his international clout to facilitate peace talks in Europe before he considers military action.
 

gaitskellitebevanite

Personally I've always been convinced that Roosevelt would have won had he gained the nomination. He was the most popular and most well known politician in the US, he had been probably the most popular President since the Civil War.
 

Mikestone8

gaitskellitebevanite said:
Personally I've always been convinced that Roosevelt would have won had he gained the nomination. He was the most popular and most well known politician in the US, he had been probably the most popular President since the Civil War.
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Taft would need to die in office (preferably before Nov 1910) and Sherman decide not to run.

That allows TR to run on a much more moderate platform, with no nutty fantasies about recall of judicial decisions or making it easier to amend the Constitution.

Once he gets into the Primary fight with Taft, the GOP cause (with *any* candidate) is hopeless, as any nominee will have alienated half the party.

And was he *really* any more popular than McKinley? When allowance is made for population increase, the Republican popular vote in 1904 was almost unchanged from 1900. TR's Electoral College sweep was due to the exceptional weakness of the Democratic nominee, whose vote was some 1.3 million less than Bryan's had been four years earlier, so that the total turnout crashed from 73.2% to 65.2% .
 

Amadeus

Mikestone8 said:
Taft would need to die in office (preferably before Nov 1910) and Sherman decide not to run.

That allows TR to run on a much more moderate platform, with no nutty fantasies about recall of judicial decisions or making it easier to amend the Constitution.

Once he gets into the Primary fight with Taft, the GOP cause (with *any* candidate) is hopeless, as any nominee will have alienated half the party.

And was he *really* any more popular than McKinley? When allowance is made for population increase, the Republican popular vote in 1904 was almost unchanged from 1900. TR's Electoral College sweep was due to the exceptional weakness of the Democratic nominee, whose vote was some 1.3 million less than Bryan's had been four years earlier, so that the total turnout crashed from 73.2% to 65.2% .
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But would conservative Taftites support a third party candidate or even Wilson over their own party's nominee, or sit out the election in high enough numbers to deprive Roosevelt of victory?
 

Mikestone8

Amadeus said:
But would conservative Taftites support a third party candidate or even Wilson over their own party's nominee, or sit out the election in high enough numbers to deprive Roosevelt of victory?
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Probably most would just abstain, but the voting pattern in California, where Taft was not on the ballot, suggests that there would have been quite a few "Republicans For Wilson". In 1908 Taft took CA by an almost two to one majority, whereas in 1912 TR eked out only a statistical dead heat - a 174 vote plurality out of about 600,000 cast. That's a *big* shift.



McPherson said:
Really. The record suggests that TR could sell Congress on necessities.
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But as of 1915 entry into WW1 was *not* a necessity save in the eyes of a negligible minority – something neither TR nor anyone else (outside Germany) had any power to change.
 

Mark E.

If TR wins the nomination and becomes president again after the 1912 election, he might become involved in WW1 sooner, on the side of the allies, forcing an earlier truce/resolution that does not punish Germany the way it did in OTL. You are re-writing twentieth century history.
 

Mikestone8

Intergallactic said:
9815? Didn’t know we were covering the far future
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Whops! Corrected.

Mark E. said:
If TR wins the nomination and becomes president again after the 1912 election, he might become involved in WW1 sooner, on the side of the allies, forcing an earlier truce/resolution that does not punish Germany the way it did in OTL. You are re-writing twentieth century history.
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The earliest he could do so (assuming he is re-elected in 1916, which he won't be if he expresses any desire to go to war) would be February 1917, after the introduction of USW. Without the spectacle of *American* (not foreign) ships going down, neither Congress nor the public will want to know.

marktaha said:
Remember the Lusitania!
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The Lusitania wasn't an American ship. And as many Americans (including Vice-President Marshall) noted at the time, anyone who chose to sail on a British vessel was in effect standing on British soil, and so had to accept a degree of risk given that GB was at war. People were shocked and saddened by what had happened, but support for war over it was still virtually nonexistent and there's no reason why any amount of fulminating from the White House should have altered this.

Also, note TR's letter to George W Perkins of April 6, 1916 -

"If I had been President when Bernstorff issued his warning to Americans not to go on the Lusitania, I would have promptly notified him that if any accident happened to the Lusitania, I would take possession of the German interned ships. It is my deliberate judgement that this, so far from inviting hostilities, would have prevented all the trouble we have had for the last year with Germany. I think we would have been far more likely under my plan of action to avoid war than under Mr. Wilson's. - - - I believe that we would be far safer from danger of war if I were President than we are now."
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TR was not arguing *for* war, but that a tougher line with Germany could *prevent* it.
 
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ejpsan

I think that the big difference in TR becoming President in 1912 is that he would have started to expand and modernize the military after war broke out in Europe in 1914 and to sell it as a way of deterrence against the aggression of the waring nations.
 

David T

ejpsan said:
I think that the big difference in TR becoming President in 1912 is that he would have started to expand and modernize the military after war broke out in Europe in 1914 and to sell it as a way of deterrence against the aggression of the waring nations.
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Spending on the military requires the approval of Congress. Congress is not automatically going to go along with TR, especially if the Democrats make significant gains in the 1914 election (as the party not controlling the White House usually does in midterm elections). In OTL, many Democrats objected even to Wilson's limited preparedness program as likely to increase the risk the US would get into the War.
 

David T

Mikestone8 said:
Probably most would just abstain, but the voting pattern in California, where Taft was not on the ballot, suggests that there would have been quite a few "Republicans For Wilson". In 1908 Taft took CA by an almost two to one majority, whereas in 1912 TR eked out only a statistical dead heat - a 174 vote plurality out of about 600,000 cast. That's a *big* shift.
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OTOH, let's remember two differences between OTL and a "TR wins the GOP nomination" scenario.

(1) In OTL, TR and Taft were bitterly denouncing each other up to Election Day. I would expect TR, if he won the GOP nomination, to stop attacking Taft and shift his fire to Wilson. He might do so in large part on issues that would have some appeal to conservative Republicans--the Democrats will ruin the economy with free trade, it is unrealistic to seek to break up trusts (rather than regulate them) etc. He might also make overtures to Taftite bosses, assuring them that they would get a share of patronage if he was elected. After all, he had gotten the support of far-from-saintly bosses like William Flinn of Pittsburgh hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Flinn against Taft. (Maybe they are skeptical of his promises but they know if WIlson is elected they will get no federal patronage.) There are of course limits beyond which TR could not go in reconciling Taftites and soft-pedaling the radicalism he had displayed in the primaries. If he goes too far he looks cynical, and may lose some of his OTL support to Wilson or even Debs. But maybe not as much as we think--a lot of his admirers voted for his as cultists, not out of belief in his radicalism. Taft for his part would probably be more likely to sulk than to attack TR openly, which would look like disloyalty to the party.

Moreover, some of the views he expressed even in the primaries were not as radical as they were sometimes portrayed, and it would not be backtracking for him to emphasize how they had been misinterpreted. For example, he specifically said that "recall of judicial decisions" should not apply to the US Supreme Court. He only argued that state court decisions declaring state laws inconsistent with the state constitution should be subject to review by the people of the state in the next election; in other words, he was simply proposing a new way to amend state constitutions.

(2) I am sure a lot of California Taftites in OTL were angry that Hiram Johnson had kept Taft, who was after all still a candidate, off the ballot. I think there would be less resentment of the fact that they couldn't vote for Taft simply because he lost the national GOP nomination and was no longer a candidate.

Once again, undoubtedly some Taftites will be inconsolably bitter. That's why I don't agree with those who say TR would win easily in a two-way race with Wilson. But unlike the unpopular Taft, I think he has at least the possibility of winning one-on-one against Wilson.
 

Mikestone8

David T said:
Once again, undoubtedly some Taftites will be inconsolably bitter. That's why I don't agree with those who say TR would win easily in a two-way race with Wilson. But unlike the unpopular Taft, I think he has at least the possibility of winning one-on-one against Wilson.
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Pretty much agreed. He could conceivably win, but it would probably be "1916 in reverse" rather than another 1904.

In these circs, would the Democrats be likely to hold on to the HoR? They had piled up a hefty majority in 1910.
 

Amadeus

David T said:
OTOH, let's remember two differences between OTL and a "TR wins the GOP nomination" scenario.

(1) In OTL, TR and Taft were bitterly denouncing each other up to Election Day. I would expect TR, if he won the GOP nomination, to stop attacking Taft and shift his fire to Wilson. He might do so in large part on issues that would have some appeal to conservative Republicans--the Democrats will ruin the economy with free trade, it is unrealistic to seek to break up trusts (rather than regulate them) etc. He might also make overtures to Taftite bosses, assuring them that they would get a share of patronage if he was elected. After all, he had gotten the support of far-from-saintly bosses like William Flinn of Pittsburgh hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Flinn against Taft. (Maybe they are skeptical of his promises but they know if WIlson is elected they will get no federal patronage.) There are of course limits beyond which TR could not go in reconciling Taftites and soft-pedaling the radicalism he had displayed in the primaries. If he goes too far he looks cynical, and may lose some of his OTL support to Wilson or even Debs. But maybe not as much as we think--a lot of his admirers voted for his as cultists, not out of belief in his radicalism. Taft for his part would probably be more likely to sulk than to attack TR openly, which would look like disloyalty to the party.

Moreover, some of the views he expressed even in the primaries were not as radical as they were sometimes portrayed, and it would not be backtracking for him to emphasize how they had been misinterpreted. For example, he specifically said that "recall of judicial decisions" should not apply to the US Supreme Court. He only argued that state court decisions declaring state laws inconsistent with the state constitution should be subject to review by the people of the state in the next election; in other words, he was simply proposing a new way to amend state constitutions.

(2) I am sure a lot of California Taftites in OTL were angry that Hiram Johnson had kept Taft, who was after all still a candidate, off the ballot. I think there would be less resentment of the fact that they couldn't vote for Taft simply because he lost the national GOP nomination and was no longer a candidate.

Once again, undoubtedly some Taftites will be inconsolably bitter. That's why I don't agree with those who say TR would win easily in a two-way race with Wilson. But unlike the unpopular Taft, I think he has at least the possibility of winning one-on-one against Wilson.
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Interesting analysis. Though if the trust-busting President suddenly starts denouncing trust busting as unrealistic, voters wouldn't respond to that well and that would give Wilson (or Clark if he is nominated instead) an opening.
 
RMcD94

RMcD94

How would any of the potential different Presidents change the relationship with Japan and China?

Racism in the west coast was at fever pitch
 
McPherson

McPherson

Banned
Mikestone8 said:
Not a problem in 1915. All loans were secured until end 1916 when the collateral started to run out.
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What if it looks like the Entente is about to lose? 1916-1917 is kind of bad in that perception.

RMcD94 said:
How would any of the potential different Presidents change the relationship with Japan and China?

Racism in the west coast was at fever pitch
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Roosevelt was a racist. But he had to deal with the problem, pragmatically, as did Taft. If past is prologue, then he would have negotiated his way past it again as he did the first time.,
 
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