Search Results

This chapter identifies twin foreign policy influences on the 1944 election. The first and most straightforward was that the United States was, like many others, a nation at war and that this had a huge impact on the campaign. The second influence was the decision by the Republican contender, Thomas E. Dewey, not to campaign on the extent of Roosevelt administration’s prior knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Dewey’s begrudging discretion strongly encouraged by US Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall, limited the scope of his ability to critique the administration and its prosecution of the war.

This chapter rejects the “white backlash” thesis that attributes the South's embrace of the Republican Party to racial issues, and white working-class abandonment of the Democratic Party over civil rights, taxation, welfare, and affirmative action. Backlash implies that the South's move from the Democrats to the GOP was reactionary, but this chapter argues that angst over civil rights alone did not guarantee a Republican realignment. Instead it stresses the building of Republican organization in the South—resources, field workers, communications infrastructure, and leadership—beginning with the 1944 campaign of Thomas Dewey, and culminating in Herbert Brownell's mastery of such organization on behalf of Dwight Eisenhower that shook the southern GOP out of its “post office politician” mentality. Unlike the presidential campaign of 1968, in which Richard Nixon amassed a “silent majority” around the concept of law and order, this chapter argues, the Republicans' first southern strategy was not based on race.

This chapter discusses the Old Guard and how it continued to undermine Thomas Dewey's control of the Republican Party. The congressional statement of policy had checked Dewey's plans to reshape the GOP as a moderate alternative to the New Deal and forced RNC chairman Herbert Brownell to change his tone or risk appearing out of step with the party he led. With the congressional elections of 1946 looming, the national chairmanship became even more critical for the presidential nomination. Midterm elections were essentially trial runs. Mounting a strong off-year campaign would demonstrate to party elites that a candidate's organization could manage a successful national election drive and make a strong case for their continued control. In April 1946 the Taftites capitalized on a bit of good timing and increased discontent with the Dewey faction to seize the chairmanship of the RNC.

This chapter examines the place of foreign policy issues in national debates on the eve of the 1948 election. It profiles the four candidates (Harry Truman, Thomas Dewey, Henry Wallace, and Strom Thurmond), considers the role of foreign affairs during the campaign and their significance in determining the election result, and analyses the impact of Truman’s victory on US foreign policy. It argues that international affairs and their domestic consequences (anxieties about Communist influence especially) were very important in 1948. During the campaign, Truman effectively exploited his leadership in foreign policy. His resolute position on the Berlin blockade was part of a bipartisan foreign policy. So Dewey could hardly criticize the policy and gained little from its popularity. The main impact of the election was the consolidation of Truman’s policy of containment.

In November 1947, Clark Clifford presented President Harry S. Truman with a memorandum entitled “The Politics of 1948,” a 43-page study that outlined a strategy for the 1948 presidential race. Truman was still considered a caretaker president, and his defeat by a then-unidentified Republican challenger seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Truman, however, would eventually score the greatest political upset of the twentieth century when he defeated Thomas Dewey in November 1948. The Clifford memorandum was incredibly prescient, accurately predicting that Dewey would be the Republican candidate and that Henry Wallace would run as a third-party candidate. In some cases it badly missed the mark, failing to foresee the southern backlash against Truman's civil rights policies. In addition, it is debatable how much the memo influenced Truman, whose political instincts were fairly acute; but in one respect its influence was without question: it bestowed remarkable benefits on its author.

Young Stassen had many of the qualifications that aspiring politicians find so valuable in America’s presidential tradition. Prominent among them was a “log cabin” origin, which William Henry Harrison had used successfully in the 1840 presidential campaign. At the University of Minnesota Law School, the gregarious Stassen made friends who became loyal supporters in his campaigns for the presidency. But first, Stassen would pursue the governorship of his home state. Success came quickly, enhanced by the political environment of 1938. Republican victories at the polls reflected the seeming failures of the New Deal and, in particular, the negative public reaction to President Roosevelt’s attack against the Supreme Court. In this context, the ambitious young Minnesota governor was hailed as the face of a rejuvenated Republican Party, and he made the most of the acclaim.

Americans inherited illuminations and fireworks from the British, adapting them to their democratic culture. At first they played a small role in political life, but were reserved for July Fourth or the opening of major public works. By 1915, however, spectacular illuminations had become a central part of patriotic celebrations, whether Columbus Day, the celebration of Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish fleet, election campaigns, or presidential inaugurations. The intertwining of politics and commercial methods of spectacular lighting culminated during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, in bond drives, in the relighting of the Statue of Liberty, and in peace celebrations in Washington after World War I. In contrast, illuminations were depoliticized in Britain during the nineteenth century. On both sides of the Atlantic, culture shaped technology.