Chapter LXI: Hope and Hubris.
Chapter LXI: Hope and Hubris.
The 1936 US convention season is mainly remembered for seeing the re-emergence of a meaningful third party candidate for the race to the White House, meaningful in the sense of converting popular support into electoral college votes. Whereas previous meaningful candidates had come from Republican splits, the Progressive of Theodore Roosevelt and later Robert La Follette, in 1936 it would be the turn of the Democrat Party to split. The decision to drop the unpopular John Nance Garner from their ticket and pick a fresh, more radical candidate, prompted Garner his partners in the New York Tammany Hall political machine to break from the party in an attempt to keep hold of office. Garner's new party, the States' Rights Democratic Party, was initially pleased to welcome such a 'big name' into the fold, but soon found it had got more than it bargained for, the Tammany Hall operation ousting the original committee and re-orientating the organisation. Originally launched as a pro-segregation party, State's Rights being little more than a polite euphemism, the party was hollowed out and used as a short cut by Garner, providing him with the basis of a Southern political organisation to match the Tammany Hall controlled political machines of the Northern states.
With the party solidly under the control of the master manipulators of Tammany Hall it was a simple matter to ensure that Garner gained the nomination, along with his freshly selected running mate George White. White was another ex-Democrat, a former chair of the Democratic National Convention and contender for the Presidential nomination in 1932 he had served as Governor of Ohio since 1931 but lost the nomination after falling foul of personal politics in his local party. He was thus more than willing to join Garner's platform and combine a bid for power with a chance for revenge, bringing with him, Garner hoped, the electoral college votes of Ohio and a better shot at the neighbouring states. The Garner-White platform was simplicity itself, interpreting the party's name literally it called for a smaller Federal Government and the return of power, control and money to state level. This quite cunningly allowed Garner to be all things to all men, by simply arguing that the solutions needed in one state were different from those needed in others. Thus at one rally he could call for government investment and increased spending, while at the next, in a different state, he could demand the complete opposite, all while technically remaining completely consistent. On foreign policy, as with all the candidates to a greater or lesser degree, the message was isolationist and keeping America out of overseas conflict. He did strike out on defence however when he advocated cautious re-armament because 'A strong America is a safe America'. This translated into a promise of more fighters and new navy ships, all to be constructed by firms that, conveniently, were based in, or had manufacturing plants in, key battleground states such as California. Finally, in yet another clean break from the Smith Presidency, Garner pledged to repeal the 18th Amendment and return the choice on prohibition to the state level. The key question for Garner was whether his populist reinvention would strike a chord with an electorate disillusioned with Washington or if the public would blame him as much as President Smith for the failures of the Federal Government in the first place.
Moving onto the Democrats, Garner's defection understandably caused massive consternation. While the party may not have wanted Garner as a candidate they certainly hadn't intended to force him out and cause a split in the party. Instead the plan had been to use the assassination of President Smith to respectfully, but firmly, blame everything on the Smith-Garner presidency and promote two brand new, un-tainted, candidates. While still something of a long shot, the previous mid-term elections had seen the Democrats lose controls of both houses of Congress, it was certainly a far brighter prospect than trying to get the unpopular Smith re-elected. Garner's candidacy however was expected to split the Democrat vote, certainly it was believed he would attract far more Democrats than Republicans, and so transformed a tough, but winnable, fight into forgone conclusion. Naturally this thinned the field somewhat, many candidates who had been prepared to take a chance decided they did not wanting to 'waste' a shot at the White House in such unfavourable circumstances. When the pre-convention favourite, the Louisiana senator Huey Long, withdrew to support his close ally John Overton, it was widely interpreted as the Long faction giving up the election as lost and waiting until 1940 for his run. This left the field wide open, many other candidates pulling out or backing proxies of their own, until finally, after several rounds of voting (and doubtless even more rounds of back room talks) the convention nominated party veteran Cordell Hull as Presidential candidate with the former Alben Barkley his running mate.
Alben Barkley, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. Renowned for his campaigning skills, once giving 16 separate barn-storming stump speeches in a single day, he had earned himself the nickname 'Iron Man' for his stamina on the campaign trail. He would need all those skills as he criss-crossed the country trying to give the ticket a fighting chance.
Though many saw Hull as a default candidate, or worse a sacrificial lamb entered just so the Democrats were in the race, the man himself was determined to make a fight of it. With the party in such disarray, and the majority not expecting him to win anyway, Hull had a free hand to determine his platform on most issues, something he took full advantage of to craft a radical platform. He did not have complete freedom however, the Southern party elders, all the more influential after so many Northern big city bosses defected with Garner, issued several red lines he could not cross, most notably on Prohibition where Hull was forced to remain 'Dry'. On foreign policy Hull managed to push the platform away from isolationism, pushing for greater involvement in world affairs, though he was always careful to publicly support the Neutrality Acts for fear of alienating too many voters. This translated into championing a 'Good Friend' policy for Latin America and a promise of greater co-operation with other nations to lower tariffs and revive international trade, thus hopefully reviving the economy. Domestically Hull proposed a radical programme built on a vast expansion of the federal government; Agricultural programmes and controls to revive the rural economy and raise farm prices, a National Industry Board to 'guide' an industrial recovery through controls and standards and, controversially, taking the country off the Gold Standard and letting the dollar float. Hull's hope was that this radical programme and shear hard graft on the campaign trail, particularly from his running mate 'Iron Man' Barkley, could overcome the many obstacles the ticket faced.
Finally we turn to the Republicans, a party more concerned with what to do once in office than how to achieve it. This was not just arrogance, though the implosion of the Democrats left many feeling the election was theirs to lose, but a genuine ideological problem for much of the conservative wing of the party. Simply put the low spending, fiscally conservative policies of President Smith had not worked, as these were the default policy approaches for many Republicans this presented something of a problem. While the die-hards argued they could cut spending still further (the corrupt Delaware Valley Authority being a favourite target) most delegates feared this was just doing the wrong the thing but even harder, that the problem wasn't the implementation but the concept. Thus it was that the progressives Alf Landon and William Borah emerged as leading candidates, with Landon eventually triumphing as the conservative wing refused to back the outspoken and unpredictable Borah. For Vice-President the long time favourite, newspaper magnet Frank Knox, was rejected as the convention didn't want, or feel they politically needed, two progressive on the ticket. Instead they picked the Michigan senator Arthur Vandenberg who, though intended as a moderating influence on Landon, was not without reforming instincts or a desire for government action.
Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican Vice Presidential pick. His priorities were fiscal responsibility through a balanced budget, isolationism and states' rights. While seemingly at odds with Landon's platform of increased spending on assistance schemes, a bigger role for the federal government in combating the depression and better foreign relations, that was the point of his selection. Vandenberg was picked to show the conservative right of the party agreed with the platform, but also to keep an eye on Landon and hopefully stop him from going too far.
While Landon's domestic platform remained fiscally conservative, the idea of a balanced budget was still a strong one, it also had a strong social element and was in favour of expanding the role of the federal government. The main domestic dividing line with the Democrats was on the issue of 'national economic planning', Hull being in favour of the government directing the economy and guiding it out of recession while Landon felt that such policies would reduce economic freedom, which he believed went hand in hand with personal liberty. That is not to say the platform was a pro-business blank cheque, there was support for a minimum wage to stop the "chase to the bottom" deflationary cycle, a more relaxed stance on trade union laws and support for federally managed public works and rural electrification (though explicitly not the notorious DVA or any scheme like it). Landon described the difference between the two main parties as the difference between a helping hand and a guiding hand; the former supported you if you needed help, while the latter was more interested in telling you what to do regardless. While somewhat unfair on Hull, though not completely without merit, this would be a contrast the Republicans would push for the entire campaign.
On foreign policy the tensions between the interventionist Landon and the isolationist Vandenberg were palpable at times, in the end though the convention decided on an moderate isolationist position, avoiding both the severe 'Total Neutrality' of Vandenberg and the moderate interventionist 'Moral Neutrality' of Landon. This position, combined with need to balance the budget while increasing government social and economic spending, pushed re-armament of the agenda and to the bottom of the priority list. There was however a commitment to keep defence spending at a tick-over level, to keep key defence firms in business and stop the country losing their specialist skills and knowledge. Finally on prohibition the convention went 'wet', bowing to the considerable public opposition and putting a commitment to make the matter a state level choice on the platform. In summary the Landon-Vandenberg ticket was something of a compromise for the Republicans and was constructed more with an eye on what to do in office that how to gain it. As the candidates and delegates left the convention hall for the campaign trail they would find out if such thinking was sensible planning or merely foolish hubris.
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OK so there are you three choices so get voting. You can vote for a candidate/party in general or you can cast your vote for a candidate in a specific state (which will help me fill out the map
).This election will operate on 'Florida Rules', so remember; vote early, vote often but only once a day. In the event the election is close the judges decision is final and may bear no resemblance to the actual popular vote tally.
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