What was the deal with Martin Nelson, the indie candidate in 1942?
HHH, a master, who knew? I thought he was just your average machine democrat. Sounds like he built the machine.
It took North Dakota democrats 12 years to copy MN with the NPL-rat merger. I’m surprised it took either state so long.
From what I gathered, Nelson (at the time of his earlier runs) was considered part of the “Old Guard” in MN GOP politics. He had been the Republican standard bearer for Governor in the dark days of the ‘30s, but lost twice to the successful Farmer-Laborite candidate.
By 1938, on his 3rd run, he felt that he would likely succeed in taking down the F-L ticket because of the political climate and indeed, received the party convention nod. However, he lost in the succeeding primary to the hard-charging liberal Harold Stassen (who would go on to win the general in that pro-GOP year) and lost again when he challenged Stassen for a 3rd term in 1942.
In between, he also challenged the venerable Sen. Henrik Shipstead after he switched from Farmer-Laborite to GOP in 1940. Oddly, after losing to Stassen for the Gubernatorial primary nod in 1942 was when he shifted to the Senate race (perhaps to try to cripple Stassen’s then-protégé, Joseph Ball, which didn’t materialize).
But, his career finally took off when he was later appointed to the State Supreme Court and would remain there until 1972.
You were right that one reason Ball lost to HHH in ‘48 was that Stassen was REALLY cold to his former protégé.
Indeed, you can see why HHH is so revered in Minnesota by the DFL, since without his leadership and vision in merging the parties, it’s likely the GOP would’ve continued to dominate (a la Wisconsin or North Dakota). Of course, what passed for GOP leadership in the state, especially as embodied by many of the Governors from Stassen onwards, was almost ideologically indistinguishable from the DFL. As squishy and disappointing as Tim Pawlenty was, he was probably the most Conservative GOP Governor since before Stassen.
I mentioned Gov. Luther Youngdahl, the opponent HHH feared the most, he was exceptionally left-wing. I don’t know how much you read that book in the link I gave, but Truman also favored rewarding him with a federal judgeship because he was apparently the ONLY Governor in the United States who had written to Truman after he fired Gen. MacArthur and praised his decision(!) He also dismissed charges against notorious Communist Owen Lattimore while on the bench (though not claiming as such, no doubt there was a political aspect to it — as such would be a thumb in the eye to Sen. Joe McCarthy). Demonstrating what I’ve always maintained, that leftist RINOs are more of an insidious threat and cancer than open leftist Democrats.