[Ole Okie]

Was that a major theme of FDR’s re-election campaign in 1944, that he had killed the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack?

No. Americans of that day would be more inclined to praise the P-38 pilots who shot down Yamamoto.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think in that day, for a politician to have tried to exploit an achievement of the military for his own political advantage (especially when lives were risked or lost) would not have gone over well with the media or the public.

Today, of course, the criterion is "does this benefit a Democrat"?