I think they mentioned ex-President FDR making “remarks” a couple times. RINO LaGuardia was also made a speech, at Winchell’s funeral.
You are correct, after getting his ass kicked in what was obviously a landslide (despite them making it seem close on election night to mimic 2016 or something) I can’t imagine his crippled ass being nominated again.
And Truman? Exactly, GOP must have swept Missou, he would not have been a Senator, I doubt they even considered that. I should say “he” cause I think that’s straight out of the novel by Phillip Roth who seems to gone out of his way with the “history back on track” angle despite how utterly unrealistic that is in general.
Interesting that real life rats and in universe party switchers Ford and Wheeler were presented as by far the most pro-Nazi.
As silly as it all is I found myself pretending I was there, loving Lindy, lol.
I rather enjoyed the “showing the average Jewish family in Newark” parts I expect Zoe Kazan to win an emmy for best actress in a mini-series. Morgan Spector was good too as the self-righteous Jewish father. Winona Ryder was eh but also got praised.
Re: Douglas, wow, if FDR really wanted him he should have been more forthright about it. How do you think that would have gone?
Other than Henry Wallace being seen as a liability in 1944, I think any other choice than Truman would’ve had little impact in changing the outcome. Since Douglas never ran a political campaign, it’s hard to determine how he would’ve approached it. Personally, he was a cad and dumped his first wife while he was on the court (and openly pursuing another). The media, of course, protected these elites from the public, so that might not have come to light. Whether he would’ve survived 1948 is up in the air, given how well he’d have related to the public.
Nevertheless, the author attempted to rank not only how good the actual Presidents were, but how good the LOSING major party presidential candidate would have fared, making an educated guess from their background, issues they ran on, and what type of stuff they would have encountered during their term.
Not surprisingly, he has several examples where the losing candidate would have made a better president than the actual person who was elected.
There's also extremes on each end, he ranked both Abraham Lincoln and his opponent Stephen A. Douglas as "Excellent" choices in 1860, concluding we would have been in good hands with either man. On the flip side, he ranked both U.S. Grant and his RAT opponent Horace Greeley as "Likely failures" in 1872, basically concluding voters were screwed no matter who which man that election.