Posted on 09/05/2001 4:09:01 AM PDT by BillyBoy
Vanity time, Freepers! The last couple of days have been getting a tad boring on this forum, so I decided to have a little fun. Many of us have been on threads where freepers argue amongst themselves over who were the "BAD" and "GOOD" Presidents that were elected to office-- you hear opinions flying in every direciton: Lincoln haters, FDR haters, Jefferson haters, Nixon haters, LBJ haters, Washington haters. Then you see the opposite occuring: Washingon fans, Madison fans, Coolidge fans, Reagan fans, Lincoln fans. Let's try a new approach, shall we? ;-) Freepers, what presidential candidates do you think SHOULD have been elected to the presidency even though they did NOT win the election? Many would cite figures such as Barry Goldwater. My personal favorites would be figures such as Charles Hughes (who later became the anti-New Deal leader of the Supreme Court and was CLEARLY much better on constiutional issues than his opponent Woodrow Wilson), or Wendell Wilikie (at the time, and often today, many conservative Republicans were P.O'ed at him for some of his stances on international issues, but looking at what FDR gave us, it's becoming more and more apperant that his anti-socialist stance on DOMESTIC issues was clearly a much better alternative than what we got). And, of course, one of the my early day favorites would be the great Daniel Webster . I must confess some bias here, as Webster was my great-great-great-great granduncle. Many conservatives today do not like Webster because of his pro-union stance, but I find him to be a great patriot and surely a fiscal conservative. Those of you who disagree, give me YOUR choices. I'd love varied freeback on this thread, especially when it took me forever to copy, paste, and format 200 years worth of presidential elections. MY selections on who I WOULD have voted for-- had I been around at that time-- are in bold. Hopefully we can all put ourselves in the context of times and not be biased by events that HAD NOT YET HAPPENED at the time of the election (i.e. saying you wouldn't vote for Nixon in 1968 because you're mad at him over Watergate). My really tough choices-- where I either had to hold my nose and vote for someone or I fretted over two equally good candidates-- are in red. blue. So, who would you have picked? Have at it, freepers. [ NOTE: Candidates that were on the ballot but recieved less than 1% of the vote are not listed. This is not to be biased, but because I really wanted to save some space when copying info. to this thread. If you WOULD have voted for a less-than-1%er like Harry Browne (Libertarian) in '96 or Lester Maddox (American Independant) in '76, feel free to WRITE-IN these selections.]
Stay well - Yorktown
There are still open questions about the exact nature of the "accident" that killed Patton.
Stay well - Yorktown
It was well known that Patton was vehemently opposed to Communism and liberalism. His popularity among the troops and the general public was also well known. Patton lacked the Olympian demeanor of Douglas MacArthur, and would have thrived in the rough and tumble of domestic politics. His stomach for a fight was a characteristic that Robert Taft lacked, as evidenced by his failure to respond effectively to the Eisenhower campaign in 1952. Unlike Joseph McCarthy or Richard Nixon, Patton was not a professional politician, and his motives would not have been as suspect.
One can play the "what if" game ad nauseam, but the elections of 1948 and 1952 could have shifted the American body politic back to limited government, national sovereignty, and free market economics had the right man been elected. Patton could well have been that man.
Well, the point of the thread was to be imaginive and try to picture yourself in eras that are long since past, but I agree it's very difficult to accurately say who you vote for when you go back to a totally different America in the 1800s. I had a lot of trouble picking people running in the pre civil war era, which the excertion of Andy Jackson (who I view as the last TRUE "conservative" Democrat to be elected President).
You pick some interesting choices, in your willing to go 3rd party (I generally avoided it except in cases where I equally can't stand BOTH parties candidates, such as the 1856-- Fremont would a be a liberal Republcian by today's standards, and Buchanan was a joke was with no backbone or principles, so I went with Millard Filmore, who was mildly conservative on social issues but anti-slavery)
>> 1964 Goldwater/Miller <<
Agreed. Probably the most conservative Republican ticket between Coolidge and Reagan. He was a lousy campaigner, though.
>> 1968 Wallace/LeMay (AIP) <<
Nope. Can't go with ya on this one. Wallace claimed to be a conservative but he showed his true colors on some economic issues, and he proved everyone's suspercions correct in 1976 when he rejoined the Democrat Party in 1976 and endorcing Carter. Best go with Nixon.
>> 1972 Schmitz/Anderson (AIP) <<
Nope, this "substitute" candidate after Wallace was shot ended up even even more marginalized than him. Ironically, the American Indepedant Party kept becoming MORE conservative without Wallace, but their support ebbed more and more. They were down to 4000 votes by 1980.
>> 1976 Would've stayed home and banged my face against the wall <<
LOL. I would have voted for Ford, but for the sole reason to keep Carter from winning. And I would feel gulity afterwards.
>> 1980 Reagan/Bush 1984 Reagan/Bush <<
I think we can all agree on this one.
>> 1988 Paul/Marrou (Libertarian) <<
Would have been tempting, but if I was around in '88, I would have tried to get Pete DuPont nominated over Bush in the GOP primary.
>> 1992 Perot/Stockdale (UWSA) <<
No way. Perot was Count Taxula. This is the first election I remember clearly, and Perot struck me a nut back then.
>> 1996 Browne/Jorgensen (Libertarian) <<
Nope. Dole. Sadly, only one that had a chance to stop Clinton.
>> 2000 Buchanan/Foster (Reform) <<
Considering that option, until he joined the Reform Party.
1828, 1832. No and no to Andy Jackson, probably our most overrated president.
1848. Fillmore was a flop, but I don't know anything about Cass
1852. Pierce was a flop, and I know enough about Scott to prefer him.
1856. 3 absolutely disasterous choices. Probably the worst offering of candidates in American history.
1876. Grant needed his butt booted. I don't know as much as I should about Greeley, but he would have to be pretty gamey to not be preferable.
1888. Cleveland should have been re-elected and Harrison should not have been elected to anything.
1916. Close call. I guess Hughes since Wilson got sick, and was too stubborn about compromising, thereby tanking the US's participation in the League of Nations.
1920. Harding was totally unfit.
1944. FDR was great, but he was dying, and hurt the country by hanging around for Yalta.
1960. JFK is the next most overrated president after Jackson, and Nixon wasn't as scar tissued at that point in his life.
1976. There was no reason to dump Ford, and Carter proved to be, well, Carter.
1992. There was some reason to dump daddy Bush for getting bored with the job, and being totally uninterested in domestic issues, but in this case the dumping left one in the dumpster with the dumpee.
That's it folks. Americans have by and large made the right decisions. They get a B+ overall.
>> Gotta go with Thurmond in '48, and Wallace in '68. <<
I expected alot of support from Thurmond on this forum because he is one of the few politicians in today's soecity that was involved in major elections of another era. The fact he ran against Truman in 1948 makes him essentially a living legend.
1948 would have been a tough election for me to decide, had I lived back then. The only candidate I ruled out instantly was Henry Wallace, who actually broke away from the Democrats because he thought they were too CONSERVATIVE under Roosevelt-Truman. Wallace was a far, far, far left socialist-communist who was dumped from the V.P. slot by FDR in 1944 because he was too "contraversal".
Truman was probably the most "conservative" post-WWII Dem candidate, but this really not saying much. The liberal wing of the Democrats thought he was too conservative, the conservative wing thought he was too liberal. Basically that makes him a moderate Democrat, a la a modern day Gary Condit. He get high points for firing FDR's socialist cabinet due to them being "damned liars", but his "fair deal" program is New Deal-light, and therefore I could not support him.
As for Thurmond, the problem is that we are all thinking of the Strom Thurmond of today. As governor of South Carolina in 1948, I think he was more libertarian-leaning than conservative. He had always been feuding with the liberals in the Democratic Party, but his 1948 campaign was basically a "single issue" campaign ('stop federal interferance in state programs'), with a heavy regional taint. He didn't make any attempts to appeal to midwesterns or rocky mountain folk, and unfortuantely, his campaign had some racist overtones.
In the end, I'd have to hold my nose and voted for Dewey, who was tough on crime and down-to-earth. His showing in 1944 made people widely believe he WOULD have defeated Truman in 1948, but a last minute surge for Truman changed all the predictions on election day.
In all likelyhood, the 1948 campaign would have resulted in a conservative win had the GOP nominated someone to the right of Dewey, and captured back some of the "border" southern states (Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky), etc., that had gone GOP in the 20s. But that subject would make a whole different thread, now wouldn't it? ;-)
Cleveland, at least, was conservative on social issues, but most of the Democratic Party at that time was run by the John Altgeld socialist-wing that controlled the labor unions. Altgeld Democrats controlled state parties, Clevland took control of the national party, and the Democrats had an inner-party bloodbath.
Enter Benjamin Harrison, a conservative Republican who was the grandson of President W.H. Harrison, and you can see why GOP won back the white house in 1888. Both candidates in 1888 were likeable and somewhat conservative, but I'd go with Harrison.
1892 saw Cleveland make a comeback because--this probably sounds familar-- the economy was bad under the incumbant president. Cleveland won back some Republican votes by abandoning his party's "silver standard" and went with the conservative gold-standard in American's currency. The only reason I wouldn't have voted for him is that he picked a liberal running mate (Adali Steveson) to appease the left-wing of his party, and being an Illinoian, I personally CANNOT STAND any of the Stevensons. They're all snotty liberal intellectuals-- and the first one almost became president when Cleveland nearly died from cancer of the jaw.
But Cleveland was a class act, he went so far as to endorce Republican William McKinley over his own party's nominee for sucessor (nutcase William J. Bryan). If Cleveland had been a little more honest with himself, he probably would have switched parties by that time. ;-)
The mixture of Whigs and Democrats in the 40s and 50s is intriguing though. By today's standards those candidates all look alike, but party passions ran high in those days as well. Still, the Whigs deserve better than most historians give them credit for.
The great question mark is Lincoln. He was a very admirable president in my book, but would the country have been better off with one of the compromise candidates? The argument against Lincoln is the war and its dead. The argument in favor is that conflict had been put off for years and would come in any case, so why not have someone able at the helm? A question that won't ever be resolved.
Hancock and Tilden in the 70s and 80s, were pretty decent for Democrats -- and Hancock, so far as I know was an upstanding citizen with no dirt in his personal past. The GOP of those days could have used some shaking up, but the Dems also had some unsavory associations themselves. A long ruling party needs some shaking up to keep them honest, but the results of a defeat can be devasting.
The other thing is the men who never got to run. Robert Taft comes to mind.
Popular novelist Irving Stone wrote a book called "They Also Ran" with portraits of all losing Presidential candidates from Fremont to Dewey or Stevenson. Basically, his picks were the opposite of yours -- he disliked all Republicans except Lincoln and TR.
My personal favorite losing presidential candidate was Alton B. Parker, Chief Judge of New York's Court of Appeals. The Democrats nominated the conservative Parker as a sacrificial lamb to run against Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Parker had no luck. Even Wall Street prefered the "insurgent candidate of the party of reaction to the reactionary candidate of the party of insurgency," as one liberal journalist put it. Parker's quest for the Presidency would have a certain quixotic appeal -- except that it wasn't any sort of quest.
The greatest tragedies were 1856, 1912 and 1964. Not that Fillmore or Taft or Goldwater were great picks, but the alternatives were pretty bad. Sentimental favorite -- Al Smith. Regardless of politics it was good to have someone who came as far he did on the ballot. Losing candidate who deserved most to become President -- Charles Evans Hughes. How good a president he would have been is up in the air, but Wilson had already done a lot of harm and was to do more in his second term. If nothing else, Hughes had seriousness and devotion to the public good.
As it was though, MacArthur didn't want to run against a fellow WWII general, so he stepped aside when they drafted Ike. The conservative alternative was then Bob Taft, who wasn't much a fighter, but he was still clearly to right of Eisenhower.
As it was though, MacArthur didn't want to run against a fellow WWII general, so he stepped aside when they drafted Ike. The conservative alternative was then Bob Taft, who wasn't much a fighter, but he was still clearly to right of Eisenhower.
Under no circumstances would I vote for Breckenridge. I don't know what's with some people here who think slavery would have ended under his adminstration, as Breckenridge was the only unabashedly PRO-slavery candidate. Since I think of the slavery issue as the 19th century equilvent to the abortion issue today, I would avoid voting for either a pro-slavery or pro-abortion person UNLESS they were the ONLY candidate capable of beating a socialist candidate.
Douglas was a "moderate" Democrat, and actually was a lot closer to Lincoln's views than either of them would like to admit too. Their big disagreement was over the slavery issue. Lincoln was anti-slavery expansion and Douglas was neutral.
During this era, some people tried to draft Texas Governor Sam Houston as the nominee of the Union Party because he was a conservative southern Democrat, one who was believe secession was constitutional, but NEVERTHELESS was ANTI-confederate (he argued--correctly IMO-- that Texas was a soverign, indepedant state once it seceeded and should have no ties or loyalities to the confederacy.) He was was also venimately anti-slavery.
Lincoln, I think, would be a "moderate" Republican by today's standards. I reject all the labels that he was a "marxist" or liberal, etc. The "radical" Republicans of that era WERE liberal, wanted to expand the federal government greatly to "conquer" the south, and so forth-- and Lincoln NEVER got along with them. He vetoed half the stuff they sent him. The radicals got angry at Lincoln, they considered running one of their own to oppose him in the 1864 primary, but they had to get onboard once the public sided with Abe.
Then in 1864, Lincoln's Democrat "opponent" was a joke-- their party nominated George McClellan, a failed union general and a coward. Lincoln nullified the Democrats support by picking a moderate southern Democrat as his running mate, so the ticket would be non-partisan. It worked.
BTW, I do not and have not ever voted straight Republican. However, seems fairly obvious to me that they nominate the better candidate in 90% of elections.
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