1948 Presidential Election Voting Booth. Please vote.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

What was the difference between Truman and Dewey besides whether they had an R or a D next to their name?

At the time and in retrospect, Dewey was considered a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, but he was still very much a Republican and the more conservative of the major party candidates; he campaigned against the New Deal in 1944, and while his 1948 campaign was intentionally devoid of substance, he made a point of portraying Truman as "soft on Communism" and suggested a Dewey Administration would take a harder line on Communists in the government. Truman was in essence running for the fifth FDR term: he campaigned on universal healthcare, farm relief, opposition to the Taft-Hartley Act and other conservative measures passed by the "Do-Nothing" 80th Congress, and a host of liberal economic reforms.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

What was the difference between Truman and Dewey besides whether they had an R or a D next to their name?

At the time and in retrospect, Dewey was considered a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, but he was still very much a Republican and the more conservative of the major party candidates; he campaigned against the New Deal in 1944, and while his 1948 campaign was intentionally devoid of substance, he made a point of portraying Truman as "soft on Communism" and suggested a Dewey Administration would take a harder line on Communists in the government. Truman was in essence running for the fifth FDR term: he campaigned on universal healthcare, farm relief, opposition to the Taft-Hartley Act and other conservative measures passed by the "Do-Nothing" 80th Congress, and a host of liberal economic reforms.

Of course the 80th Congress was nothing of the sort, but why let a little thing like truth get in the way of a good left-populist crusade!

I always understood the term to refer to Congress "doing nothing" to implement Truman's domestic agenda. Of course, Dewey more than made up for any creative liberties on Truman's part by being fastidiously uncreative in his own speeches.