1932 Primaries

Long ago, President Smith and the nation lived together in harmony, reopening Ellis Island and buying the province of Panama from Colombia for the purposes of building a canal all in the space of a few months. Then everything changed when the stock market collapsed. Only Ignatius L. Donnelly, master of all the economic programs, could stop it, but when the world needed him most, it remembered that he was dead. Thirty-one years passed, and Malcolm and I discovered the new champion of the left, a member of the Workers' Party named [whoever the WP nominates], and although his political skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to pass any bill. But I believe [the nominee] can save the world.

So yeah, everyone's crying tears of both sadness and anger and Al Smith is wallowing in a pool of blood or whatever, but the point is he's clearly not doing what he should be because unemployment is still 25%. He's been all but disowned by his own party (Vice President Borah resigned in 1931 rather than run again), but is still attempting to run again in the hopes that they can forgive him. The progressive wing is running four candidates against him: old-guarder Hiram Johnson, young gun Franklin Roosevelt, who always smiles awkwardly whenever someone asks him to stand up for what he believes in, Young Bob La Follette, who's basically the same as his dad but a bit weird and depressed, and mythological figure Judge Holden. There's also conservative John N. Garner of Texas, who somehow got elected in one of the most deep purple states in the nation (but hey, maybe it was just a BMP district), but no one really cares about him.

The Unionists have just began to recover from their drunken stupor and have resolved to not let Henry Ford anywhere near their convention, which is why they are holding it in Bryan, Alaska (a tad ironic for the party of not-Bryan). The bitter cold has chilled their right-wing hearts, but not enough that they are entirely closed off to President Smith, who just wants to be loved. Many observers have noted that he stands a better chance with the Unionists than the Bull-Meese, as this crop of candidates is almost as bad as last time - crazy-racist James Watson, didn't-get-the-message-that-laissez-faire-doesn't-work Herbert Hoover (although that adjective could really apply to the whole party), went-to-college-in-Germany-married-a-Russian-is-named-France-and-wants-to-lead-America Joseph I. France, and John James Blaine of Wisconsin, who got lost searching for the North Pole and accidentally entered his name into consideration in a fit of hallucination brought on by the fact that he's had nothing to eat but the remains of territorial Governor George A. Parks.

The WP has made more strides in dusting itself off than the Unionists have, with their racist contingent limited to the token Carter Glass and their crying contingent (aka Burton Wheeler) in the hospital after a botched suicide attempt. They've got a nice trio of heroes set up for y'all, the main frontrunner being party chairman, ex-Congressman, writer, and union and anti-poverty activist Upton Sinclair, the favorite of former VP Wheeler. Tagging along are Congressman, former VP nominee, internal improver, civil rights supporter, and noted Italian Fio La Guardia, who has promised to drop out of the race if Roosevelt wins the BMP nomination and to run for mayor of New York if he loses the WP nomination. The most charismatic of the three (a tough feat to accomplish) is the wealth-sharing, education-supporting, comically corrupt Governor Huey P. Long (the P is for "Kingfish"), who is the only candidate in the whole race to talk about prohibition; he is against it, to say the least.

Strap in, lady and gentlemen, this one's going to be fun.

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