How would 1912 been if William Jennings Bryan got the nomination (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
April 30, 2024, 03:54:16 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Election What-ifs?
  Past Election What-ifs (US) (Moderator: Dereich)
  How would 1912 been if William Jennings Bryan got the nomination (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: How would 1912 been if William Jennings Bryan got the nomination  (Read 915 times)
David T
Rookie
**
Posts: 52
« on: July 08, 2018, 12:47:03 AM »

1912 was the one year Bryan, if nominated, could have won.  With the TR-Taft split, all he would need would be the core Democratic vote.  He might even pick up some OTL Debs votes.

Bryan's problem was similar to Henry Clay's--it was precisely in those years when his party was most likely to win (like 1840 and 1848) that it would not nominate him...
Logged
David T
Rookie
**
Posts: 52
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2018, 01:19:35 AM »

I don’t think TR runs if Bryan is the dem nominee so Taft wins

First of all, the Democratic convention was held after the Republican one, so it was already clear that TR would be running as a third party candidate.  Second, there is no reason to think that TR would change his mind because the Democrats nominated Bryan.  In OTL, some supporters urged TR not to run once the Democrats had nominated Wilson (whose nomination was rightly or wrongly seen as a "progressive" victory against the "conservative" Clark).  No, TR replied--even if Wilson was himself a progressive, as the Democratic candidate he would be dependent on  big city machines  and the Solid South, and could therefore not be an effective progressive president.   He would probably say the same thing about Bryan.  Besides, TR was in favor of regulating the trusts rather than breaking them up--and in that sense was in fundamental disagreement with Bryan and Brandeis and La Follette.  "The fact is that many of the men who have called themselves Progressives, and who certainly believe that they are Progressives, represent in reality in this matter not progress at all but a kind of sincere rural toryism. These men believe that it is possible by strengthening the Anti-Trust Law to restore business to the competitive conditions of the middle of the last century. Any such effort is foredoomed to end in failure, and, if successful, would be mischievous to the last degree.." https://books.google.com/books?id=P101DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT417
Logged
David T
Rookie
**
Posts: 52
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2018, 04:09:15 PM »

One thing to remember:  while Bryan would no doubt lose some relatively conservative Democrats who voted for Wilson in OTL (and with the GOP split, he could afford to lose some) he could partly make it up by getting some OTL Debs voters.  Debs' vote went up from 2.83% in 1908 to 5.99% in 1912, indicating that there were perhaps some "radical" voters who  found Taft, Wilson, and TR insufficiently radical in 1912 but might not feel that way about Bryan.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.019 seconds with 14 queries.