Debs and Thomas: The Socialists!

[Dr. Cynic]

Well, Debs' vote never really increased substantially, except for his near one million vote campaign of 1920... His percentages never really got better, as Colin has pointed out.

Even still, Debs was much more of a leader than Thomas was. Although both men were towers of personal strength for thier party. Even still, when FDR hit the scene, the Socialists lost thier edge as the "liberal alternative".

[Dr. Cynic]

FDR actually did come at Hoover from all angles... He was a master politician, if you don't like him, you can certainly acknowledge that he was probably the best pure politician since McKinley to hold office.

Even still, Thomas was very much anti-Soviet, and he believed that the Soviet system wasn't true Socialisim.

Also, one can say for Debs, that he was benevolent. He broke from America's oldest Socialist Party (The Socialist Labor Party) because he thought DeLeonisim too harsh on the ordinary American, which is how the Socialist Party was born.

[Dr. Cynic]

I tend to side with Colin on this one. Every Presidential campaign book I've ever read seems to have a high opinion of Debs, who was a charismatic, and strong campaigner. Also, FDR campaigned from all sides against the disorganized Hoover, who couldn't possibly have won that year anyway.
FDR said conservative things where it counted, like in the South and the lower midwest. He said liberal things in the Northeast, which was shaken of its conservative politics by the depression, and on the consistantly liberal Pacific coast.