1940: Kennedy vs. Willkie (user search)
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  1940: Kennedy vs. Willkie (search mode)
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Author Topic: 1940: Kennedy vs. Willkie  (Read 1545 times)
Mechaman
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« on: March 11, 2013, 03:38:32 AM »
« edited: March 11, 2013, 03:48:15 AM by AntiWar Machine »

It is 1940 and incumbent President Franklin Roosevelt announces that he will not be running for a third term in office.  Upon hearing the news from Washington current US Ambassador to the United Kingdom Joseph Kennedy, Sr sends in his resignation to pursue the Presidential nomination at the 1940 Democratic National Convention.  It is a very combative Convention but due to his political organization Kennedy is able to sway the necessary delegates at the Convention to get the presidential nomination.  Due to his relative conservativism, as well as his Catholicism and perceived isolationism, Kennedy's backers look for a VP candidate to endorse on the ballot line that is relatively liberal, non-Catholic, and hails from a different (preferably rural) part of the country.  That candidate turns out to be Burton Wheeler, the liberal Senator from Montana who was once the VP of the Progressive ticket in 1924.  Despite Wheeler's isolationism and some of his opposition to various New Deal proposals, Kennedy's backers are able to muster enough delegate support for Wheeler to win the VP nod after promising to "uphold" the New Deal as it currently stands.
On the other side of the aisle the Republicans have a show down between various representatives of the isolationist and internationalist wings.  In the end a groundswell for former FDR backer Wendell Willkie, a prominent New York businessman, wins the day.  Willkie, a self professed "liberal" free trade backer and internationalist, wins the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.  Given his outsider status as a recent Republican convert, Willkie's backers knew that a "faithful" VP candidate was needed to rally the base.  In the end it was decided that a western farm leader would be a preferred VP choice.  Senate Leader Charles McNary, who disagreed with Willkie's views on trade, the TVA, and was an isolationist, was chosen.
Come Election Day, which ticket wins:

Joseph Kennedy, Sr (D-NY)/Burton Wheeler (D-MT)

or

Wendell Willkie (R-NY)/Charles McNary (R-OR)
?

Maps please.

EDIT: Realized that Barkley and McNary are both Senate Leaders.  Changed to Wheeler to make things interesting.
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