FDR's Opponents

[PBrunsel]

Herbert Hoover, as an Iowan.

[© tweed]

Wilkie

[Dave from Michigan]

Dewey he was born in the great state of Michigan

[opebo]

No contest - Herbert Hoover.  He was the most right-wing of these four.  The other three were I think infected with New Dealism - compromisers.

[zachman]

Thomas Dewey, I think.

[PBrunsel]

Hoover is winning!

[Kevinstat]

From what little I've read, Alf Landon seems the best to me.  I believe he was fairly progressive (I read somewhere that he would have basically continued the New Deal in another name).  He was likely badly hurt in the election by the support of the Liberty League, a group that included former Democratic Presidential candidate Al Smith and agressively attacked the New Deal and FDR.  I believe the Liberty League largely consisted of so-called "Jeffersonian Democrats" (a predicurser, in a way, to the "Reagan Democrats" of the 1980's, although these Democrats had a much different socioeconomic status).  Somewhere in the basement of my house is a book titled "From the Crash to the Blitz, 1929-1939", that has some good information on the Liberty League, but I'm too lazy to get it.  The Liberty League's support may have helped Landon among the wealthiest voters, and may have been part of the reason the Literary Digest poll (which, in the hard times of the Depression, was likely dominated by such voters) was so notoriously inaccurate in 1936, when it predicted a 56%-44% (I think) Landon win when Roosevelt actually won 61%-37%.  This debacle badly hurt the Literary Digest, and contributed to the rise of George Gallup and the Gallup poll (even though that poll itself underestimated Roosevelt's popular vote victory by 7% I think).  For more information, see http://www.capitalcentury.com/1935.html .

I feel a bit of a connection with Landon since I am from one of the two states he carried in his race for the Presidency.  Landon also won the highest percentage of the vote in Maine of any of Roosevelt's opponents since Hoover, whom I really don't like.  It's not so much his stances on issues I don't like, although I likely would have opposed most of them, but his stern personality.  I don't know anything about Landon's personality, but I've gotten the since he was a pretty easy-going guy.

Sincerely,

Kevin Lamoreau

[12th Doctor]

Dewey is my personal favorite.  I would have voted for Truman over him in 48.  But I definatly would have voted for Dewey in 44.  He seems to have been a solid guy.  He was slightly progressive, but conservative in others matters.  He in many ways more or less reflects my veiws.

[Nation]

Dewweeeyyy

[Gustaf]

I voted Dewey on gut feeling, cool name+moderate Republican+hated by the conservatives.

[YRABNNRM]

Dewey

[Beet]

Dewey

[The Dowager Mod]

i went with dewey because he was the cutest.
all the same otherwise.

[Siege40]

It was a shame that Dewey never got elected, seems to me to be a nice guy that got a rough break going against such strong Democrats.

Siege

[opebo]

i went with dewey because he was the cutest.
all the same otherwise.

Is it the little moustache?

[PBrunsel]

FDR's daughter said, "Dewey looks like the man on top of the wedding cake."

[The Dowager Mod]

dewey would have been a good president.
he did a good job in n.y.

[Reaganfan]

Dewey? He seemed unlikeable.

[lidaker]

Willkie

Seems to me like the most liberal of the four. And he was an internationalist in a time when the republicans were adamantly isolationist.

[ShapeShifter]

none of the above

[© tweed]

Willkie

Seems to me like the most liberal of the four. And he was an internationalist in a time when the republicans were adamantly isolationist.

He agreed with FDR on most things actually, he just ran on the fact that FDR was breaking th precedent of two terms and running for a third.

[PBrunsel]

Wilie was a Democrat and supported FDR in 1932 and 1936. In 1937 Wilkie turned on FDR when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) closed down his power plant.

[Michael Z]

Dewey. I've probably said this before, but a good friend of mine is related to him.

[gorkay]

The reporters who covered Dewey didn't like him. They said he was an arrogant snob. Alf Landon was likable, but not much of a politician. Hoover was a great man but not a a good President. My favorite is Willkie. He was a liberal Republican (remember them?) who did some work for the FDR administration after the election. Frank Knox, who was Landon's running mate, also became Secretary of the Navy. FDR wasn't afraid of using Republicans if they were good men.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Dewey. Prior to being governor he shut down most of the mob and almost singlehandedly destroyed the American Nazi Party. He had a good record as governor too, was able to balance the budget while still increasing state aid and salaries. I definately think he would be a moderate Democrat today, same with Ike.