Was Dewey considered some sacraficial lamb in 1944?

[Sir Mohamed]

Was he considered such? I mean, during the final months of WWII, the GOP's alternative to a sitting war time prez was someone with a relatively thin resume. He was just 42 years old, had less than 2 years of experience as gov and just been a district attorney before. That means no foreign policy experience. Not even the VP nominee, Gov. John Bricker, had experience in world affairs either. Did the GOP just not care because they knew FDR was unbeatable, or did they expect a FDR fatigue would get a fresh young face into the WH?

[dw93]

I don't think any of FDR's opponents were Sacrificial Lambs, even though FDR proved to be unbeatable FDR proved to be.

[Alben Barkley]

The fact that they nominated Dewey again four years later tells me they saw some potential in him. As Governor of New York, he would have been one of the most prominent Republicans in the country at that time even if he had relatively light experience.

Can you even think of a better experienced Republican they could have run with more gravitas and foreign policy experience? Looking at the bench they had, it was... thin. Their options were basically to nominate Willkie again (wouldn't have worked out well for them as he died before the election), Dewey, or another relatively inexperienced governor like Harold Stassen from a less prominent state.

The only potential nominee they could have gone with who could have possibly posed a serious threat was MacArthur, but as he was leading the US war effort in Japan at the time, that would have created a number of problems. Hard to campaign, for one thing. And FDR could have easily hammered him for challenging his own Commander-in-Chief in wartime, and letting politics interfere with his duty. Truman fired him for less.

So really, it seems Dewey was just the best of their pretty limited options. Perhaps they didn't expect him to win, but he did do well enough that they not only nominated him again in 1948, they thought he was a shoe-in to win this time.

We all know how that turned out, of course...

[Stranger in a strange land]

The GOP had been decimated during FDR's successive landslides in the 30s, and at one point they were down to 17 seats in the Senate. Things had improved by 1944, but they lacked anyone who could seriously challenge FDR.

[NewYorkExpress]

Given FDR's health in 1944, he probably was beatable, but it just would have taken a very special candidate.

Dewey had some major problems as a campaigner, which were exposed in 1948.

FDR really was only unbeatable in 1936 and maybe 1940 (though that third term is a pesky thing...if World War II wasn't in progress, I'd argue Wilikie probably could have beaten him on that alone.)

[Dr. MB]

Given FDR's health in 1944, he probably was beatable, but it just would have taken a very special candidate.

But nobody outside his inner circle knew how sick he actually was. He put on a show and people believed it. It was in the middle of a war so he wouldn’t have let anything that could reduce his standing as a leader get out.

Dewey or whoever else could have claimed that FDR wasn’t in great health but he wouldn’t have much to base it on. He hid that he was paralyzed from the waist down for his entire time in office so it shouldn’t have been too hard to hide something a lot less visible like heart disease.

[Adam Griffin]

Foreign policy experience was and is overrated by punditry. We haven't elected a President with meaningful foreign policy experience in over 30 years; most VPs lack it too, if you exclude modern-day all-inclusive hotel trips to foreign countries to talk to leaders and "influencers" for a few hours at a time or serving on meaningless Senate subcommittees.

In all likelihood, the fatigue expectation was probably more of a factor than anything. Contrasting a young candidate with an old (and by then, largely known crippled) incumbent seeking an unprecedented fourth term was the best they could hope for: flipping NY was the single-biggest piece of the electoral puzzle the GOP needed at the time to retake the Presidency. If they managed to flip a few large Northeastern and Midwestern states, that was the ball game basically (especially during a time where the vast bulk of non-Southern states weren't blow-outs or "safe" by today's standards; the Presidency was basically decided by a half-dozen big states that were all within 5 points).  

[Alben Barkley]

Given FDR's health in 1944, he probably was beatable, but it just would have taken a very special candidate.

Dewey had some major problems as a campaigner, which were exposed in 1948.

FDR really was only unbeatable in 1936 and maybe 1940 (though that third term is a pesky thing...if World War II wasn't in progress, I'd argue Wilikie probably could have beaten him on that alone.)

I actually think he was more unbeatable in 1932 than 1940. Hoover was DOA that year.

[Alben Barkley]

The GOP had been decimated during FDR's successive landslides in the 30s, and at one point they were down to 17 seats in the Senate. Things had improved by 1944, but they lacked anyone who could seriously challenge FDR.

This is definitely true and is a major reason why the bench was so thin for them.

[NewYorkExpress]

Given FDR's health in 1944, he probably was beatable, but it just would have taken a very special candidate.

Dewey had some major problems as a campaigner, which were exposed in 1948.

FDR really was only unbeatable in 1936 and maybe 1940 (though that third term is a pesky thing...if World War II wasn't in progress, I'd argue Wilikie probably could have beaten him on that alone.)

I actually think he was more unbeatable in 1932 than 1940. Hoover was DOA that year.

Hoover was DOA, but FDR easily could have not been the Democratic nominee for President.

[McGarnagle]

The GOP had been decimated during FDR's successive landslides in the 30s, and at one point they were down to 17 seats in the Senate. Things had improved by 1944, but they lacked anyone who could seriously challenge FDR.

I wish the GOP were down to 17 seats in the Senate right now

That would be a dream come true

[Orser67]

Nah, Republicans thought they had a chance at beating FDR for all three of his re-election bids (though they certainly weren't as confident as they were in 1948), and their belief was partly backed up by polling. For example, Wikipedia has Gallup polls for all three elections, and you can see that a)Gallup's final poll was reasonably close to the actual result for each election, and b)the Republican candidate looked competitive at one point in each campaign.

Part of the reason for their confidence in 1944 specifically was that Willkie had run a relatively competitive campaign in 1940 (the margin isn't fully indicative of how close the race looked for much of the campaign) and a fairly strong Republican year in 1942 (when, for the first time since the early 1930s, Republicans came reasonably close to taking control of one chamber of Congress).