When was the last time the Republican nominee was arguably more left-leaning than the Democratic one

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's not like Eisenhower was particularly progressive on civil rights anyway. He privately opposed Brown and did little to expand voting rights. Even dragged his feet during the Little Rock Crisis to the extent that Louis Armstrong of all people was saying he had "no guts" and was "two-faced"!

Stevenson certainly would have done more on civil rights had he been elected.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's not like Eisenhower was particularly progressive on civil rights anyway. He privately opposed Brown and did little to expand voting rights. Even dragged his feet during the Little Rock Crisis to the extent that Louis Armstrong of all people was saying he had "no guts" and was "two-faced"!

Stevenson certainly would have done more on civil rights had he been elected.

I guess that’s why Adam Clayton Powell bucked his own party and endorsed Eisenhower in 1956. Personally, based on what each candidate said about civil rights during the campaigns of 1952 and 1956, I can only conclude that Stevenson was far more cowardly on the issue than Eisenhower.

Eisenhower publicly opposed Truman's desegregation of the military in 1952! Campaigns are one thing. If you watch the 1960 debates it's ironic to watch Nixon repeatedly attacking Kennedy for being weak on civil rights because he picked LBJ as his running mate. Anyway what I said above stands, Eisenhower was not progressive on civil rights and did what he did for political expediency. Indeed he considered appointing Earl Warren the biggest mistake of his presidency.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

From an outside perspective I simply don't get the TR myth in American historical memory: it seems bound up in an uncomplicated ecumenical nationalist narrative that falls apart upon closer inspection. His biggest achievement in office was the national park system for crying out loud...

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Right. I see TR as a placeholder between the much more consequential figures of McKinley and Wilson, who established American empire and the modern US regulatory state respectively. Both of which TR confusedly seems to be credited with in historical memory. Not a bad President per se, just unimportant relative to his reputation and relative to other, less ecumenical Presidents.