Playing the political system, 1940-style

They’re saying this is the most wide open Republican presidential race since Wendell Willkie emerged from nowhere to win the nomination in 1940. Maybe, but don’t expect another Willkie. Willkie made it when primaries and caucuses didn’t get in the way of picking the best candidates. Nominating conventions actually nominated presidential candidates back then, and both Republicans and Democrats went to their conventions that summer of 1940, not knowing what to expect. The Republicans met first and weren’t sure if any of their three leading candidates had the wherewithal to defeat Franklin Roosevelt. They didn’t even know if they’d be running against Roosevelt or some lesser Democrat, as the president hadn’t announced his plans at that late date.Roosevelt was completing his second term and no president had ever run for a third. It was a tradition as old as the nation, and the penalty for breaking it could be defeat, even for the popular Roosevelt.The Republican convention was held in Philadelphia in June with the party united in opposition to Roosevelt’s domestic programs, but divided over the war in Europe. Most were isolationists, who wanted nothing to do with the war, but there were some interventionists who would provide Great Britain and its allies all possible aid short of war. The leading candidates, all isolationists, were Thomas E. Dewey, the 38-year-old gangbusting New York district attorney, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft and Michigan Sen. Arthur Vandenberg. Dewey had dominated the few primaries and came to the convention with the most delegates. Taft was the favorite of the isolationists, but with France facing defeat and England in danger of being invaded, his candidacy was shaky. Vandenberg’s hope was a Taft-Dewey deadlock.Willkie, the president of an electric utility holding company, was not a politician. He had voted for Roosevelt in 1932 and didn’t become a registered Republican until the fall of 1939. Worse, he supported many New Deal programs. He was also an interventionist, and his moderate to liberal views appealed to the party’s easterners, like Gov. Raymond Baldwin of Connecticut. A month before the convention, a Gallup Poll had Dewey the choice of 67 percent of Republican voters and Willkie at 3 percent. If the primary system existed then, Willkie would be a footnote today.Incredibly, what became the Willkie juggernaut began with a letter-writing campaign among Princeton alumni. The letters led to the formation of hundreds of Willkie for President clubs across the country and the backing of some liberal Republican papers like The New York Herald Tribune. The convention was held as France fell to the Nazis, an event that helped Willkie nearly as much as the gallery filled with his partisans, screaming “We Want Willkie,” and pro-Willkie telegrams flooding state delegations.Willkie won on the sixth ballot and left the convention unsure of the identity of his opponent. President Roosevelt had encouraged other Democrats to run while maneuvering himself into a position to be nominated at the Chicago convention in July. This is how it worked:Just before the delegate count began, Roosevelt had Sen. Alben Barkley tell the delegates he had no wish to run again and they were free to vote for any candidate. But as Barkley finished, an amplified voice boomed, “We want Roosevelt, we want Roosevelt,” and the chant was quickly taken up by the delegates and the audience, just as the spectators had ignited the earlier convention for Willkie. The mystery message came from the basement, where Chicago’s pro-Roosevelt mayor had hidden the city’s superintendent of sewers with a microphone and instructions to begin his mantra as soon as Barkley finished the president’s statement. Roosevelt swamped two challengers and won on the first ballot. In the election, Willkie supported the military draft and other Roosevelt programs to his detriment but in defeat, he received 22 million votes, more than any Republican in history. During the war, he worked closely with Roosevelt.The Republicans got their revenge in 1947 when a newly elected Republican Congress passed the 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms. It was ratified by the states in 1951 and its first victim was Dwight Eisenhower, who believed the amendment made every two-term president a lame duck after his re-election.But, as Time magazine reported, with the amendment, the Republicans were “finally able to defeat Franklin Roosevelt.” Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.