ELECTION #32, 1912. The NASTY-METER is 5.

QUOTE from Teddy Roosevelt: "Taft is a fathead...with the brains of a guinea pig."

Since 1860 the Republicns had occupied the White House for 44 years - the Democrats had only 8 years and that was the two nonconsecutive terms of Grover Cleveland. But in 1912 things were about to change in a dramatic way.
Teddy had chosen Taft as his successor and he was expected to follow the progressive policies of Teddy. However, after a year in office Taft found himself under the sway of big business. The Progressives complained he was selling out to the conservative bigwigs. Teddy, who had gone to Africa to do big game hunting when he left office in March of 1909, headed back home to the states in 1910 to see what was going on with Taft. Upon his return he was beseiged by Progressive Republicans to run for another term in 1912. It didn't take much convincing as he immediately started attacking Taft. He accused Taft of being a pawn of the "bosses and the great privileged interests." Taft was stunned to hear these attacks by his mentor and former personal friend and told an aide, "If I only knew what the President wanted, I would do it."

In February of 1912 Teddy decided to go for another term when he said, "My hat is in the ring. The fight is on and I am stripped to the buff." Taft retaliated by saying, "I do not want to fight Theodore Roosevelt, but sometimes a man in a corner comes out swinging...I was a man of straw but I have been a man of straw long enough. Every man who has blood in his body...is forced to fight."

By 1912, for the first time, some states were having primary races to choose delegates for the national convention. Teddy beat Taft in 9 of 10 states - he even won in Taft's home state of Ohio. It looked like Teddy was on a roll to unseat Taft for the Republican nomination. However, Taft's conservative political bosses controlled the Republican National Committee and they made a point of lining up Taft delegates from the majority of states that did not hold primaries. They also made deals with Republican delegates from the southern states who would vote for Taft in return for favors or cold cash. At the convention the Roosevelt supporters made challenge after challenge when Taft's men tried to seat these delegates. But all the challenges were voted down which led to tensions running so high that police squads were brought in to put barbed wire around the stage. Taft got the nomination with 561 delegates to Teddy's 107 - at that point Teddy and his supporters stormed out of the convention. They formed their own party made up of social workers, reformers, feminists to unhappy Republicans. They called themselves the Progressive Party but became known as the Bull Moose Party because Roosevelt had proclaimed, "I am fit as a bull moose."
This was committing political suicide as the Democrats had about 45% of the national vote locked up. One onlooker said about Roosevelt and Taft, "The only question is, which corpse gets the flowers."

The CANDIDATES in 1912.

REPUBLICAN: WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT.

Taft tried to rally his supporters by calling Teddy a "destructive radical and even neurotic." But he knew it would be almost impossible to win when he wrote to his wife, "Sometimes I think I might as well give up as far as being a candidate is concerned. There are so many people in the country who don't like me."

PROGRESSIVE-BULL MOOSE: THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Roosevelt had to explain what he meant by his 1904 statement when he said he would not seek another term. He lamely explained that he meant he wouldn't run for three consecutive terms. Yet he remained enormously popular and would have won if he had been the nominee of the Republican Party.

DEMOCRAT: WOODROW WILSON.

There was a battle royal at the Democratic convention between Missouri Congressman "Champ" Clark, Speaker of the House, and the new kid on the block, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was the former president of Princeton University and the current governor of New jersey. He was extremely bright and ambitious. Wilson finally got the nomination on the 46th ballot. For VP he chose Thomas Marshall, governor of Indiana, who is known in history for having said: "What the country needs is a really good five-cent cigar."

The CAMPAIGN in 1912.

Three evenly matched candidates squared off in 1912 - a scenario like any other in our history. Taft was honest but passive, Teddy was explosive but full of energy, Wilson was coherent but perhaps cold.

Taft attacked Roosevelt by saying, "He is classed with the leaders of religious cults who promote things over their followers by any sort of manipulation and deception."

That was almost the truth as Teddy said, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!" - and his progressive followers had an almost religious fervor. He claimed in his New Nationalism program that the government would play a strong role in regulating the economy and overseeing greedy and corrupt corporations.

Wilson attacked Taft and Roosevelt as "Tweedledum and Tweedledee." He knew that Roosevelt's plan was close to his so he developed his own plan called The New Freedom, which placed more emphasis on oversight of monopolies but far less of a powerful role for the federal government. He would also seek more cooperation with labor unions. Wilson was a bit stiff when speaking but people gradually warmed up to him and in the last week of the campaign gamblers set 5-to-1 odds in Wilson's favor.

The WINNER was WOODROW WILSON and he became the 28th president of the U.S.

Wison got 6,296,184 popular and 435 electoral.

Roosevelt got 4,122,721 popular and 88 electoral.

Taft got 3,486,242 popular and 8 electoral.

Although Wilson got only 41% of the popular vote he was strong in the electoral with 435. Teddy
Roosevelt was the first and only third-party candidate in American history to pull more votes than a major party candidate. Roosevelt rejoined the Republican Party after 1912 but never did run for president again.

An interesting tidbit from the 1912 campaign: On October 14, 1912, while waiting to give a speech in Milwaukee, a man named John Shrank walked up to Teddy and shot him in the chest. (Shrank said the ghost of William McKinley had appeared to him and told him to shoot Roosevelt for running for a third term.) With a bullet in his chest Teddy insisted on giving his speech anyway. He ascended to the platform and said: "Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose." Teddy then took out his speech, which was covered with blood - the people gasped in horror. He gave his speech and went to the hospital. The bullet had fractured a rib and came very close to piercing his lung. The doctors said that what saved his life were the folded papers, a glasses case, and his thick chest muscles.

In sympathy both Taft and Wilson stopped campaigning while he was in the hospital.

(The old saying "United we stand, divided we fall" was so true in this election. If the Republicans had stayed united they would have won easily.)