The United States found itself mired in an unplanned and unexpected war in 1952--the army of communist North Korea invaded the US-backed South in June 1950 and President Harry Truman launched what he called "a police action" rather than a war. Communist China intervened and by election season in '52 the UN forces and the communists were in a deadlocked battle along the 38th parallel while truce negotiations dragged on. Truman's approval ratings sank to only 22% in a Gallup poll, the lowest reached by a sitting president until George W. Bush. Washington D.C. was also scandalized by the red-baiting of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.Republicans still lacked a marketable presidential candidate and the party's main figureheads, Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft, and Earl Warren, were all flawed in various ways and considered unelectable, so they began to look to the outside and support quickly coalesced around General Dwight Eisenhower. The Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower had been tapped to run by both parties four years ago, but had then declined. By 1952, he was reconsidering and let it be known that he was a Republican and had voted against FDR three times, only voting for him in 1944 so as to not switch presidents in the middle of a war. Eisenhower also felt that 20 years of Democrat rule was long enough and was damaging to democracy, and Congressional Republicans in their desperation for power were increasingly backing disreputable figures such as Senator McCarthy.
Eisenhower was nominated at the RNC in Chicago on July 7-11 despite a floor fight between his and Taft supporters. He had initially sought ex-Minnesota governor Harold Stassen as his running mate, but party bosses feared that doing so would create a chasm with the conservative Taft wing of the party, and they might even run the Ohio Senator as a third party candidate. Some kind of compromise was necessary.The choice of running mate ultimately fell on California Senator Richard Nixon, at 39 one of the rising young stars in the Republican camp. Nixon had been elected to Congress in the 1946 Republican sweep and then to the Senate four years later. He gained a reputation as a tough anti-communist while taking a moderate stance on domestic issues and was in favor of an interventionalist foreign policy in contrast to the isolationist, conservative Taft wing which sought to turn the clock back to the 1920s. His youthfulness was also a balance against the sexagenarian Eisenhower.Democrats for contrast felt tired and went into the campaign with low morale and an unpopular incumbent. Although Truman could have theoretically run for a third term as he was not covered by the 22nd Amendment, his approval ratings had sank to the point where he quickly bowed out of the race. One of the more popular Democrat hopefuls was Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, who had gained notoriety through his investigations into organized crime, but Truman and other Democrat leaders persuaded him not to run for fear that he might expose ties between the Mafia and big city Democrat machines. Truman himself favored his vice president Alben Barkley, but most felt that Barkley was too old at 74.
Eisenhower was the last president both strong enough and respected enough to keep the deep state vampires in line
Out of various Democrat governors, Congressmen, and Senators who were running or considered possibilities, the most promising choice seemed to be Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, who initially declined to run, although he never completely ruled himself out.The DNC was held in Chicago on July 21-26 and as it was in Stevenson's home state, he was invited to give the opening speech. At that point, the delegates began calling for him to be nominated despite his protests that he wasn't interested. He at last accepted and entered his name as a candidate, and the delegates quickly nominated him. They chose as his running mate Alabama Senator John Sparkman, a segregationist and concession to the South and the party's conservative wing.Republicans, hungry from their 20 year fast, were much more motivated than the Stevenson campaign. The Eisenhower campaign was the first one to make a serious bid for women voters by focusing on issues that interested them such as the cost of living and bringing their male relatives home from Korea. Eisenhower charged the Democrats with the quagmire in East Asia, corruption, and allowing communists to infiltrate the government.
Stevenson tried to exploit the rift between moderate and conservative Republicans and since neither he or his running mate were part of the Truman Administration, they were clean of any involvement in its various scandals. They ran on the New Deal and charged that there were breadlines and over 20% unemployment the last time the GOP had power. However, most voters were weary of Truman and eager for a change. Eisenhower was criticized for not repudiating certain hardliner Republicans, especially McCarthy, but he was hugely popular with a wide segment of the electorate and attracted large crowds at his campaign stops. The GOP ran the first-ever televised campaign ads fearing a cartoon elephant with the slogan "We like Ike!" Stevenson, having a snobbish dislike of TV, refused to run his own ads, claiming it was cheapening politics and selling a candidate "the way one would sell razors or a box of cereal."Nixon was then accused of receiving $18,000 in unsolicited gifts from wealthy campaign donors, including a puppy given to his 6 year old daughter Tricia. The scandal made Eisenhower consider dropping him from the ticket for a time, but Nixon instead made a televised address known as "the Checkers Speech" where he denied everything, said that he was only of modest personal wealth, and that his daughter loved the dog and he was not parting with it. The speech was convincing to a wide amount of "Main Street" voters who urged the RNC to keep him on the ticket, although it disgusted the snobbish media and made them into everlasting enemies of Nixon.
All polls had Eisenhower well ahead for most of the campaign and on Election Day he won in an overwhelming electoral landslide with 442 electoral votes to Stevenson's 89 and 55% of the popular vote to 44%. The Supreme Allied Commander carried all states outside the South, and also flipped four Southern states. His landslide carried most major demographics. The Republican Party rode on his coattails to also regain the House and Senate, as things would have it, the last time that would happen for another 42 years.
ha ha remember the time N*xon accepted thousands in illegal campaign donations but it was ok because something something cute puppy?
>>18390857Truman was hyper partisan. He literally refused to ride a ride of Dumbo at Disneyland because it was an elephant ie. the symbol of the Republican Party.
This election was a lot nastier and more mudslinging than many people remember, not just the Checkers debacle. The Democrats had had the White House for a very long time at that point and were not willing to give it up without a fight. A lot of the media and intelligensia idolized Stevenson and were galled that he lost, and they hated Eisenhower and Nixon for it. They resorted to some desperate measures to stave off the inevitable Eisenhower victory.
>>18390880He lost his haberdashery in Independence when the Depression came and forever blamed Hoover and Republicans for it.
>>18390885the Eisenhower campaign wasn't any better, they even took endorsements from Dixiecrats asshurt at the Democrats' newfound pro-civil rights stance
A bunch of stuff all came together at once in 52.>the Korean War stalemate>there had been some cutbacks to production of consumer goods due to factories switching to military production>the steel strike that Truman tried to end by nationalizing US Steel but the Supreme Court shot him down>a bunch of scandals from people in the administration>Dixiecrats were butthurt that the Democrats endorsed civil rights since the last election
>>18390885Stevenson focused too much on attacking the GOP and didn't really offer any substantiative platform of his own. He kept accusing them of plotting to undo the New Deal and harboring guys like Joe McCarthy but couldn't explain what if anything he was going do himself if elected. It was obvious that the Democrats were tired and out of ideas after 20 years and needed a good long break from the White House for a while.
>>18390857Truman was physically and mentally spent by 52. He was lucky he handled everything relatively well considering he only met FDR a few times before the latter's death.
>>18390909FDR left him with a solid cabinet and some of the war plans were secret--Eisenhower for instance didn't know about the Manhattan Project or certain plans in the Pacific. There were a lot of spies around and the White House had pretty flimsy security back then, anyone could just walk in from the street. FDR had a lot of enemies and there were assassination plots made against him, and to win wars you have to keep secrets and know who you can trust.
>>18390880Truman also gave Stevenson certain top secret intelligence briefings but didn't share them with Eisenhower, who was not happy about that.
>>18390862The media were just as elitist and pretentious in the 50s as today.
>>18390874I think it was common knowledge that he was dishonest and politically adept. But Nixon also heavily curated his public image. Everything was planned and staged. So the general public who didn't follow his career saw him as honest and morally righteous. At the same time Nixon's curated image was heavily criticized by leftists and his opposition (e.g. read Hunter Thompson's writings on Nixon). So the general public saw those criticisms as unfair characterizations.Watergate revealed the true Nixon without the public persona. His tapes revealed his relentless swearing, homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, etc. The image he curated was totally gone. At the same time, the pressure of the Watergate investigations and public scrutiny broke him. Before Watergate, he was always calm and dignified in his public appearances. After Watergate, he would launch into rants against the media and babble.
>>18390960wait until you hear what MLK said about gays lol
>>18390960lol i grew up in Utah which has always been a very red state and we got a mostly positive take on Nixon in our school textbooks, they said he kind of fucked up with Watergate but was honorable enough to resign afterward
>>18390862Stevenson was almost a walking caricature of an elitist academic.
>>18390975it's interesting how he got buried in his own state in both presidential runs when he was a popular governor there
>>18390979State and national elections are often quite detached from one another; it is for example why the New England states have been completely safe Democrat territory in presidential elections since the 90s, yet sometimes elect Republican governors. In any case, Ike ticked off all the boxes that appealed to Americans in a presidential candidate back then.
realistically no one was beating Eisenhower and the Democrats were just plain tired after 20 years and needed a rest from the executive branch
>>18390893You're right, it's despicable to do that and then embrace desegregation the way they did. A stab in the back.
