U.S. presidential election, 1952

From Freepedia

Image:ElectoralCollege1952-Large.png The U.S. presidential election of 1952 took place after over two years of stalemate in the Korean War and a volatile economy. Incumbent President Harry S Truman decided not to run, so the Democratic Party instead nominated Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. The Republican Party countered with war hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower and won in a landslide.

1 Nominations
- 1.1 Republican Party nomination
- 1.2 Democratic Party nomination
2 General election
- 2.1 Campaign
- 2.2 Results
3 See also
4 External links

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Image:I like Ike.jpg

The fight for the Republican nomination was largely between General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as candidate of the party's more moderate eastern establishment (led by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the party's nominee in 1944 and 1948), and Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, the candidate of the more conservative party regulars in the Midwest. The primaries had been split fairly evenly between the two men, and the nomination came down to the wire, but ultimately Eisenhower won the nomination based largely on the perception that he was a sure winner. To placate the party's conservative wing, Eisenhower chose as his running mate Senator Richard Nixon of California, best known for his pursuit of Alger Hiss. Other Republican candidates in this year were Governor Earl Warren of California and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, who had both hoped to emerge as a compromise candidate in case of deadlock between Eisenhower and Taft.

Democratic Party nomination

The obvious candidate for the Democratic nomination was incumbent President Harry S. Truman. He was still eligible to the presidency in spite of the 1951 passage of the 22nd Amendment, which limited Presidents to two terms, because of that amendment's grandfather clause.

But Truman had hinted to aides starting in 1951 (and had written privately earlier) that he would not run for re-election. Behind the scenes, Truman was attempting to recruit a successor. He focused early on Fred M. Vinson, the Chief Justice; Vinson's southern roots were important in an election that threatened to continue the fractures in the Solid South that had started with the brief emergence of the Dixiecrats. He also tried to recruit Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ended those entreaties by announcing in January 1952 that he was a Republican. Lack of success with Vinson and Eisenhower made Adlai Stevenson a follow-on choice, but Stevenson remained noncommittal.

Truman entered 1952 with his popularity plummeting, according to polls. The Korean War was dragging into its third year, Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade was stirring public fears of an encroaching "Red Menace", and the disclosure of widespread corruption among federal employees rocked the administration.

After losing the New Hampshire primary to Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, who had chaired a nationally televised investigation of organized crime in 1951, President Truman announced on March 29, 1952, that he would not seek re-election.

The Democratic Party was now largely demoralized, associated with the unpopularity of the Truman administration and lacking any obvious candidates. While Kefauver went on to win nearly all of the other primaries, most states still chose their delegates by state conventions, leaving party bosses in a position to choose the eventual nominee. Besides Kefauver, the leading contenders for the nomination were Ambassador Averell Harriman, Truman's pick and the choice of Harriman's voter rich home state of New York; Senator Richard Russell of Georgia as the candidate of the southern bloc; and Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, who emerged as the choice of the mainline party leadership. Other minor or favorite son candidates included Oklahoma Senator Robert Kerr, Vice President Alben Barkley, Governor Paul A. Dever of Massachusetts, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, and Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

Governor Adlai Stevenson had repeatedly declined to run but was eventually drafted as the Democratic nominee on the strength of his eloquent keynote speech at the convention.

On the first ballot, Kefauver was in the lead, receiving 340 votes to Stevenson's 273, Russell's 268, and Harriman's 123. But as favorite son candidates dropped out, Stevenson began to close, and on the third ballot he was boosted when Harriman dropped out and threw his support to Stevenson. To placate the south at the nomination of a northern liberal, Alabama Senator John J. Sparkman (a relative liberal by Alabama standards) was chosen as Stevenson's running mate.

General election

Campaign

Eisenhower campaigned by attacking the failures of the outgoing Administration, and promising to go to Korea and resolve the war. His residual popularity as a World War II commander made him the leader throughout the campaign.

Both campaigns made use of television ads. A notable ad for "Ike" Eisenhower was an issue-free feel-good animated cartoon with a soundtrack song by Irving Berlin called I Like Ike.

One notable event of the campaign was a scandal that emerged when Vice Presidential candidate Nixon was accused of receiving various undeclared gifts from wealthy contributors. It must here be said that the democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson had problems with his own campaign contributions. For a while it appeared that Nixon might be dropped from the campaign, but he gave a tearful televised speech (the "Checkers Speech") in which he defended his political expenses and told the public about a dog named "Checkers" that he had received from a contributor, and how much his children loved it. This speech defused the issue and recovered Nixon's support.

The election was held on November 4, 1952, and Eisenhower won a decisive victory, sweeping every region but the South.

Results

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	Running Mate's Electoral Vote
Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Count	Percentage	Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	Running Mate's Electoral Vote
Dwight David Eisenhower	Republican	New York	34,075,529	55.2%	442	Richard Milhous Nixon	California	442
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II	Democratic	Illinois	27,375,090	44.3%	89	John Jackson Sparkman	Alabama	89
Vincent Hallinan	Progressive	California	140,746	0.2%	0	Charlotta Bass		0
Stuart Hamblen	Prohibition		73,412	0.1%	0	Enoch Holtwick		0
Other			87,165	0.1%	0	Other		0
Total			61,751,942	100.0%	531	Total		531
Needed to win					266	Needed to win		266