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The Bull Moose Disaster
Election of 1912
Woodrow Wilson (Democratic): 435 EV (6,293,152 votes)
Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive): 88 EV (4,119,207 votes)
William Howard Taft (Republican): 8 EV (3,486,333 votes)
Theodore Roosevelt was McKinley’s Vice President when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Roosevelt was re-elected President in 1904. However, because of the tradition of two terms originated by George Washington (not yet made a law), Roosevelt did not run in 1908 but supported William Howard Taft who became President.
In 1912, Roosevelt, disappointed with Taft and having his ego inflated by his huge personal popularity, decided to ride the tide of the new progressive movement. He jumped party and ran against Taft on the new Progressive Party ticket now nicknamed, “The Bull Moose Party.”
The results were all too predictable. Roosevelt split the normal Republican voters right down the middle. If you add his total to Taft’s total you’d get 7,605,540 to Woodrow Wilson’s 6,293,152.
It seems very likely that a Republican candidate of a united party would have beat Wilson in 1912. Immense energy was spent by Taft and Roosevelt attacking each other. If such energy had been concentrated against Wilson, it is doubtful that Wilson would have polled as well as he did.
It is true that demanding lockstep party loyalty destroys the very reason for democracy in the first place. Democracy, at a minimum, gives the people a chance to endorse what they like and veto what they don’t. In a two-party, fixed, scheduled election system (no parliamentary snap elections), however, the cost of disunity can be high. If you are talking about an American presidential election and all that rides upon it, the cost of disunity is maximally high.
Still, people must have their own view. If, however, it is not really their own view that they want but their vanity flattered, then disunity can turn into a tragedy of Greek proportion. Were Taft’s views so repellant that it was worth Roosevelt trying a wild third party run to unseat him? Was it really Teddy’s politics that made the difference or was it just his ability to appeal to the crowd?
I’m sure there are professional historians with massive statistical databases who could attempt to answer these questions empirically. Obviously, I can’t do that for this post. What I can do is talk about the difference between who we want to be and who we are.
We all have aspirations. Aspirations are generally good. They give us a goal to shoot for. Even if we don’t make it all the way, we make it farther because we tried.
Unfortunately, sometimes we want something that we really shouldn’t have. We already have what is important and so we risk the important to chase after fools gold. The calamity is sure to follow.
Woodrow Wilson looked the part and was willing to act the part. On closer inspection, however, the narrowness of the man would probably have been revealed. He was both a blind idealist and a racial bigot cloaked in the grandest of sophisticated ideas. A tough campaign where the focus was on him and him alone might have revealed his flaws under more intense light.
As is so often the case with “idealists,” Wilson first was very anti-war and ran on “he kept us out of war” in 1916. Then he gave way to the realpolitik he had ignored and plunged us into war with abandon. Never the kind of man who could lead a broad coalition, after the war Wilson didn’t know how to make a satisfying armistice or a functional League of Nations. Even his illness was mishandled. Instead of accepting reality and revealing it, Mrs. Wilson maintained the facade and was even more ineffective as the shadow President.
We are free to express ourselves but when our own egos get the best of us, we can make colossal blunders with long-range ramifications. It is important in a democracy that both mature citizens and mature leaders consider their actions in light of the upside and the possible downside.
The present Republican Party is badly split between the grassroots and the upper echelon. The grassroots have proven that it can’t consistently elect enough senators to control the Senate. The upper echelon has proven that it can neither win nor hold the House. Trump appears as a third-force that is completely outside the Party but serves the Party’s interests anyway. One can’t help but feel that if all three of these components could be put together in a functional team alliance then victory and success would ensue.
Is Trump’s character so awful that we would risk destroying a well-functioning conservative American presidency because of it? Were the Tea Party people so crude that they had to be marginalized even if it meant losing the ground game that had brought success in the House? Are we so frustrated with the “Beltway” that we take it out on old Mitch even though he is doing a decent job of handling the Chuck and Nancy show?
How a president shapes the public character
It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.
I have been very patient these last two years. I assumed that mature minds would make a peace with present circumstances and not try to fight reality. I find little evidence of this. Catastrophe is likely unless people start dealing rationally with the cards that Gd has dealt us. One must pray that we won’t go on a wild Bull Moose chase that will end badly. To imagine that an ill-defined sense of “character” is more important than policies or Supreme Court Justice appointments is to stretch credulity beyond any reasonable limit. This is an unlimited license to go on a wild Bull Moose chase ad infinitum. Better chill out now before real disaster strikes.
If you need motivation, just think of Woodrow Wilson and that will surely propel you in the right direction.
Published in General
Gumby,
In light of the net result both WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution, it does seem slightly ridiculous to imagine Teddy Roosevelt as Napoleon who actually crowned himself Emperor. Especially after he stepped down in accord with the “tradition” of only two terms as required. If he were Napoleon he would never have relinquished the Presidency.
This is all beside the point as Root & Lodge weren’t in control of TR. TR was in control of TR and his ego “surely I’m the better man” led him to make an absurdly bad choice. Had he stayed on the sideline and let Taft beat Wilson so what. After Taft’s second term he would have been forced to step down too. The third party thing is either a bitter spoiler or an ego so inflated that he can’t see reality. Teddy was number two.
Regards,
Jim
On that we can agree!
A decision it seems he regretted about 3 seconds after he did it. And after all of this 2012 mess he was clearly gearing up to run in 2020.
As for the “tradition”, he was not the first to step down after two terms and (at least) make waves about running for a third (after some time off). Any guesses?
Klaatu,
Believe it or not, I was once a Cub Scout. Having ideals is a good thing. However, you might notice that there are now gay scoutmasters and that it is now acceptable for six-year-olds to choose their sexual identity or be coached to do so. There is a price to be paid for not winning elections. It can open Pandora’s box and allow evil to run loose throughout the world. Perhaps Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan should think about all the people they let down because they didn’t have the guts to win. Let down is a very nice way of saying damaged severely.
If Trump’s crime is that he won then he shouldn’t step down but be given a medal.
Regards,
Jim
philo,
Take it away philo and inform me. I don’t have a clue. You meant 1920, not 2020. However, if Taft had beat Wilson then he would have only been forced to wait until 2016. With the rest, his health might have held out too.
Regards,
Jim
Yes, 1920.
ANSWER:
Politics is downstream from the culture. The fate of the Boy Scouts was not determined by election victories or losses.
Romney and Ryan failing to win had nothing to do with guts. It had to do mainly with competing against an incredibly popular incumbent (rather than one of the two least popular candidates to ever get a major party nomination).
Trump’s crime is not that he won but that he is mentally and emotionally stunted narcissist who has more character defects than I can list.
philo,
Most interesting. US Grant took more pounding and did more service to the Republic than anyone else besides Washington or Lincoln. His first lieutenant General Sherman was offered the Presidency and was the one who said, “If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.” Maybe Uncle Billy knew something about Washington DC and preferred to enjoy the rest of his life without it.
You tell me philo.
Regards,
Jim
Klaatu,
I’m sorry but these are false statements. Romney and Ryan were in easy striking distance of an increasingly unpopular President. Romney didn’t put Obama down in the last debate because he didn’t want to look too harsh. The Democrats had just about called him Satan in their TV ADs but Romney didn’t want to make Obama look too bad. Ryan is up against the Gaff King himself and sticks to his spreadsheet and nerd talking points. He should have dragged old Joe over the coals and hit him over the head with as many of the Gaffs as he could fit in.
You are not a psychiatrist and so your diagnosis is amateur stuff. However, if somehow Trump was an emotionally stunted narcissist, he is one of the most functional emotionally stunted narcissists to every walk the earth. In fact, we should be looking around for more of these emotionally stunted narcissists because, apparently, they can get the job done.
Regards,
Jim
Obama was, and remains, incredibly popular personally. His job approval ratings were never anything to brag about (but generally higher than Trump’s) but his personal favorability was always high.
You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to see Trump is a stunted narcissist but I am curious as to what you think he has accomplished?
Klaatu,
Again you bring up the irrelevant that sort of sounds good. They were neck and neck down to the closing weeks of the campaign. That is all that is relevant to winning the election. That is the issue. That is what they failed at. As a reward, we got a hideous second term from Obama. This second term included such wonderful things as the destruction of marriage as Western Civilization knows it. The removal of all sanctions on the worst terror state in the world. Four more years of weak growth even though the economy had bottomed out years before. Endless hyper-regulation and corrosive social policy.
Anyone who didn’t see this is willfully blind. In 2016 we faced 4 and most probably 8 more years of this garbage. I will never be sorry for voting to end this. I will never be sorry for trying to extend this brief period of sunshine when we were recovering economically and socially from the very dark evil that had been poisoning our society.
Those who turn back to Sodom and Gomorrah will end up like Lot’s wife. Like Abraham, I wish them well but there is nothing that I can do.
Regards,
Jim
Given the disparity between the polls and the final result, there was a modeling problem in gauging Obama’s support. Again, Romney’s loss had nothing to do with a lack of guts.
Your desire to justify your vote in 2016 is understandable but irrelevant to whether Trump’s behavior as President deserves Romney’s criticism. Trump told us he could be presidential, he has yet to follow through on that.
Neil,
Does your definition of being Presidential include 5 extra years of a total no-growth economy, choking regulations guaranteed to destroy jobs, and a foreign policy that made strategic retreat sound good as it was really total abdication to an enemy? This was what Obama had left us. This was what HRC made clear in every speech including the last ones right before the election that she would double down on the Obama legacy.
I don’t see anything in Trump’s behavior in the last two years that warrants Mitt Romney’s boring backstabbing. If Romney would rather register as a Democrat perhaps he should. Obviously, real conservative policy results mean nothing to him.
Regards,
Jim
What a remarkable series of nicknames for Democrats! How about nicknames for Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, The Texas Boy Wonder (Beto!), Michael Bloomberg, and Mitch Landrieu?
Also, wouldn’t ”Sparty” be a better nickname for Booker?
James,
This post couldn’t be better.
More than 100 years, and we still haven’t learned the lesson.
Again, you trying desperately to justify your vote. If you haven’t seen behavior worthy of criticism, you haven’t been paying attention.
Neil,
Your 3rd-grade teacher report card on Donald J. Trump isn’t behavior worth destroying a functional conservative Presidency and throwing this country (and probably the rest of the world) into chaos. BTW, there is nothing desperate about my defense of my vote. Rather, it is a conclusive argument for anyone who thinks more than a few seconds about it.
Regards,
Jim
European politicians of the period just prior to the Great War thought of the U.S. as a third rate international power that existed only through luck and watched over by God the same way drunks and children are. The events and attitudes that would lead to WWI were already in place by the end of the 19th century, so I don’t think there is anything the U.S. could have done to deter it from happening. A good read on the subject is Barbara W. Tuchman’s: “The Guns of August”. She goes into some detail on the events, social changes, politics/policies and political attitudes leading up to August 1914.
A functional conservative presidency does not include unproductive trade wars, unwarranted attacks on alliances, surrendering to the likes of Erdogan, or the rantings of stunted narcissist, regardless, anything you may give credit to Trump for could more easily be accomplished without his childish behavior.
Your defensiveness is clear in your inability to acknowledge Trump’s many faults.
Ronin,
I am sure that this account is unbiased. However, I don’t look at Historical events as caste in stone. I think that human events are caused by humans not ‘factors’. If they can recognize the folly they can change their behavior. You are right that the attitudes of Europe were already very negative before Roosevelt even became President. However, there still would have been more of a chance that the rambunctious Teddy might have woke Europe out of its death spiral trance than the deadly boring Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s eugenic sentiments undoubtedly just reinforced the worst European attitudes.
Regards,
Jim
That’s a big “if”. Teddy most assuredly would have joined the side of France and the British when war were declared had he been elected president in 1912. This might have had the effect of shortening the war and gaining total victory over Germany with the U.S. supplying the beans, bullets and bodies to augment the Allied Forces early on. It may even have prevented the 1917 Russian Revolution, we will never know. But I agree with you that Teddy was a better man than Woodrow. Then again, we are a little biased toward Teddy here in Texas.
Long live the memory of Theodore Rex.
Ronin,
Love the photos and Gd bless Texas. However, your Historical hypothesis actually supports my claim. If Teddy had made it clear to Germany that he would immediately come in on Britain & France & Russia’s side, I suspect the German High Command would have seriously reconsidered. Remember when Wilson took us into the War, Russia was coming out of the War. Earlier, Germany would have been faced by three technically advanced powers on the Western Front and a populace Russian Army on the Eastern Front at the same time. The German High Command was arrogant but they weren’t stupid.
Regards,
Jim