On the weekend of June 17-18, two well-known pundits opined about “spoilers” and said they believed that Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party presidential candidate in 1948, injured President Harry Truman in his race for re-election against Republican Thomas Dewey.
Joan Walsh, who often writes for The Nation, said in an interview that left parties “always” injure Democratic nominees. She did not specifically mention the 1948 election.
Jonathan B. Chait specifically wrote that in the 1948 election, Truman failed two “spoiler” candidates, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond. Chait said that in an article for the Intelligencer. He also writes for New York magazine.
Neither Walsh nor Chait seem aware of the research conducted by Samuel Lubell about the 1948 presidential election, research that is set out in his 1950 book “The Future of American Politics.” Lubell had been a pollster and then a political scientist. His research showed that Harry Truman would have lost the 1948 election if Henry Wallace had not run. During the 1944 presidential election, Lubell found, approximately two million Democrats had voted for Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, because they were strongly anti-Communist and they observed that the Communist Party (which had temporarily become the Communist Political Association during 1944) was strongly in favor of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A large share of these Democrats were Polish and they were very much opposed to Communism because of Stalin’s treatment of Poland. But in 1948, these voters observed that the Communist Party was strongly backing Henry Wallace and attacking Truman. So they felt comfortable returning to the Democratic Party and voting for Truman. Henry Wallace polled 1,157,326 votes. Even assuming all of them would have voted for Truman if Wallace had not run, their loss for the Democrats was far outweighed by the 2,000,000 voters who switched from Dewey to Truman.
SSorry, not buying your writers from FAKE NEWS outlets.
Might want to re-read Richard’s post Bob; Richard is actually criticizing those outlets here, and rightfully so given how ignorant and undemocratic their “spoiler” drivel is.
Or, maybe some people thought Roosevelt had been in office long enough and was starting to turn into a dictator, or maybe had been too dictatorial already?
Truman wasn’t Roosevelt, there was a postwar boom, peace and prosperity, and Roosevelt’s once radical policies were becoming bipartisan consensus with the 1946 Republican congress not seriously trying to overturn them. By 1948, people also had a reason to vote against a Republican house majority which either failed to deliver what they expected from Republicans or perhaps reminded them why the Republicans had not been the majority for the better part of two decades.
It’s possible that the Thurmond and Wallace candidacies changed the outcome, but there are other plausible explanations why Truman won. One I’ve read before, if I remember it right, is that Republicans got too confident and stayed home. Polls showed Dewey winning because many people didn’t have phone telephones yet and poll results were thus skewed. I remember seeing a picture of Truman holding up a newspaper with the erroneous headline “Dewey Beats Truman” or something to that effect.
Joshua, had it occurred to you that Lubell might be included in who all Bob meant?
TRUMAN –
LOSS OF CHINA TO KILLER/ENSLAVER COMMIES IN 1945-1949
LOSS OF A-BOMB SECRETS – FOREVER
LOSS OF E EUROPE TO RUSSIA COMMIES – TO 1989-1991
LOSS OF N. KOREA TO COMMIES IN 1950-1953
LOSS OF VIETNAM STARTED IN 1945 — TO 1975
1948 EC ELECTION — ONE MORE MINORITY RULE ELECTION SINCE 1832
— ON TO 2020 -2024
—
P-A-T
That does sound a lot like Biden. I’d say GOP chances are looking great for next year right now, and we all know who has a commanding lead in that primary.
Sam Lubell wasn’t just theorizing; his conclusions were based on interviews with thousands of voters plus his careful analysis of the election returns on a precinct-by-precinct basis.
Neither Biden, nor Trump are going to be the nominees in 2024.
Biden will drop out for health reasons as a cover for his poor polling and there are only so many people who will vote for a presidential candidate wearing an orange jumpsuit.
I’m actually entering the race, Jeff. Just hold your horses.
Trump won’t be wearing any jumpsuit. The cases against him are way too weak. They’ll be thrown out, result in not guilty verdicts, get procedurally delayed into the Trump presidency and then past it, etc. Trump will pardon himself after being elected again even if he were somehow to be incarcerated, but that won’t happen.
Biden would have already been replaced if they had anyone who could beat Trump. They don’t, they can’t , so they won’t.
Stock, you can enter any race you want, there are hundreds of no name D and R presidential primary candidates only election nerds are aware even exist. Congratulations if you actually become one of them. You can run as a third party or independent candidate too. Either way you will be below the radar. You’ll get the Mitt Romney vote, if Romney was not rich or elected to anything ever. Or maybe the Communist Party card carrying members will turn out in force to support you. Oh wait, most of them are not American voters. Bummer for you.
Lubell may have had an agenda, misrepresented findings, cherrypicked data, ignored countervailing factors? I’m not saying he did. I don’t know who he is – or more likely was if he was old enough to conduct such studies 75 years ago. I don’t know what his views were. I have not read his work. I’m just saying any or all of these things may or may not have occurred. The fact that he did interviews and analysis don’t by themselves prove they did not.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/19/trump-and-other-republicans-conjure-a-familiar-enemy-in-attacking-democrats-as-communists/70335015007/
NATION
Trump and other Republicans conjure a familiar enemy in attacking Democrats as ‘communists’
Ali Swenson Associated Press
New York — Lashing out after his arraignment on federal charges last week, Donald Trump took aim at President Joe Biden and Democrats with language that seemed to evoke another era: He was being persecuted, he said, by “Marxists” and “communists.”
—
MORE FAKE NEWS ???
Of course it is. Ali Swenson is a commie opinion writer pretending to be a journalist.
It’s even listed as an opinion piece. AZ is a retard.
The more third party and independent candidates for President of every sort, the better. Don’t let any candidate for President get a majority of the popular vote.
Stock is running? That will be hilarious!
Running from what?
I don’t know if Richard is picking up the scent; but, there seems to be an attempt lately by the System to make it appear that minor parties are a nuisance and spoilers which makes them anti-democratic because they can sometimes thwart one of the major party’s candidates from winning.
“I don’t know if Richard is picking up the scent; but, there seems to be an attempt lately by the System to make it appear that minor parties are a nuisance and spoilers which makes them anti-democratic because they can sometimes thwart one of the major party’s candidates from winning”
That has been going on since at least 2000. It has become more and more intense as both major parties try to force feed increasingly terrible candidates onto the electorate, and compel people to choose between them by blocking out all alternative choices.
Not one of anymore. Now it’s the Demonrats specifically. They were “bipartisan” and fine with Republicans so long as the GOP was run by country club establishment liberals and neocons like the Bushes, McCains, Doles, Cheney’s, Romney’s etc. Trump is transforming the GOP into a nationalist, blue collar, anti-globalist party and they call it “antidemocracy” even though they are the ones trying to persecute Trump and his allies with fake persecutions, deplatform views they don’t approve, etc.
When it comes to minor parties, they love No Labels, unless they are worried it might accidentally help Trump. They hate any minor parties that oppose globalism, such as Constitution, American Freedom, American Independent, Libertarian, etc. But, when the globalists Johnson and Weld ran, they were promoted, at least until they started to threaten Hillary Clinton. Now they call Mises fascist and bigot, even though that’s a lie. They said the same about Ron Paul.
The globalist elitists are increasingly open Marxists. They will go with no mercy against any country or party that stands up to globalism. The Euroglobalists are less and less shy about letting it be known that they are “harmonizing” with commie Red China. Biden Demon Rats are less and less shy about being CCP XI quisling puppets and Marxist socialists. They attack any national leader who stands up for nationalism and against globalism as antidemocratic, even when popularly elected: Putin, Lukashenko, Orban, Meloni, Erdogan, Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, and opposition leaders like LePen. In Germany, they make nationalism essentially illegal.
The real demonized boogeyman are nationalists of every party and nation. The real issue is nationalism vs globalism. Those on the nationalist side are demonized by the fake news, deep state, and the rest of the illuminati Luciferian globalist new world order scum.
This extends to anyone opposing the new world order globalist agenda in any field : Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Russian Orthodox Church, John Birch Society, Anti Vatican II Catholics, and so on.
Globalism and Marxism are merging, or emerging in their common illuminati Luciferian “enlightenment” agenda of global control. Anyone who stands in the way is viciously attacked as antidemocratic, dictator, tyrant, bigot, etc even when standing for and demonstrating a record of peace, prosperity, popular election, and much greater tolerate for free speech and opposing views as well as armed self defense rights than their globalist opposition.
Steve: bingo!
WHO IS GLOBALIST 666 ???
Xi, plus Joseph Stalin Xi Marionette Biden, Ursula Von Der Leyden and the European Union commission, Soros, and a few others – the beast with seven heads.
Robert K Stock, do you have a campaign website?
He’s waiting on a check from Brezhnev or Fidel Castro in the mail before he can pay for the domain and hosting fees.
https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/obama-biden-other-elected-officials-120032914.html
How Obama, Biden and Other Elected Officials Have Made Millions by Being in Office
—
WELL PAID USA MONARCHS ???
Obama, Biden and other dim mafia are just traitors taking bribes.
True, but that doesn’t make them monarchs.
Power in US GOV is divided. Not hereditary, not absolute, clearly not a monarchy. AZ just talks nonsense nonstop.
@Chuck,
Lubbell’s book is available on Amazon.
I think someone nailed it, AZ just wants attention. He’s a troll. If you give it to him, of course he thinks you are a moron.