and the silly is on.”6
By this time, all the uncertainty and speculation about whether Roosevelt would run destroyed what was left of the Roosevelt-Taft friendship. The stress manifested itself in Taft’s waistline, as he ballooned to 332 pounds. Roosevelt’s opinion of his judicious, loyal lieutenant had plummeted; by August 1911 he was characterizing Taft as “a flubdub with a streak of the second-rate and common in him.”7 Roosevelt’s ego colored his assessment. The rapturous crowds that greeted TR at every turn, and the reporters who trailed his every step, gave the ex-president increased confidence in his chances. His confidantes urged him on, and his letters back to them became more encouraging. By January 1912 he wrote progressive journalist Henry Beach Needham that if a nomination “comes to me as a genuine public movement of course I will accept.”8
After La Follette’s Philadelphia meltdown, Roosevelt finally stopped being coy, and announced he would contest Taft for the Republican nomination. On 21 February he traveled to Ohio to deliver a major address designed to kick off his campaign. The speech he delivered rehashed the New Nationalism themes he had been trumpeting for eighteen months, and staked a new, quite radical position supporting the recall of judges whose decisions went against the will of the voters. While Roosevelt indicated he was “pleased over the stir he made,” the address was a thunderbolt for the Republican conservative wing, and ultimately turned out to be quite damaging to Roosevelt’s chances.9
Funnily enough, Roosevelt’s decision to run against his former protégé was probably the one thing that fueled Taft to do what he always hated doing: campaign for office. Taft may not have wanted to be president, but he really, really did not want Roosevelt to win. “Sometimes a man in a corner fights,” Taft thundered to an audience in Boston. “I am going to fight.” As Roosevelt had once observed in the happier days of their friendship, Taft was “one of the best haters he had ever known.”10
Personal politics lit a fire under Taft, but he also had the great advantage of having spent more than a year working the party machinery to win key blocs of support. While Roosevelt was barnstorming, Taft and his aides were doing the quiet, deliberate work of locking up Republican delegates. Individual charisma and media attention had chipped away at the parties’ influence, but the nineteenth-century way of politics still very much held sway in 1912. Moreover, Taft was the sitting president. Having once enjoyed the benefits of incumbency, Roosevelt recognized Taft’s advantages and was quick to characterize them as corrupt. “He has not a chance of being nominated if he relies merely on the people,” TR wrote Andrew Carnegie as the primary season heated up. “His sole chance, and excellent one, lies in having the wish of the people thwarted by the activity of the Federal office holders under him.”11
Roosevelt’s popularity shone through as he won big states like Illinois and sizeable delegate chunks in Pennsylvania. Vote for vote, Roosevelt won the primaries by a big margin; the combination of votes for Teddy and his Progressive competitor La Follette were nearly twice those for conservative Taft. The president was disappointed. “We had hoped by May 1 to have votes enough to nominate,” he wrote his brother Horace. Although things were uncertain, “I shall not withdraw under any condition.” The stakes were too high: “it seems to me that I am the only hope against radicalism and demagogy.”12
The New Politics
On the other side of the political aisle, twentieth-century modern campaigning and nineteenth-century partisan traditions were coming into conflict as well. While Roosevelt threw rhetorical bombs and Taft stealthily worked the party machinery, the Democrats also wrestled with the growing divide between old-schoolers and reformers.
After his victory in the New Jersey governor’s race, Woodrow Wilson became a national figure and fresh face for a Democratic Party in need of a new image. Woodrow Wilson Clubs sprang up across the nation, driving support for the New Jersey governor to move to the national stage. A high-minded introvert, Wilson was less a true believer than appearances suggested; “his political convictions,” noted his biographer, “were never as fixed as his ambition.”13 In 1911, Wilson sensed that the progressive mood was one he could take all the way to the White House, and he set out on a national tour to build support for his nomination.
Although Woodrow Wilson’s rectitude was a far cry from the red-meat populism of William Jennings Bryan, he was progressive in his advocacy of government action to break up corporate monopolies, reform the tariff and banking systems, and reduce the influence of special interests. While not delivering many policy specifics, Wilson gave stirringly progressive speeches and had a winning manner on the stump, where he liked to open an event by reciting a limerick composed for the occasion. He also had the great advantage of strong support in the New York-based national press, where he had cultivated strong relationships with editors during his years in neighboring New Jersey.
Wilson’s meteoric political career as a national politician was only possible because of the fundamental shifts in the structure and nature of electoral politics put in motion by progressive reform itself. By 1912, the effort to clean up corruption at all levels of government had successfully replaced many patronage jobs with nonpartisan, professional civil service systems. To end the influence of special interests like big railroads and big oil over state legislatures, reformers pushed through innovations like the initiative and referendum, putting ordinary voters in charge of decisions once left to elected officials. Western states like California, Washington, and Oregon became early movers in this system of direct democracy, and in 1911 California elected a new governor, Hiram Johnson, a former Republican who ran on the ticket of the newly formed Progressive Party.14
A second significant reform was the direct primary. In the nineteenth century, both Democrats and Republicans nominated most of their candidates for office through caucuses or party conventions. Unsurprisingly, these mechanisms gave party insiders the advantage, and made it extremely difficult for reform-minded newcomers to obtain electoral office. Secrecy and insider deal-making also allowed corporations—railroads, steel, oil—to maintain a stranglehold on state and national politics by making sure politicians beholden to their interests were nominated and elected, again and again. In the years leading up to 1912, reformers in many states agitated for replacing these systems with direct primary voting—more public, more professionalized, more democratic. An accompanying reform was adoption of the secret ballot. By 1910, two-thirds of the states had adopted the direct primary.15
Figure 5. Woodrow Wilson a few hours after nomination, 2 July 1912. While many changes had come to presidential politics by 1912, some old traditions remained, including the practice of candidates not attending nominating conventions. Here, Woodrow Wilson greets reporters from his seaside home in New Jersey after receiving news that he would become the Democrats’ nominee. Bain News Service, Library of Congress.
The diminished party power and the rise of candidate-centered electoral politics set in motion some profound changes in the way people ran for president. In the old system, candidates could stay out of the fray. Political operatives and party leaders did the speeches, led the parades, and mobilized voters. In an era of rough-and-tumble, mudslinging politics, presidential candidates did not need to sully themselves with the daily routines of the stump, much less attend the rowdy and argumentative national political conventions. In stark contrast to modern conventions that serve as multi-day infomercials for party and nominee, early twentieth-century candidates didn’t attend these party gatherings. They left the nominating process to the professionals, and then they gave an acceptance speech at a later date. Incumbency conferred even more insulation from the campaign trail, as most sitting presidents ran “Rose Garden campaigns,” rarely leaving the White House.
In the new system, advantages started to accrue to candidates like Wilson and Roosevelt who hit the road, giving speech after speech. The bigger the crowd, the better.
