President 33 - Insider

I'll grant that Senator Harry Truman's road to the White House wasn't quite as convoluted as Gerald Ford's, but it was interesting enough.

Franklin D. Roosevelt went through Vice Presidents like King Henry VIII went through wives. Garner had been jettisoned a few years earlier, and Wallace just wasn't the man to continue, when Roosevelt was faced with choosing a running mate for 1944. He ended up choosing a Senator - in fact, a Senator who was actually popular because of his work in the Senate. Anyone who would fight waste in the middle of a war effort was bound to get some good press, although it's uncertain how many people cared who was second on the 1944 ticket.

It goes without saying that President Truman had his problems with a Congress of the opposite party. Unlike Gerald Ford, who got along with Congress personally though he disagreed with its political views, Truman railed against the "do-nothing Congress" and probably helped himself to an elected term as a result.

Truman also faced challenges that were the most significant since 1860, since in 1948 both the left wing and the right wing of the Democratic Party split from the main group and elected presidential candidates. Yet Truman won anyway.

[CONTINUE TO NEXT POST.]

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

Sphere: Related Content