1 gen 1948 anni - Truman is reelected

Descrizione:

Democrats would have dumped Truman in 1948 had they found a better candidate. But the party itself was in disarray. The left wing split off and formed the Progressive Party, nominating Henry A. Wallace, an avid New Dealer and former vice president whom Truman had fired as secretary of commerce in 1946 for his vocal opposition to the Cold War. A right-wing challenge came from the South. When northern liberals pushed through a strong civil rights platform at the Democratic convention, the southern delegations bolted and, calling themselves Dixiecrats, nominated for president South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, an ardent supporter of racial segregation. The Republicans meanwhile renominated New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, a moderate who had run a strong campaign against FDR in 1944.

Truman surprised everyone. He launched a strenuous cross-country speaking tour and hammered away at the Republicans for opposing progressive legislation and running a “do-nothing” Congress. Combining these issues with attacks on the Soviet menace abroad, Truman salvaged a campaign that had appeared hopeless. An accidental president who some thought was overwhelmed by his office in 1945, Truman transformed himself into a savvy political fighter. At his rallies, enthusiastic listeners shouted, “Give ’em hell, Harry!” In the November election, Truman won 49.6 percent of the vote to Dewey’s 45.1 percent

Truman’s electoral strategy in 1948 was to concentrate his campaign in areas where the Democrats had their greatest strength. In an election with a low turnout, Truman held on to enough support from Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition of blacks, union members, and farmers to defeat Dewey by more than two million votes.


In one of the most famous photographs in U.S. political history, Harry S. Truman gloats over an erroneous headline in the November 3 Chicago Daily Tribune. Pollsters had predicted an easy victory for Thomas E. Dewey. Their polling techniques, however, missed the dramatic surge in support for Truman during the last days of the campaign.


This unlikely result foreshadowed coming political turmoil. Truman occupied the center of FDR’s sprawling New Deal coalition. On his left were progressives, civil rights advocates, and peace activists critical of the Cold War. On his right were segregationist southerners, who opposed civil rights and were allied with Republicans on many economic and foreign policy issues. In 1948, Truman performed a delicate balancing act, largely retaining the support of Jewish and Catholic voters in the big cities, black voters in the North, union voters across the country, and a still considerable bloc of white southerners. But Thurmond’s strong showing — the Dixiecrat carried four states in the Deep South — demonstrated the fragility of the Democratic coalition. As Truman wrangled opposing forces within his own party, he also faced mounting pressure from Republicans to denounce radicals at home and to take a tough stand against the Soviet Union.

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