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The Presidential Election of 1952

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Vincent P. DeSantis
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Extract

According to widely held beliefs the Presidential election of 1952 was unique in American political history. Observers have pointed out that it was the weariest, most expensive, most intensively and bitterly fought campaign to date. Observers also emphasized that it was a personal victory for General Dwight D. Eisenhower of landslide proportions that exploded such political theories as prosperity favoring the “ins.” It is further held that “Ike” swept the electorate off its feet because he appeared as a hero and father symbol, and that his success in the South is the beginning of a real two party system in that section. These observations must be placed against a background of historical and statistical facts, before they are translated into pleasant assumptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 1953 , pp. 131 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1953

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References

1 Bendiner, Robert, “How Much Has TV Changed Campaigning?”, New York Times Magazine, 11 2, 1952.Google Scholar

2 New York Times, 11 2, 1952.Google Scholar

3 Ibid.

4 It is widely held that Stevenson was the first candidate to be a genuine draft since James A. Garfield in 1880. However, any investigation will show that Stevenson nowhere approached the unwillingness of Garfield and William Tecurnseh Sherman to become a candidate.

5 Later he shifted to the position that the law should be repealed and he characterized it as a tangle of “legal barbed wire.”

6 Handlin, Oscar, “Payroll Prosperity.” The Atlantic, 191 (02, 1953), 29–33.Google Scholar

7 Both Eisenhower and Hoover carried Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Tennessee, but Hoover also captured North Carolina.

8 Whites in those states which have the highest proportion of Negroes.

9 One who is locally a Democrat but nationally a Republican. He votes Democratic in local and state elections to have a voice in these matters but votes for the Republican nominee in Presidential elections.

10 Counties in the South with 50 per cent or more negro population.

11 Lubell, Samuel “Post Mortem: Who Elected Roosevelt?” Saturday Evening Post, 01 25, 1941.Google Scholar

12 New York Times, 12 12, 1952.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., November 9, 1952.

14 Lubell, Samuel, “Who Elected Eisenhower,” Saturday Evening Post, 01 10, 1953.Google Scholar