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Introduction: Roosevelt and the 1936 Election

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Voting Deliberatively
This chapter is in the book Voting Deliberatively
introduction: roosevelt and the 1936 electionA few short months before the election, the outcome seemed anything but certain. Both internal White House polls and the public polls conducted by the media supported the wide range of available anecdotal evidence: the presi-dent was in trouble. His first election, in the wake of a thoroughly discredited Republican administration, had once seemed to hold the promise of Demo-cratic dominance for the foreseeable future. But continuing economic prob-lems, a controversial domestic agenda, and a foreign policy that seemed weak and vacillating eroded the administration’s support among the mass public. The administration was attacked every day on the nation’s mass media and the president faced vicious and unrelenting criticism from both the Right and the Left, some of it aimed at his policies, much of it directed at the person of the president himself. Such criticism even escalated into the formation of a new political party dedicated, it appeared, exclusively to undermining the president and attacking his programs. From all the available evidence, then, it seemed unlikely that the president was about to make history. But his reelection was indeed historic. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1936 election with nearly 61 percent of the vote, capturing forty- six of the forty- eight states, losing only in Maine and Vermont. Looking back at that result and knowing, as we do now, the entirety of the legacy left to us by FDR, it is easy to forget how contestable—and how contested—his administration actu-ally was.1 It is also easy to overlook the innovations of that campaign and the consequences they had for the practices of American democracy.2 This book
© 2021 Penn State University Press

introduction: roosevelt and the 1936 electionA few short months before the election, the outcome seemed anything but certain. Both internal White House polls and the public polls conducted by the media supported the wide range of available anecdotal evidence: the presi-dent was in trouble. His first election, in the wake of a thoroughly discredited Republican administration, had once seemed to hold the promise of Demo-cratic dominance for the foreseeable future. But continuing economic prob-lems, a controversial domestic agenda, and a foreign policy that seemed weak and vacillating eroded the administration’s support among the mass public. The administration was attacked every day on the nation’s mass media and the president faced vicious and unrelenting criticism from both the Right and the Left, some of it aimed at his policies, much of it directed at the person of the president himself. Such criticism even escalated into the formation of a new political party dedicated, it appeared, exclusively to undermining the president and attacking his programs. From all the available evidence, then, it seemed unlikely that the president was about to make history. But his reelection was indeed historic. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1936 election with nearly 61 percent of the vote, capturing forty- six of the forty- eight states, losing only in Maine and Vermont. Looking back at that result and knowing, as we do now, the entirety of the legacy left to us by FDR, it is easy to forget how contestable—and how contested—his administration actu-ally was.1 It is also easy to overlook the innovations of that campaign and the consequences they had for the practices of American democracy.2 This book
© 2021 Penn State University Press

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Introduction: Roosevelt and the 1936 Election 1
  5. 1. Creating Public Opinion, Muting the Public’s Voice 23
  6. 2. Empowering the Public, Privileging the Candidate 43
  7. 3. Mobilizing the Vote, Containing the Public 66
  8. 4. Speaking for the Public, Empowering the Presidency 89
  9. Conclusion: The Mass Public and the Presidency 112
  10. Notes 123
  11. Bibliography 143
  12. Index 151
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271071947-002

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Introduction: Roosevelt and the 1936 Election 1
  5. 1. Creating Public Opinion, Muting the Public’s Voice 23
  6. 2. Empowering the Public, Privileging the Candidate 43
  7. 3. Mobilizing the Vote, Containing the Public 66
  8. 4. Speaking for the Public, Empowering the Presidency 89
  9. Conclusion: The Mass Public and the Presidency 112
  10. Notes 123
  11. Bibliography 143
  12. Index 151
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