against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

Democratic National Convention:

Twenty-four candidates for the first ballot.

Four leading candidates; William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson’s son-in-law and former treasury secretary; Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer; Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York; and Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio.

William Gibbs McAdoo was the front-runner. Wilson prevented his nomination, and refused to endorse any candidate, hoping to be drafted when the convention deadlocked.

Instead, the Democrats nominatedGovernor James M. Cox, a newspaper editorand for Vice President nominated 38 year-old Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, a fifth cousin of the late Theodore Roosevelt

Convention Quotations:

“I feel like a man who goes in on a pair of eights and comes out with aces full.” Warren Harding after his nomination

“There ain’t any first-raters thisjust throw a halo around his handsome head and everything will be all right.”

Campaign Innovations (General Election):

Republican Party:The use of national advertisements (extended ad campaign)

Campaign Tactics:

Republican Party:

Front porch campaign in Marion, Ohio, received widespread coverage in the newspapers; otherwise Harding did very little campaigning/stumping, gave some ghostwritten speeches.

Fundraising, organized by Will Hays, the Republican National chairman.

Emphasis on nostalgia, the “good old times” of the late 19th century, small towns, piety and patriotism

With Republicans divided about the League of Nations, Harding, ambiguously, supported an “association of nations.”

Democratic Party:

Both Cox and Roosevelt stumped. Cox traveled 22,000 miles, addressed two million people, emphasizing his support for Wilson’s League and disgust at Republican fundraising.

Nationalistic images “absolute control of the United States by the United States”; “Independence means independence, now as in 1776”;