Franklin Delano Roosevelt serves a full Fourth term.
- Thread starter Wat Tyler
- Start date
Unless you have a POD that dramatically alters his lifestyle and health, that's ASB. He'll die before the '46 midterms guaranteed. His own doctor said IOTL that unless he made dramatic changes, he wouldn't see the end of 1945.
John Farson
Banned
I think it's been said by some that FDR intended to resign due to health reasosns some time after the end of the war, so I don't think even a surviving FDR would serve a full term.
As John Farson and Rogue Beaver have said, it depends how you go about getting him to survive that long. He'd been ill for years, and was a dying man at Yalta. If in the unlikely event he does survive, unless he makes some kind of miraculous recovery I cant see him getting that much done, he'd be too restricted by his illness. Would he have the ability or inclination to push through desegregation of the military? I dont know that much about US politics. but surely that was a pretty significant kick up the backside for progress on civil rights.
Japhy
Banned
Wartime dropping the bomb is an inevitability when one has three weapons and uses one for a test, one does not waste 50% of your stockpile on a demonstration to the enemy.
Domestically, we'd see him push a legislative program similar to Truman's Fair Deal and his own Second Bill of Rights. His ability to pass such a program being something that one can debate for hours on end, though I'd say that winning the Second World War will give him some credibility that he'd lost back with the Court-Pack Game.
Internationally, well, to be nice, see Henry Wallace in 1948 for that. With awful heaping of trying to aid the KMT in China beyond all reason. One can't expect free elections in Poland or Czechoslovakia just because he's still in charge.
With the greatest Democratic President of all time alive in 1948, but with his power really at an end, the national convention still has a good chance of breaking in three as per IOTL. Truman's time will have passed and he'll probably either retire or try to go back to the Senate.
If FDR is able to keep his wits and political savvy about him until the end he'll try and pick a successor who would be acceptable to as many factions of the party as possible. Truman would be out, it wouldn't be a Southerner, nor could it be Wallace no matter how much FDR might like him for continuing his foreign policy. Most of the 1940 possible heirs have waned in the 8 years that followed. So possible heirs FDR Might propose would be Secretary James Forrestall (My personal pick, though it probably goes badly), General of the Army George Marshall, Senator Scott W. Lucas or Alben W. Barkley. Though none of those can be assured to prevent at least one of the two break-aways of OTL to do so here.
Domestically, we'd see him push a legislative program similar to Truman's Fair Deal and his own Second Bill of Rights. His ability to pass such a program being something that one can debate for hours on end, though I'd say that winning the Second World War will give him some credibility that he'd lost back with the Court-Pack Game.
Internationally, well, to be nice, see Henry Wallace in 1948 for that. With awful heaping of trying to aid the KMT in China beyond all reason. One can't expect free elections in Poland or Czechoslovakia just because he's still in charge.
With the greatest Democratic President of all time alive in 1948, but with his power really at an end, the national convention still has a good chance of breaking in three as per IOTL. Truman's time will have passed and he'll probably either retire or try to go back to the Senate.
If FDR is able to keep his wits and political savvy about him until the end he'll try and pick a successor who would be acceptable to as many factions of the party as possible. Truman would be out, it wouldn't be a Southerner, nor could it be Wallace no matter how much FDR might like him for continuing his foreign policy. Most of the 1940 possible heirs have waned in the 8 years that followed. So possible heirs FDR Might propose would be Secretary James Forrestall (My personal pick, though it probably goes badly), General of the Army George Marshall, Senator Scott W. Lucas or Alben W. Barkley. Though none of those can be assured to prevent at least one of the two break-aways of OTL to do so here.
Japhy
Banned
I was going to mention that myself, but figured that a Full Fourth Term depended on something changing health wise. On the old Othertimelines website there was once a discussion where a rather poor author of the community proposed that Eleanor got him to quit smoking in 1942, and I just figured something roughly similar if not exactly that took place. Otherwise all you get is FDR resigning in January of 1946 and Truman being Truman without the stigma of the Bomb.
Marshall is out, Barkley is also a Southerner and thus also out. GOP probably wins the House but not the Senate, similar to last year. Scott Lucas is the Dems' best bet: a moderate Midwestern New Dealer like Truman with a blue-collar background.
Japhy
Banned
Firstly why is Marshall out in your opinion?
I understand the No Southerns Rule though I disagree with it, so I'll give you that.
But why not Forrestal? The Post-War situation really will dictate the creation of a Unified Defense Department, Roosevelt's not going to keep the services as they were at the end of the War, and there's really no other figure capable of assuming the office besides him. Its very likely he'd be an entity at this 1948 Convention. IOTL until his dealings with Dewey came out and the Berlin Airlift was underway he was considered a very viable candidate in a dump Truman run.
Though its all a bit silly to argue IMO, after 16 years of one man and his party in the White House, I doubt that the Democrats can have even a one term successor before the Republicans come in.
Marshall is out because he as we all know, he never expressed interest in elective office. Forrestall: Maybe.
Japhy
Banned
Except that Eisenhower wasn't expressing open interest until the Draft movement started in 1952 in the Republican Party. So it would be foolish to simply brush off Marshall. Not that I consider him the most likely candidate, but I wouldn't say its impossible.
I think Marshall is in. If the President of the USA told Marshall he had to run for the good of the country he would run. Also Eisenhower might have been persuaded to run has a democrat. FDR's kids wanted him. The one big thing policy wise you would see is National Health care for the entire country. In other words Medicare for everyone. The rest of the modern world was going there. FDR because of his illness and polio understood this to be important more than any American President. VEEP candidate is a good question. Barkley like OTL? Lucas is a good bet.
His medical condition alone would require a long term support visit by an ASB for him to survive the term. His doctors made clear to him that a fourth term meant dying in office.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Maybe if he quit smoking. I think nothing changes in terms of government policy. The 1948 election does change of course. Marshall is an interesting choice. He is a war hero who could be convinced to run on the Democratic ticket. I think that in 1952, due to the Korean quagmire, he loses to the even more heroic Eisenhower.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Well Eisenhower did not defend his mentor against Joe McCarthy. So I see limits to his loyalty that could be overcome through ambition. Maybe, however, your right and Bob Taft wins in 1952.
Bob Taft, likewise, has no real shot at becoming President. He's too conservative, not charismatic, and was a shit campaigner. If he's the GOP nominee in '52, Marshall/Lucas wins another term. Really, the only way you can have Taft become POTUS is to have a communist somehow pulling the strings in Washington in the late forties/early fifties.
If FDR is alive, he would presumably wait for the Soviet Union to invade Manchuria, since Stalin and FDR had agreed on a date during Yalta. This is significant because Operation August Storm had a far greater key in the surrender of Japan than the atom bombs did, as Japan's last hope for peace (in the minds of their leaders) disappeared. One might very well see a Japanese surrender before the atom bombs fall, so there is nothing inevitable about it.