Harold Stassen died this month at age 93. He was most noted for his repeated tries for the American presidency as a Republican hopeful.
To be sure, other Americans were badly bitten by the presidential bug. William Jennings Bryan is remembered for being the only person to win a major-party nomination three times. Socialist Eugene Debs ran five times on his third-party ticket, and his compatriot Norman Thomas ran six times. Prohibitionist Earl Dodge has run five times, and seems good for several more.
Stassen, however, never succeeded in getting his party's nomination for president. His presidential bids came in 1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992. Given his repeated and hopeless efforts for the presidency, Stassen provided limitless fodder for television jokesters. Whether it was the Jack Parr Show, That Was the Week That Was, Laugh In, or Saturday Night Live, you could count on a barrage of Stassen jokes every four years.
Yet many Americans were not old enough to remember that Stassen had had a credible and creditable career. At age 31 he was elected governor of Minnesota, the youngest candidate ever to win an American governorship. He won 60 percent of the vote, ousting the incumbent of the Farmer-Labor Party. He went on to win two more terms but resigned as governor to enter the Navy for World War II service.
His status as a "golden boy" of the Republican party did involve Stassen in some early presidential politics. In 1940 he delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention, and he was one of the key whips for Wendell Willkie, who won the nomination that year. Four years later Stassen was in the military service, but did manage to win the Nebraska and South Dakota presidential primaries. The candidate in uniform was overshadowed that year by a more famous soldier-candidate, Douglas MacArthur, who won in Wisconsin and Illinois. Eventually both Stassen and MacArthur made way for Dewey.
In 1948 Stassen made his most credible presidential bid. He won some important early primaries, in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Stassen actually won more votes than Dewey in the 1948 Republican primaries (450,000 compared with 304,000), but Dewey won more delegates, and the New Yorker's win in Oregon gave him considerable momentum going into the convention. Again Stassen made way for Dewey, only to see Dewey again go down to defeat.
Stassen won only his home state's primary in 1952, and early on Stassen withdrew and supported Eisenhower. Ike responded after the election by using Stassen for a number of international assignments, particularly those related to world peace.
Stassen's career saw some important accomplishments other than running for president. He was one of eight Americans to sign the U.N. Charter (after leading a failed effort to convince his fellow-Americans to drop plans for a veto in the Security Council). He was president of an ivy league school, the University of Pennsylvania. He was a successful attorney practicing international law.
Yet almost every four years, Stassen would announce his presidential candidacy and hit the campaign trail. Did he expect to win? After 1948, no. But he did find that even weak presidential candidates had a chance to get their ideas before the people (participating in candidate forums and debates, for example).
For good measure, Stassen also ran twice for governor of Pennsylvania. He ran for mayor of Philadelphia in 1959, again for governor of Minnesota in 1982, and later for a Minnesota congressional seat. The mayoral race was the only time Stassen won his party's nomination for anything, in the span of years from 1942 to 2001.
Still, as late as 1980 some 25,000 primary voters voted for Stassen, so at least someone was listening to his message.
Many observers pointed out that Stassen had an under-developed sense of humor, and the perpetual hopeful did not always enjoy the jokes about his candidacy. He did crack one good joke, however, in 1996, when he offered to serve as Bob Dole's vice-presidential candidate. Stassen explained that his own age of 89 would deflect attention from Dole's.
Stassen once turned to journalist Marjorie Williams and said, "Sometimes I wish people would ask not how many times I've run a campaign, but how many times I've been right on the big issues." Upon thinking about it, Williams came to believe Stassen had been right, on many of the big issues: That the Republican Party should not fight Civil Rights measures. That the Vietnam War was misguided. That Richard Nixon could not be trusted. That the rightward turn under Ronald Reagan was a mistake.
Stassen was one of those politicians who, like Henry Clay, would rather be right than president. He spent his ten candidacies championing internationalism, peace, and civil rights. He was missed in 1996 and 2000 when health concerns prevented yet another Stassen for president campaign. We'll continue to miss Harold Stassen on the campaign trail.
Sources: Minneapolis Star-Tribune, March 8, 2001; Washington Post, March 7, 2001; Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2001; Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections.
The photo at the head of this article shows Stassen as 31-year-old governor-elect, in 1938.
| © 2001 by Stephen Cresswell |