Editing Thomas E. Dewey (section)

==Presidential campaigns==
===1940===
{{Main|1940 Republican Party presidential primaries}}

Dewey sought the [[Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1940|1940 Republican presidential nomination]]. He was considered the early favorite for the nomination, but his support ebbed in the late spring of 1940 as [[World War II#Western Europe (1940–41)|Nazi Germany invaded its neighbors]], and Americans feared being drawn into another European war.

Some Republican leaders considered Dewey to be too young (at 38, just three years above the minimum age required by the US Constitution) and too inexperienced to lead the nation in wartime. Furthermore, Dewey's [[non-interventionist]] stance became problematic when Germany [[Battle of France|quickly conquered France]] and [[Battle of Britain|seemed poised to invade Britain]]. As a result, at the [[1940 Republican National Convention]] many delegates switched from Dewey to [[Wendell Willkie]], who was a decade older and supported aid to the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] fighting Germany. Dewey led on the first ballot, but was well below the vote total he needed to win. He steadily lost strength to Willkie in succeeding ballots, and Willkie was nominated on the convention's sixth ballot. Willkie lost to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in the general election.<ref>Smith, p. 300–314.</ref>

===1944===
{{Main|1944 United States presidential election}}

Dewey's foreign-policy position evolved during the 1940s; by 1944 he was considered an [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalist]] and a supporter of projects such as the United Nations. It was in 1940 that Dewey first clashed with [[Robert A. Taft]]. Taft—who maintained his non-interventionist views and economic conservatism to his death—became Dewey's great rival for control of the Republican Party in the 1940s and early 1950s. Dewey became the leader of moderate Republicans, who were based in the Eastern states, while Taft became the leader of conservative Republicans who dominated most of the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]].<ref>Smith, p. 32–35.</ref>

Dewey was the frontrunner for the [[Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1944|1944 Republican nomination]].<ref>Smith, pp. 387–388</ref> In April 1944 he won the key Wisconsin primary, where he defeated [[Wendell Willkie]] and former Minnesota governor [[Harold Stassen]]. Willkie's poor showing in Wisconsin forced him to quit the race and he died later that year.<ref>Smith, pp. 390–391</ref> At the 1944 Republican Convention, Dewey's chief rivals—Stassen and Ohio governor [[John W. Bricker]]—both withdrew and Dewey was nominated almost unanimously. Dewey then made Bricker (who was supported by Taft) his running mate. This made Dewey the first presidential candidate to be born in the 20th century. As of 2021, he was also the youngest Republican presidential nominee.<ref>Smith, p. 401–425.</ref>

In the general election campaign, Dewey crusaded against the alleged inefficiencies, corruption and [[Communist]] influences in incumbent president Roosevelt's New Deal programs, but mostly avoided military and foreign policy debates. Dewey had considered including the [[Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory|conspiracy theory]] that Roosevelt knew about the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] beforehand and allowed it to happen and to say: "...{{nbsp}}and instead of being re-elected he should be [[Federal impeachment in the United States|impeached]]."{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} The allegation would have suggested the then-secret fact that the U.S. had broken the [[Purple code]] still in use by the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese military]]. Dewey eventually yielded to [[Chief of Staff of the United States Army|Army Chief of Staff]] [[George C. Marshall]]'s [[Magic (cryptography)#Dewey and Marshall|urging not to touch this topic]].<ref>Paul F. Boller Jr., ''Presidential Campaigns'', 1985.</ref> Marshall informed [[Harry Hopkins]] of his action in late October that year; Hopkins then told the president. Roosevelt reasoned that "Dewey would not, for political purposes, give secret and vital information to the enemy".<ref>{{Cite book|title=George Marshall: Defender of the Republic|last=Roll|first=David|publisher=Dutton Caliber|year=2019|isbn=978-1101990971|pages=438}}</ref>

During the campaign, in a first, Roosevelt provided Dewey with information on the war efforts, such as the breaking of [[Japanese naval code]].<ref name="Henry">{{cite book |last1=Henry |first1=Laurin L. |title=Presidential Transitions |date=January 1961 |publisher=The Brookings Institution |location=Washington, D.C. |pages= 468–470}}</ref><ref name="HenryJournal">{{cite journal |last1=Henry |first1=Laurin L. |title=Presidential Transitions: The 1968–69 Experience in Perspective |journal=Public Administration Review |date=1969 |volume=29 |issue=5 |pages=471–482 |doi=10.2307/973467 |jstor=973467 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/973467 |access-date=May 19, 2021 |issn=0033-3352}}</ref> This was the first time that an opposition presidential candidate was given briefings by the incumbent presidential administration.<ref name="HenryJournal"/>

Dewey lost the [[1944 U.S. presidential election|election]] on November 7, 1944, to President Roosevelt. He had polled 45.9% of the popular vote compared to Roosevelt's 53.4%, a stronger showing against FDR than any previous Republican opponent. In the Electoral College, Roosevelt defeated Dewey by a margin of 432 to 99.

===1948===
{{Main|1948 United States presidential election}}
[[File:Truman-Dewey-polls-1948.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|[[Clifford K. Berryman]]'s editorial cartoon of October 19, 1948, shows the consensus of experts in mid-October]]
Dewey was the Republican candidate again in the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential election]], with California Governor [[Earl Warren]] on the bottom half of the ticket. Dewey was almost unanimously projected to win against incumbent [[Harry S. Truman]], who had taken over from FDR when he died in office in 1945.

During the primaries, Dewey was repeatedly urged to engage in [[red-baiting]], but he refused. In a [[Dewey–Stassen debate|debate]] before the [[Oregon]] primary with Harold Stassen, Dewey argued against outlawing the [[Communist Party of the United States of America]], saying "you can't shoot an idea with a gun." He later told [[Styles Bridges]], the Republican national campaign manager, that he was not "going around looking under beds".<ref>{{cite book|last=Halberstam|first=David|title=[[The Fifties (book)|The Fifties]]|publisher=Villard Books|year=1993|page=7|author-link=David Halberstam}}</ref>

Given Truman's sinking popularity and the Democratic Party's three-way split (the left-winger [[Henry A. Wallace]] and the Southern segregationist [[Strom Thurmond]] ran third-party campaigns), Dewey seemed unbeatable to the point that the Republicans believed that all they had to do to win was to avoid making any major mistakes.

Following this advice, Dewey carefully avoided risks and spoke in platitudes, avoiding controversial issues, and remained vague on what he planned to do as president, with speech after speech being nonpartisan and also filled with optimistic assertions or empty statements of the obvious, including the famous quote: "You know that your future is still ahead of you." An editorial in the ''[[The Courier-Journal|Louisville Courier-Journal]]'' summed it up:

<blockquote>No presidential candidate in the future will be so inept that four of his major speeches can be boiled down to these historic four sentences: Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead.<ref>Gary A. Donaldson, ''Truman Defeats Dewey'' (The University Press of Kentucky, 1999), p. 173, quoting the ''[[The Courier-Journal|Louisville Courier-Journal]]'', November 18, 1948.</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Thomas Dewey at Bakersfield September 1948.jpg|thumb|Dewey on the campaign trail in [[Bakersfield, California]], September 1948]]Another reason Dewey ran such a cautious, vague campaign came from his experience as a presidential candidate in 1944, where Dewey felt that he had allowed Roosevelt to draw him into a partisan, verbal "mudslinging" match, and he believed that this had cost him votes.

Dewey was accordingly convinced in 1948 to appear as non-partisan as possible, and to emphasize the positive aspects of his campaign while ignoring his opponent: this strategy proved to be a total failure, as it allowed Truman to repeatedly criticize and ridicule Dewey, who never answered any of Truman's criticisms.<ref>Smith, p. 524–529.</ref>

Although Dewey was not as conservative as the Republican-controlled [[80th United States Congress|80th Congress]], the association proved problematic, as Truman tied Dewey to the "do-nothing" Congress.

Near the end of the campaign, Dewey considered adopting a more aggressive style and responding directly to Truman's criticisms, going so far as to tell his aides one evening that he wanted to "tear to shreds" a speech draft and make it more critical of the Democratic ticket.<ref name="Smith, p. 535">Smith, p. 535</ref> However, nearly all his major advisors insisted that it would be a mistake to change tactics. Dewey's wife Frances strongly opposed her husband changing tactics, telling him, "If I have to stay up all night to see that you don't tear up that speech [draft], I will."<ref name="Smith, p. 535" /> Dewey relented and continued to ignore Truman's attacks and to focus on positive generalities instead of specific issues.<ref>Smith, pp. 535–536</ref>

[[File:Dewey Defeats Truman.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|Elected President Truman holds up the erroneous ''[[Chicago Daily Tribune]]'' headline on November 3, 1948, the day after the election.]]

The ''[[Chicago Tribune|Chicago Daily Tribune]]'' printed "[[Dewey Defeats Truman|DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN]]" as its post-election headline, issuing 150,000 copies<ref>{{cite news|last=Jones|first=Tim|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story,0,6484067.story|title=Dewey defeats Truman: Well, everyone makes mistakes|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|access-date=October 20, 2016}}</ref> before the returns showed Truman winning.

Dewey received 45.1% of the popular vote to Truman's 49.6%.<ref name="Ross, p. 246">(Ross, p. 246)</ref> In the Electoral College, Dewey won 16 states with 189 electoral votes, Truman 28 states with 303 electoral votes, and Thurmond four states (all in the South) with 39 electoral votes.<ref name="Ross, p. 246"/> The key states in the election were Illinois, California, and Ohio, which together had a combined 78 electoral votes. Truman won each of these three states by less than one percentage point; had Dewey won all three states, he would have won the election in the Electoral College, and if he had any two, this would have forced a contingent election in the House of Representatives.<ref>(Ross, pp. 256–259)</ref> Summarizing Dewey's campaign, a biographer wrote that "Dewey had swept the industrial Northeast, pared Democratic margins in the big cities by a third, run better than any Republican since [[Herbert Hoover]] in the South, and still lost decisively."<ref>(Smith, p. 343)</ref> After the election, Dewey told publisher [[Henry Luce]] that "you can analyze figures from now to kingdom come, and all they will show is that we lost the farm vote which we had in 1944 and that lost us the election."<ref>(Smith, p. 544)</ref>

A biographer noted that Dewey "rarely mentioned 1948 in the years thereafter. It was like a locked room in a musty mansion whose master never entered ... he seemed a bit bewildered at the unanimous front put up by his Albany advisers [during the campaign], regretted not having taken a final poll when his own senses detected slippage, and couldn't resist a potshot at "that bastard Truman" for having successfully exploited farmers' fears of a new depression."<ref>(Smith, p. 546)</ref>

Pre-election planning by Dewey and his advisors for a potential [[United States presidential transition|presidential transition]] was much greater in 1948 than in any previous election cycle, and included selection by Dewey of potential cabinet officers. Though these efforts were ridiculed after Dewey was defeated, pre-election transition planning later became standard practice.<ref name="Henry"/>

===1952===
Dewey did not run for president in 1952, but [[Draft Eisenhower movement|he played a key role]] in securing the [[Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1952|Republican nomination]] for [[General of the Army (United States)|General]] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Taft was a candidate and, given his age, he freely admitted 1952 would be his last chance to win the presidency. Once Eisenhower became a candidate, Dewey used his powerful political machine to win Eisenhower the support of delegates in New York and elsewhere.

The 1952 campaign culminated in a climactic moment in the fierce rivalry between Dewey and Taft for control of the Republican Party. At the Republican Convention, pro-Taft delegates and speakers verbally attacked Dewey as the real power behind Eisenhower, but Dewey had the satisfaction of seeing Eisenhower win the nomination and end Taft's presidential hopes for the last time.<ref>Smith, p. 584–595.</ref>

Dewey played a major role in helping California Senator [[Richard Nixon]] become [[1952 Republican Party vice presidential candidate selection|Eisenhower's running mate]]. When Eisenhower won the presidency later that year, many of Dewey's closest aides and advisors became leading figures in the Eisenhower Administration. Among them were [[Herbert Brownell Jr.|Herbert Brownell]], who would become Eisenhower's [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]]; [[James Hagerty]], who would become [[White House Press Secretary]]; and [[John Foster Dulles]], who would become Eisenhower's [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]].

Dewey's campaign to secure the nomination for Eisenhower saw Dewey at odds with his two running mates. 1948 vice presidential nominee Warren was a candidate for the presidential nomination,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://supremecourthistory.org/chief-justices/earl-warren-1953-1969/ |title=Previous Chief Justices: Earl Warren, 1953-1969 |website=Supreme Court History.org |publisher=Supreme Court Historical Society |location=Washington, DC |access-date=December 21, 2023}}</ref> while 1944 running mate John W. Bricker backed Taft.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Grant |first=Philip A. Jr. |date=December 1977 |title=The 1952 Republican Presidential Primary |url=https://www.sdhspress.com/journal/south-dakota-history-8-1/the-1952-republican-presidential-primary/vol-08-no-1-the-1952-republican-presidential-primary.pdf |magazine=South Dakota History |location=Pierre, SD |publisher=South Dakota Historical Society |page=}}</ref>