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The general election was not an exciting one. Taft abandoned the GOP's traditional support of civil rights in the hope of trying to score votes from the Solid South, which had been alienated by Roosevelt's admission of Booker T. Washington to the White House in 1904--this election is said by some historians to be the point where black voters began to doubt the party of Lincoln for the first time. The country had been enjoying prosperity since McKinley's administration outside a short-lived panic in 1907 and most voters saw no reason to reject the GOP or the amicable Taft ("Everyone loves a fat man" remarked one pundit). Furthermore, Bryan's loser stigma from his prior presidential attempts was hard to overcome.

On Election Day Taft was elected easily with 321 electoral votes to Bryan's 162 and 51% of the popular vote to 43%. Bryan won only the South, two border states, and three Western states. Newly-admitted Oklahoma also gave him its 7 electoral votes--the Sooner State was much more Democrat and Southern-aligned in its early decades of statehood than it would be post-World War II.

William Jennings Bryan was finished as a presidential candidate. But he still had the affection of millions of Democrat voters who had cast their ballots for him three times and his ideas were becoming more mainstream by 1908. He remarked once that he was the only man who could govern the country in defeat.

Everyone loves a fat man.

Bryan tried but the economy was strong and there was no really convincing reason to desert the Republican Party at that point.

>>18370885
>>18370883
imagine running the same guy for president 3x because they had nothing else

>>18371463
They did not. The Democrat Party was really really weak in this era, arguably the weakest they've ever been nationally and very close to being nothing but a regional Southern party.

A Republican campaign slogan of this election went "Vote for Taft now, you can vote for Bryan any time."

>>18370883
>>18370885
WJB's worst election in popular vote percentage although he improved on his electoral college tally from 1900. Oddly civil rights leaders F.L. McGhee and W.E.B. DuBois both endorsed him over Taft.

>Bryan won 93% of South Carolina's votes, his highest tally of any state.[2]

>>18371627
North Carolina saw him get only 54%.

>>18371627
The Palmetto State was a totally un-democratic banana republic that essentially limited voting to the upper classes of the state which meant blacks and poor whites were excluded from the franchise. North Carolina was not as bad and did have a wider franchise so some Republican support did exist there throughout the Jim Crow era.

>>18371632
>The Palmetto State was a totally un-democratic banana republic that
>was

Al Smith, a Catholic New Yorker who supported repealing Prohibition won 91% of SC's votes in 1928 merely for having a D next to his name. And that was the lowest showing the Democrat presidential candidate had gotten there since 1896.

>>18370885
>>18370883
What happens if Bryan wins this one?

>>18371640
The 1909-12 period was a pretty quiet one without any major events happening so I doubt he'd have too many challenges on his hands.

>>18371643
Do you think TR would've seen a need to run in 1912 since Bryan was pretty progressive already?

>>18371647
Absolutely he would. For one thing, TR was a staunch party man who believed the Democrat Party was bad for the country and should not be in charge of it. Second, many Republicans would conclude they need him to win, and pressure him to run in 1912. Third he just liked being president, and was generally dissatisfied with administrations he wasn't in charge of. If he wasn't satisfied by Wilson's presidency, he definitely won't be by Bryan's, who he probably disagreed with more.

He’s more progressive than Taft.

If he won re-election in '12, he might have kept us out of WW1, since he thought Wilson was too Anglophile while he was Secretary of State.

But if he loses re-election in '12, presumably to Teddy, I don’t really see how that would cause us to enter WWI later. Actually that would probably mean that Teddy would bring us into WW1 in 1914 or '15.

>tfw black
my forebearers in 1908 were living down South in a flypaper shack and didn't even get to vote and had nonexistent legal or human rights.

>>18371660
Taft. No question. The Democrat Party in the early 20th century was the party of Jim Crow, and Bryan himself was a prohibitionist and anti-science nutcase.

>>18371683
As he said, some civil rights leaders endorsed Bryan, who also endorsed women's suffrage. Yes, the Scopes Monkey Trial was stupid and was a bad way to go out but that aside...

Also don't forget that Taft thought the best way to improve race relations was doing nothing and later as Chief Justice upheld school segregation and restrictive housing covenants.

>>18371677
No one cares, LBJfag.

>>18370883
It was kind of dumb of TR to not run again as I think he could have pulled it off easily.

>>18371696
Since he'd served all but six months of McKinley's term he considered himself a two term president and said he wouldn't run again, although he came to sorely regret that decision. He was only 50 when he left office, still young and bursting with energy and found his post-presidential life a drag.

>>18371703
Republican bosses had assured TR they would support his policies which turned out to be a lie.

As others have said, the Democrat bench was very thin in 1908 and they had a lack of any candidates other than WJB with any national name recognition or vote-getting power.

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>>18371620

>>18371725
MN governor John Johnson was considered as one possibility, if only because Northern Democrat governors were scarce enough during 1897-12 that literally any one that cropped up was considered presidential timber. But there weren't a lot of other options.

The New York World ran several editorials in early 1908 suggesting 16 possible Democrat candidates. To those who said Bryan's time had arrived, the Post sarcastically challenged its readers to name one state he lost in 1896 that he had a chance of taking in 1908. The articles proved why there were no other realistic choices; most of the 16 candidates the World listed were too old, too obscure, too conservative, too Southern, or else Bryan supporters unlikely to challenge him (ironically one of the candidates on the list was Princeton president Woodrow Wilson). However, the World also seemed to think Johnson was a real possibility.

>>18371757
exactly who were these 16 candidates?

>>18371762
Unfortunately the writer of the articles (David Sarasohn) didn't actually name names except for Johnson and Wilson, only saying they were too old/Southern/obscure/conservative/Bryan groupies unwilling to challenge him. Incidentally, Pulitzer allowed George Harvey to write an anonymous editorial in favor of Wilson as one of the possibiities, indicating how conservative both Harvey and Wilson were in 1908 (Harvey would remain so):

In here he said the party must run a candidate who supported sober, centrist ideas and disavow populism or radicalism. A candidate who would regulate corporations and control their more abusive practices but disavow socialism or nationalizing industries or infrastructure, and who would support a passive, non-imperialist foreign policy.

>>18371620
lol

Bryan's accomplishments are quite unusual, as he came from a small rural and strongly Republican state and lost all three of his presidential runs. His legacy lives on in some of the policies he has pursued in his political career, including the 8-hour workday, direct elections for U.S. senators, and gradual income tax. As for his political career, he gained national notoriety for his attack on the gold standard and his relentless promotion of free silver and politics for the good of the average American.

>>18371766
One might have been North Dakota Governor John Burke, who was a strong progressive, Bryan ally, and probably would not have wanted to run against him.