On December 26, 1972 (52 years ago today) Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, died at the age of 88 in Kansas City, Missouri.


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The 1948 election wasn't a close one as it turned out. But it did illustrate how the polls can get it wrong, in this case, very wrong.

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The 1948 election was more of a November Surprise than an October one, but the month of October was pivotal for Harry Truman, as he refused to believe what almost everyone else in the country believed: that the election was a slam dunk for the Republicans. Instead Truman used October to fight back, and his perseverance paid off.

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In 1944, the second world war was in its fifth year. It appeared to be drawing to a close and had turned in the Allies favor, but before the June 6th D-Day Normandy Landing, this wasn't quite so clear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was coming to the end of his third term and the strain that the presidency and the war had taken on his health was showing ( Read more... )

In 1940, the Republican Party nominated a candidate who was a wealthy businessman who had never been elected to public office. (Sound familiar?) He was running against a president who was seeking to do something no president had ever done before: win a third term in office.


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As with all modern Presidential elections, there is a media obsession with polling data, as pundits try to predict what will happen on November 5, 2024 (election day.) Nationwide polling data predicts a very close election, and as Thomas Dewey and Hillary Clinton learned the hard way, polling data can often be wrong. Polling data also comes with a ( Read more... )

Alternate Presidents is a collection of 28 short stories edited by Mike Resnick, speculating on what history might have been like if the outcome of 28 presidential elections would have been different. This anthology was released on February 15, 1992. This book is a delight to read. Resnick, a Hugo Award winning science fiction writer, also ( Read more... )

On August 10, 1874 (150 years ago today) Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, was born in West Branch, Iowa (where today you can visit the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. It is also where Hoover is laid to rest). Hoover was the first President to be born west of the Mississippi River. He was the son of ( Read more... )

Herbert Hoover had gone from hero to goat. Once considered the most brilliant man in America, once elected President in a landslide, Hoover now found himself on the other side of that landslide. He had lost his bid for re-election to Franklin Roosevelt in a bitter contest and many Americans blamed Hoover for the Great Depression that they were in ( Read more... )

FDR's successes in addressing the Great Depression and managing the second world war led to a spirit of national unity so strong that the President was elected to four consecutive terms, a record that will never be surpassed without a constitutional amendment. He would not survive his final term, and his successor Harry Truman would not enjoy the ( Read more... )