FDR
ran for president in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. He won
all four elections. Each campaign presented ER with different
challenges – organizing women voters, tailoring FDR's
campaign message, coordinating campaign publicity, mediating
disputes between key campaign staff and between FDR and
key supporters, calming angry convention delegates, and
taking messages to FDR that he did not want to hear. All
of ER's work was done behind the scenes. She continued to
write her columns and to give lectures but she worked hard
to keep the columns and lectures focused on issues, rather
than candidates. She did not campaign for FDR in 1932 or
1936 because first ladies did not accompany their husbands
on the campaign trail. Bowing to pressure from the campaign
staff and requests from FDR, ER did campaign at the end
of the 1940 campaign. By 1944, her outspoken support for
full employment, African Americans, and social justice issues
worried campaign manager
Robert Hannegan and party political bosses. She limited
her involvement to urging FDR to campaign actively and to
delivering messages FDR and Hannegan would rather avoid.
Election of 1932 (FDR v. Hoover): ER
was perhaps more involved in the 1932 election than in
any other
election in which FDR was a candidate. She worked with
campaign biographers to create an image of FDR that would
interest
voters across the country. Her close friends Louis
Howe and Jim
Farley managed the campaign and they appreciated
ER's political sense. She worked very closely with both
men.
Although Howe and Farley were devoted to both Roosevelts,
they often grew suspicious of one another and ER worked
hard to keep their relationship smooth. Molly
Dewson, another close friend, chaired the Women's
Division of the Democratic National Committee and
ER worked very closely with her behind the scenes to
organize
women voters across the country, register new voters, and
prepare campaign materials tailored to women. Because
FDR
did not travel extensively while he was still governor,
she traveled for him, often driving herself. She reported
back to him on campaign operations and conditions across
the state. Her national lecture tour also helped bring
attention
to FDR. When FDR won the Democratic presidential nomination,
ER kept her eye on FDR's team while she campaigned for
Herbert
Lehman, the Democratic candidate for governor of New York.
Election of 1936 (FDR v.
Landon): Louis Howe died in 1935. He was the
only person, other than ER, not intimidated by FDR and always
tried to give FDR honest advice. FDR turned to Jim Farley,
now postmaster general and chair of the Democratic National
Committee, to manage his reelection campaign. Farley was
committed to FDR but not to the New Deal and, although ER
liked him very much, she worried that he could not run a
new kind of campaign – a campaign tied to the principles
of the New Deal. She coached Farley and worked hard to assume
the tasks Howe would have assumed had he lived to be a part
of the campaign. She sat in on budget meetings, reviewed
and prepared campaign literature, and organized a committee
concerned with publicity and its distribution. When Farley
or other campaign officials had messages for FDR that he
did not want to confront, ER took them to FDR. Finally,
she continued to work as closely with Molly Dewson and the
Women's Division as she did in the 1932 campaign.
Election of 1940 (FDR v.
Wilkie): ER played her most public role in
this election. She addressed the Democratic National Convention
and, in the final days before the election, she campaigned
with FDR. But unlike the previous two campaigns, where she
played key roles from the start, ER did not join the campaign
until it was well underway.
At first ER did not want FDR to run for a third term. She
thought he would defy tradition only to work with a conservative
Congress that did not want to work with him. She also thought
that a liberal successor to FDR could be found if they started
looking at candidates early enough. By mid-summer 1940,
ER knew that no other candidate would be acceptable both
to them and to party bosses. She agreed with those who argued
that if the Democrats asked FDR to run again, he would have
to accept the responsibility. Two things had to happen for
FDR to be renominated and ER played a key role in both.
Jim Farley, FDR's former campaign manager, wanted the Democratic
nomination and the delegates at the convention had to turn
to FDR and ask him to run again.
ER did not participate in any of the strategy sessions
FDR held with Harry
Hopkins to plan his renomination. Relieved that FDR
did not want her to attend the convention, ER spent the
week at Val-Kill listening to it on the radio. The convention
did nominate FDR, but it was so divided over the vice-presidential
nominee that chaos threatened to destroy consensus. FDR
sent word that he wanted Henry
Wallace to be his running mate. Many delegates objected
to Wallace and a fight broke out that was so intense it
threatened to split the delegates. FDR relayed to Harry
Hopkins that he would only run with Wallace and that if
Wallace was not nominated, FDR would refuse the nomination. Frances
Perkins called ER to beg her to come to the convention.
ER refused until FDR called and asked her to go. ER then
called Jim Farley and told him she was coming. She flew
that evening to Chicago and spent the next day with Farley
and the other delegates until it was time for her to address
the convention. She quickly wrote four points on the back
of an envelope, went to the podium, and looked over a rowdy
angry crowd. She told the delegates that the next president
would have "a heavier responsibility, perhaps, than any
man has ever faced before in this country." They "cannot
treat it as you would an ordinary nomination in an ordinary
time." They "must rise above considerations which are narrow
and partisan. This is a time when it is the United States
we fight for." Her speech calmed
the crowd and drew enough support to Wallace that he won
on the first ballot.
After the convention, she worked with campaign manager
Ed Flynn and
became his representative to the Independent
Committee for Roosevelt and Wallace and his back door
channel to FDR. She continued to work with Dewson for the
women's vote but refused to campaign for FDR, insisting
that FDR must stand on his own record. But when the race
tightened at the end, ER did agree to appear at campaign
rallies.
Election of 1944 (FDR v.
Dewey): ER did not oppose a fourth term for
FDR, but she did oppose his campaign manager, Robert Hannegan.
She thought Hannegan focused more on winning than on the
reasons for winning. Hannegan was much more conservative
than ER, so her influence on campaign operations was not
as strong as it had been. He did not consult ER or keep
her informed of campaign events, and tried to avoid her
whenever he could; however, after the convention when
he
tried to see her, she refused to meet with him, politely
saying that she had other obligations. She continued to
address political issues in her columns, but kept the focus
on issues (full employment, housing, etc.) rather than
campaign
themes. As the race grew closer, ER urged FDR to campaign
vigorously and not just sit in the White House, acting
presidential
and leaving the campaigning to someone else.
Sources:
Black, Allida M. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor
Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, 19,
23, 46, 47.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume
One, 1884-1933. New York: Viking Press, 1992,
445-460, 464, 470-472..
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume
Two, The Defining Years, 1933-1938. New York:
Penguin Books, 1999, 9, 16, 19, 28, 39, 67, 81, 87,
146, 147,
211,
218,
218-225, 255-257, 334-353, 363-388, 463, 538, 554,
555, 569.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin
& Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War
II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, 113-115,
125-135, 182-189, 524-552.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor and Franklin. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971, passim.
Ware,
Susan. Beyond Suffrage, Women in the New
Deal.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Ware, Susan. Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism,
and New Deal Politics. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1987.
