Presidential Candidates, 1932

Report Outline
President Hoover and Formar President Coolidge
Morrow for President—In 1936
Pinchot and the Republican Progressives
Governor Roosevelt and Former Governor Smith
Owen D. Young, Industrialist and Internationalist
Newton D. Baker, Wilsonian Liberal
Governor Ritchie and the Compromise Candidates
Special Focus

President Hoover and Formar President Coolidge

Hoover Renomination a Foregone Conclusion

At the beginning of September, 1931, nine months in advance of the national nominating conventions, the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is Governor Roosevelt of New York. President Hoover is regarded as certain of renomination by the Republican convention to succeed himself in office.

In the background of the Republican scene is former President Coolidge, whose leadership would be preferred by many elements in the party if he could be nominated without repudiating the record of the present administration. In the background of the Democratic scene is former Governor Smith of New York, who still has a strong following in the party, who has not declared himself for any other candidate to date, and who may still be entertaining presidential ambitions of his own.

Barring unforeseen events, the President's renomination on the first ballot at the Republican convention is a foregone conclusion. In the history of the Republican party no one of its candidates, once elected to the presidency, has been denied the nomination for a second term if he chose to run. After the renomination of Taft in 1912, in the face of certain defeat, Theodore Roosevelt said: “A President of the United States …can, if he knows how to use the machinery at his disposal, renominate himself even though a majority of his party is against him.”