HAROLD STASSEN: WHO???
The once young-gun turned 85 year-old who just kept losing.
Browsing Wikipedia for years, especially the US Presidential Elections, I kept seeing a name. Never one that was particularly close to victory, but ran for President in 1992 with his last political role in the 1950s, and his last elected role in the 1940s. Who is this guy?? What did he do?? I’ve taken it upon myself to dig up as much as I can about former Governor of Minnesota Harold Stassen.
Harold Edward Stassen was born 13 April, 1907 in West St. Paul, Minnesota (which is coincidentally south of St. Paul, but west of South St. Paul) to the many-time mayor of the city. Stassen graduated high school at fifteen, and at 22, he had a BA and law degree from the University of Minnesota. He had political ambitions when he was young. He opened a law office in 1930 and ran for Dakota County Attorney and won at the age of 23, beating an incumbent.
The mid-1930s in the Minnesota executive branch were a wild time. Minnesota at this time has three parties: Democratic and Republican (as usual) and the Farmer-Labor party: a progressive-populist political party that had yet to fuse with the Democrats. A senator passes away, and the Farmer-Labor governor, Floyd Olson, appoints Elmer Benson to the seat. Floyd Olson then passes away, and his Lieutenant Governor, Hjalmar Petersen, takes over the governor seat. He runs for other office in 1936, so Benson switches to run for governor and wins against the Republican. Then comes 1938, Hjalmar wants the seat back and runs against Governor Benson. Benson wins the primary, a bit bruised and worse-for-wear, and the Democrats run a candidate this year: a former candidate for Attorney General, Thomas F. Gallagher. Stassen, now a former delegate to the 1936 Republican National Convention, saw his chance and ran for the governorship. He was uncontested in the primary, and didn’t just win in the November election: he wiped the floor with the other candidates for this election, winning almost 60% of the vote against an incumbent. Following this, he won two more terms for governor and may have been a reason why the Democratic Party and Farmer-Labor party fused into the DFL.
Stassen, young and well respected by his peers, is sent off to the Republican National Convention. The painting starts bleak... 1936 goes horribly for the Republicans. Franklin Roosevelt walloped Kansas Governor Alf Landon, losing by 515 electoral votes (out of 531 at the time!!). Democrats gained members in the house and senate, and Republicans needed someone new. The people REALLY seemed to like Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey, Ohio Senator Bob Taft, and Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenburg, but a businessman from New York with no political experience prior and a former Roosevelt supporter, Wendell Willkie draws attention. Stassen then is sent to whip votes for this man, asking person after person to switch their support. At the end, Willkie wins the convention, and although he loses the election, he gains more in popular vote and electoral vote than the previous two Republican nominees for president.
He consistently had high approval ratings, with an incredible 91% in 1943. He signed into law the first civil service reform act in Minnesota history, and it wasn’t hard to see that Stassen had higher aspirations. He ran for three two-year terms, but quit following his final election to serve actively in the Navy.
In 1944, the race for president was afoot: 1940 nominee Wendell Willkie was ramping up to run again. But Stassen, following turning the age necessary to become president in 1942, decided to run in ’44… but here’s the hitch: he was fighting in World War II still! He didn’t win the nomination, losing to now-Governor of New York Thomas Dewey, who then proceeded to get his inexperienced vessel chewed out in the election by the juggernaut Roosevelt, yet still holds his own against Roosevelt, doing better than Willkie did. Following this, Stassen had a successful stint on the San Francisco committee to establish the United Nations, and was a US signatory.
Then came Stassen’s chance. Roosevelt passes away, and Harry Truman becomes POTUS. Someone not particularly well liked by anybody, accentuated by Republicans winning congress back in 1946. Stassen chucked his hat into the ring for the 1948 U.S. presidential election, while still fighting in the Pacific. The GOP establishment was trying their hardest to draft General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run under their party, and the Democrats were too. Eisenhower refused either party’s nomination, and the establishment backed Stassen. But a few others still jumped in… Ohio Senator Bob Taft, Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenburg, and loser of the 1944 election, Thomas Dewey, challenged Stassen for the nomination. Stassen won the Wisconsin primary with his strong stance against communism, and attacked Dewey by calling him soft on communism. This flourished into Stassen challenging Dewey to a debate… which ended up following through!
This debate took place on radio from Oregon, prior to their crucial primary, covering one, and only one question: “Should the Communist Party of the United States of America be outlawed?” Stassen kept saying the party should be banned, and accentuated his foreign policy experience. On the other hand, Dewey said he thought it was a dangerous precedent to outlaw a political party because of their beliefs. This debate likely sent Dewey over the top in the state by a small margin.
Then comes convention night. Dewey has a significant lead in primary delegates. Stassen, Taft, and Vandenburg all try to conspire together to stop Dewey. But, they’re not very successful at designating one challenger to Dewey and just assume that the others will assign their delegates to one another. Would you believe it, this REALLY doesn’t work! And Dewey runs away with the nomination, but refuses to choose any of these three as veep. He chooses Earl Warren, Governor of California, and both polling and people truly thought the pair were shoe-ins for the top job. Imagine Dewey’s surprise the morning of November 3rd, when all of his secret service staff had packed their bags and left… Truman won the election and it wasn’t even close.
Following this presidential race, Stassen accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania as President, during a period of turmoil, especially with finances. Stassen kicked into gear, allocating funds to specific organizations and cutting others… yet kept going forward with his predecessor’s plans: expanding college sports, like the football team. He tried expanding it so far, he went against the NCAA’s contract by signing a $200,000 one with ABC to televise games at UPenn… this backfired horribly, and his absences from campus and this highly-publicized fight destroyed his reputation. One of his most pronounced absences came from…
Running for President. Again. Hooray! He REALLY thought 1952 would have been his year. With some familiar faces, like Taft and Warren, the conservatives and liberals in the party found themselves at odds again, and who does the establishment back? The war hero of WWII that the Republicans finally convinced to run, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stassen had definitely lost a lot of support from the last run… he barely won his home state against Taft! And going into the convention, he hardly had support, so much so that his delegates, against his wishes, ended up backing Eisenhower and pushing him over the top on the first ballot over Taft. Eisenhower then won the election, and asked Stassen to join the administration, first to lead the Mutual Security Agency: designed to help give economic and military aid to recovering countries from the Second World War. He left UPenn a very unpopular president to take the new role, and Eisenhower then transitioned that into a new role: Director of the Foreign Operations Administration, where he did more of the same thing, but had consolidated power. His positions in the Eisenhower administration were underwhelming, and this would be the peak of his career. Arguably the most notable thing he did in the 1950s was be one of the main advocates to “dump Nixon” in 1956.
Following this, Stassen became a perennial candidate. Since his 1952 campaign, he had run for:
Governor of Pennsylvania (1958)
Mayor of Philadelphia (1959)
President of the United States (1964)
Governor of Pennsylvania (1966)
President of the United States (1968)
President of the United States (1976)
United States Senator from Minnesota (1978)
President of the United States (1980)
Governor of Minnesota (1982)
President of the United States (1984)
United States Representative from Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District (1986)
President of the United States (1988)
President of the United States (1992)
United States Senator from Minnesota (1994)
He was a staunch liberal, and during the 1960s, attended the March on Washington. He frequently butted heads with Bob Taft (the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party). He supported a universal basic income, opposed a state sales tax, and a government health insurance program, and it’s more than likely his interest in banning the Communist Party, quite ironically for the party of Joe McCarthy, sunk his political career.
While not the most successful politician by a longshot, he boasted a great approval rating in the times where he was politically viable, but as the years went on, he tried to keep that spark he had when he was a governor… but the difference is that he was thirty when he first became governor, but the last time he ran for president, he was 85… and got less votes in the primary than David Duke. Stassen was a man well before his time (besides his beliefs on CPUSA) but gets completely cast aside in favor of other politicians from the era. And while Stassen didn’t particularly do anything of note, he was still an incredibly influential figure of his time.