The Election of 1912

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The Election of 1912

During the Progressive Era, Americans faced the challenge of choosing between four strong candidates of the election of 1912. Each candidate held concrete platforms that would have different effects on progressivism. Americans could chose the conservative presidential incumbent William Howard Taft(R), the New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson (D), the long-time fighter for social reform-Eugene V. Debs (S), or the former president Theodore Roosevelt of the newly formed Bull Moose Party (Progressive Party). Through this election many steps were taken to change the face of the election season, including women's rights, primaries, and third parties.

The 1912 election became the first to use presidential primaries on a nationwide scale, encompassing 12 states. Rhodes Cook states that by early 1912, seven states had enacted legislation establishing presidential primaries with either a preference vote, the direct election of delegates, or the combination of two. Cook also states that five other states added primaries in short order. (21-22) The primaries forced the nominees of each party to run two full campaigns, one for the nomination and one for the general election. The 1912 election showed that poor campaigning in the primaries led to low numbers of votes in the general election. This was seen in Taft's case, which did little in the Republican primary and got 632,874 popular votes less than Roosevelt and 2,806,829 less than Woodrow Wilson (Congressional Quarterly 122). Roosevelt is to be quoted on the issue of ca...

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..." (The New York Times/Freeman) At every speech given by a presidential candidate in New York City, Maud Malone was there to scream out, "What about women's suffrage?" In Los Angeles, 80 percent of all registered women went to the polls, which is a higher number then today.

A freshman third party candidate defeated the Republican Party gaining respect for all the third parties to come. Primaries were used for the first time on a national scale. The women were able to take on a role in the presidential campaigns for the first time, leading them to nation wide women's suffrage. With all this in mind, more reform was made in this election than any other, epitomizing the Progressive Movement.

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