English practice 48

When Third Was Second

People often a third-party candidate. It’s true that no presidential candidate who didn’t represent one of the two major parties an election, but there have been a few elections in living memory where a third-party candidate a few states. And although most people don’t realize it, has been one presidential election in American history where a third-party candidate came in second.

, Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency upon the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 (only 42 at the time, he remains the youngest president ever). Despite early concerns about his youth and as the public affectionately nicknamed him—soon became immensely popular, the Republican Party in a progressive new direction that emphasized nature conservation and opposition to corporate power. After finishing what had begun as McKinley’s term, Roosevelt ran for reelection in 1904, winning in the biggest landslide since James Monroe’s unopposed candidacy of 1820

Since this had never an interesting question: the custom (though not yet the law) was for presidents to limit themselves to two terms, so did the term of McKinley’s that Roosevelt completed count as the first of two, or could he run again in 1908? Roosevelt settled the question himself by stepping aside and endorsing for the Republican nomination; with the beloved Teddy’s endorsement, Taft won easily. After the election, Roosevelt left for an extended African safari, motivated by a desire both to pursue his lifelong interest in nature and to stay out of the spotlight and let President Taft be his own man.

But when Teddy returned to find that Taft had abandoned many of the policies he’d established and rendered the Republican Party more conservative, he changed his tune, announcing his intention to run for a third—or second, depending on your point of view—term in 1912. But the party bosses declined to wrest the nomination from the incumbent Taft and hand it to his chance in 1908, and so Teddy was compelled to form his own party, which he dubbed the Progressive Party.

Lots of people are aware that Teddy Roosevelt ran for another term on the Bull Moose ticket, but what many don’t know is that he almost won, finishing second with a respectable 88 electoral votes. The 1912 victory went to Woodrow Wilson—who, thanks to the divided Republicans, became only the second Democrat to win the White House since the Civil War—and poor Taft became the only major-party candidate in American history ever to finish third, winning only two states.