{"id":2586,"date":"2012-10-16T21:26:14","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T03:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2012-10-17T10:03:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T16:03:27","slug":"this-fall-in-the-war-september-november-1940-heading-for-an-election-on-the-5th-of-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=2586","title":{"rendered":"This fall in the War, September–November 1940: Heading for an election on the 5th of November"},"content":{"rendered":"

This evening (Tuesday 16 October) I watched the American presidential debate on CNN: Obama vs Romney. Politics in the USA are more interesting than any in any other country I can think of—and I’m speaking as outsider. The brilliantly-orchestrated party conventions (and I watched both of them) and the debates will focus discussion from now until 6 November. Election Day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Remember that in the fall of 1940, two equally vigorous election campaigns were being waged by Democratic incumbent Franklin Delano Roosevelt (shown left signing the Lend-Lease bill) and Republican challenger Wendell Willkie.<\/p>\n

There were conventions, but no debates, no internet, no television. FDR did not tweet<\/em>, nor Wendell Willkie post to FaceBook<\/em>. The equivalent of a video going viral on YouTube<\/em> would have been really good coverage in a prominent newspaper. (Now that I think about it, one would need really really really<\/em> good coverage in a newspaper that sold coast to coast).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>An interesting collection of WWII front pages can be found in John Davison’s book Front Page: World War II History in the Headlines<\/em> (Brown Reference Group, 2009):<\/p>\n

‘Willkie would send no troops to war aboard’ is a prominent heading on the front page of the New York Sun<\/em>\u00a0(13 September 1940). [Roosevelt would later say the same thing].<\/p>\n

‘Willkie tests effects of farm speech’ is the heading of a short column on the front page of the New York World-Telegram<\/em> (27 September 1940), and describes the Democratic Party’s agricultural program.<\/p>\n

And, closer to election day, the top headline of the New York Post<\/em> (28 October 1940) declares: ‘City Roars Greeting to Roosevelt Today.’ He was scheduled to speak that night in Madison Square Gardens as part of his campaign for re-election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This evening (Tuesday 16 October) I watched the American presidential debate on CNN: Obama vs Romney. Politics in the USA are more interesting than any in any other country I can think of—and I’m speaking as outsider. The brilliantly-orchestrated party … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,229,261,227,262,54,228],"class_list":["post-2586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-barrack-obama","tag-election-day","tag-lend-lease","tag-mitt-romney","tag-presidential-debate","tag-roosevelt","tag-wendell-willkie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2613,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions\/2613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}