DAILY BEAST COLUMN: …But back in 1928, FDR’s political prospects were very different. He’d reluctantly agreed to run for Governor of New York fearing that Democratic nominee Al Smith would lose the state—and the nation—to Herbert Hoover. There was also the matter of his health; contrary to what many now believe, the press raised persistent questions about whether the polio-stricken Roosevelt was up to the rigors of a campaign.
On Election Night, returns showed that Smith was losing New York by 100,000 votes—and FDR was trailing his Republican opponent. Only a late surge of Democratic votes—aided, political legend says, by the creative vote counting of Bronx Democratic boss Ed Flynn—gave Roosevelt a 25,000 vote win, a margin of one half of one percent of the vote. Had Roosevelt lost, his political career would have gone into eclipse, making the prospects for a Presidential nomination in 1932 highly unlikely…
There’s a lesson to be drawn from this history. If three of the most dominant political figures of the last century all came perilously close to political defeat, it should remind us to take a “determinist” approach to politics—“this is what will happen, this is what can’t happen”—with several pounds of salt. Time after time, the outcome of political battles can be summed up the way the Duke of Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo: “It was a near run thing. The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.” … (more)
