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Warren Harding was elected in a landslide in the 1920 election, as seen in this British Pathé short film.

Harding earned more than 7 million votes than his Democratic opponent, James Cox. In the electoral college, Cox only carried 11 states and 127 votes, compared to Harding’s 37 states and 404 votes.

Credit: British Pathé Ltd. Check them out on Tumblr, too.

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Hello, new favorite photos of Warren Harding.

Via the Library of Congress (collection starts here)

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Like Fish Out of Water

May 17th, 1901

Matt Quay, William Jennings Bryan, and Richard Pettigrew as fish emerge onto the shore from the ocean of politics. 

The caption reads “A fish story that is hard to believe.”

According to the New York Times, Quay, a Senator from Pennsylvania, had vowed that he would not again run for any elected office. Bryan, a two time presidential candidate, and Pettigrew, a former Senator from South Dakota, had previously made similar statements.

See Also: William Jennings Bryan

From Hennepin County Library

Original available at: http://digitalcollections.hclib.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/Bart/id/4998/rec/86

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Twins

The Political Janus: It All Depends on the Way You Look at Him, an illustration by Australian satirist Frank A. Nankivell for Puck magazine, 1910. Former American President Theodore Roosevelt is rendered as a polarizing political figure, a simultaneous “savoir” and “menace.”

Image credit: Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-27682, from Symbols: A Handbook for Seeing by Mark Fox and Angie Wang, published by The Monacelli Press, 2016. Purchase from a retailer of your choice.

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1939: Jack and Bobby Kennedy, sons of Joseph Kennedy, U. S. Ambassador to England, watch as their sister Eunice leaves with her mother from the Embassy for Buckingham Palace where Mrs. Kennedy presented Eunice at one of the last Courts of the season.

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#30 – CALVIN COOLIDGE. Calvin took his slogan: “Keep Cool with Coolidge” seriously. VERY seriously.

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Did Truman ever meet or know of Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Elder Bush?

Ford was a Congressman when Truman was President and the House Minority Leader for several years before Truman died. I don’t know how many times they met or how in-depth their meetings were, but they did meet and Truman certainly knew who Ford was. Here’s a photo from a bill-signing event during JFK’s Presidency with former President Truman and Ford among the group in the Oval Office together.

Truman and Carter never met (Carter never met LBJ, either), and I don’t know if Truman knew who Carter was. Truman died in 1972, about a year into Carter’s term as Governor of Georgia, but Carter wasn’t a national figure until a few months into his 1976 campaign for President. I’m not sure how plugged into Democratic politics Truman was during the last two years of his life, so it’s certainly possible that Carter may have been on his radar as a different kind of Southern Democrat, but I just don’t know for sure.

Don’t forget that Ronald Reagan was a very famous actor when Harry Truman was President. Truman probably would have known about Reagan just from Reagan being a pretty big movie star. But Reagan was also a Democrat (yes, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat) during the Truman Administration, and he (along with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart) campaigned for – and WITH – President Truman in 1948:

I’m not sure about George H.W. Bush and Truman. Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, was elected to the U.S. Senate while Truman was still President, and Bush 41 himself served in Congress and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations while Truman was still alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had met at some point, but it probably wasn’t anything extensive. If I had to guess, I’d say that Truman probably knew who George H.W. Bush was because he was familiar with Senator Bush. Even an elderly Truman would probably have been aware of who the U.N. Ambassador was towards the end of his life.

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Jimmy Carter at bat during a softball game in Plains, GA, 7/7/1977

File Unit: First Family’s Trip to Plains, 8/7/1977 - 8/7/1977.Series: Carter White House Photographs: Presidential, 1/20/1977 - 1/22/1981. Collection: White House Staff Photographers Collection, 1/20/1977 - 1/22/1981

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Goldwater for President

(Michael Rougier. 1960)

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1973

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I came to know him like a book, and love him like a brother…We soon found that in business, in executive ability, young McKinley was a man of rare capacity, especially for a boy of his age.

Former President Rutherford B. Hayes, on the abilities of future President William McKinley, who had served with distinction under Hayes in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. (via deadpresidents)

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Senater Edward Kennedy holds a press conference from his hospital bed two weeks before election day. He was recovering from injuries suffered in a small plane crash that killed two people six months before. September 1964. Photo by Ted Polumbaum

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Candidate Thomas Dewey comes home

(Bernard Hoffman. 1939)

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President William Howard Taft’s pet cow, Pauline, stands the on lawn in front of the State, War and Navy Building in Washington, circa 1909-13. A gift from Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin, Taft was one of the last presidents to keep a cow at the White House .

via reddit

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“The bear” in this iconic campaign ad from Ronald Reagan’s 1984 bid for presidential re-election represents perceived threats to national security - particularly those that might come from the Soviet Union. Without referencing his opponent, Walter Mondale, or anything specific at all, it sought to convey the idea that America under Reagan’s leadership would be better prepared for what might come.

It’s a classic in American political history; the 2004 George W. Bush ad, “Wolves” was based on “The Bear in the woods.”

Via YouTube

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Calvin Coolage