Harry S. Truman 1948 presidential campaign

Harry S. Truman 1948 presidential campaign
Campaign	1948 Democratic primaries 1948 United States presidential election
Candidate	Harry S. Truman 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953) Alben W. Barkley U.S. Senator from Kentucky (1927–1949)
Affiliation	Democratic Party
Status	Announced: March 8, 1948 Official nominee: July 15, 1948 Won election: November 2, 1948 Inaugurated: January 20, 1949
Key people	Clark Clifford (advisor) Louis A. Johnson (fundraiser)
Slogan	Give 'em hell, Harry!
Theme song	"I'm Just Wild About Harry"

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In 1948, Harry S. Truman and Alben W. Barkley were elected president and vice president of the United States, defeating Republican nominees Thomas E. Dewey and Earl Warren. Truman, a Democrat and vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, had ascended to the presidency upon Roosevelt's death in 1945. He announced his candidacy for election on March 8, 1948. Unchallenged by any major nominee in the Democratic primaries, he won almost all of them easily; however, many Democrats like James Roosevelt opposed his candidacy and urged former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Dwight D. Eisenhower to run instead.

Truman wanted U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas to be his running mate. Douglas declined, claiming a lack of political experience; in reality, his friend Thomas Gardiner Corcoran had advised him not to be a "number two man to a number two man".^[1] Senator Barkley's keynote address at the 1948 Democratic National Convention energized the delegates and impressed Truman, who then selected Barkley as his running mate. When the convention adopted Truman's civil rights plank in a close vote of 651+1⁄2 to 582+1⁄2, many Southern delegates walked out of the convention. After order was restored, a roll call vote gave Truman a majority of delegates to be the nominee; Barkley was nominated the vice-presidential candidate by acclamation.

The Progressive Party nominated Henry A. Wallace, a former Democratic vice president, to run against Truman. Strom Thurmond, the governor of South Carolina, who had led a walkout of a large group of delegates from Mississippi and Alabama at the 1948 convention, also ran against Truman as a Dixiecrat, campaigning for states' rights. With a split of the Democratic Party, most polls and political writers predicted victory for Dewey and gave Truman little chance.

During the campaign, Truman mostly focused on blaming the Republican-controlled Congress for not passing his legislation, calling it a "do-nothing Congress." In early September 1948, Truman conducted various whistle-stop tours across the nation, covering over 21,928 miles (35,290 km) on the Ferdinand Magellan railcar. Of all of the speeches which he gave during his whistle-stop tour, only about 70 were broadcast on the radio even locally, and only 20 of them were heard nationally. During the final days of the campaign, the Truman campaign released a film titled The Truman Story showing newsreel footage of the whistle-stop tour. Although he received some endorsements, including that of Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan, most broadcasting companies were sure of Dewey's victory. Ultimately, Truman won with 303 electoral votes to Dewey's 189 and Thurmond's 39. Before the results were released, an early edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune wrongly anticipated the result with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman". Time magazine later described an image of Truman holding the newspaper as the "greatest photograph ever made of a politician celebrating victory."^[2] Truman and Barkley were inaugurated on January 20, 1949. Truman's 1948 campaign and the election are most remembered for the failure of polls and Truman's upset victory.