How 2012 Echoed 1932: Romney campaign was shocked because it chose to believe its own spokespeople, not the facts.
How 2012 Echoed 1932 - US News and World Report
A few days before the election, Chuck Todd on MSNBC asked: “If Mitt Romney wins, what would he have done that no Republican since 1928 had done?” The answer: win the presidency without a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket. That’s right; the last Republican administration without a representative of one of those two legacy Republican families was elected 84 years ago when Herbert Hoover won the White House. There is, however, another important similarity between Hoover and Romney that went unnoticed: Both men were known for their nonpolitical achievements; they were businessmen with strong organizational skills. But what may be even more interesting are the incredible similarities between the elections of 1932 and 2012, and media’s role in those campaigns.
The main issue in 1932 was undoubtedly the economy, as unemployment was over 20 percent as Election Day neared. It had been a bitter campaign with the two sides exchanging attacks via radioed speeches from the candidates and their surrogates. Hoover repeatedly told the beleaguered American workers that what “people need is the restoration of their normal jobs,” adding that the Democratic Party would “ignore the piling up of our national debt,” which would worsen the situation. They called Franklin Roosevelt’s economic plans “the same philosophy of government which has poisoned all of Europe.”
As a counter, Democrats pointed to the “political nearsightedness of the Republican Party,” and its inability to “turn in the right direction” to help Americans escape the problems plaguing the nation. They called Hoover “the tool of the rich,” “the dupe of the international bankers,” and “the foe of progressive principles.”
Doesn’t it all sound incredibly familiar?