As a continuing History Wire feature, we drop in on presidential campaigns of yore at the same point as the 2004 campaign, to get a notion of how those campaigns coped with challenges expected and unexpected. Followers of presidential history can find, in HW's September and October archives, postings on the campaigns of 1896, 1920, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1960, 1964, 1972, 1976 and 1980.
On October 30, the candidate rose to address the throng of 16,000 adoring supporters at the Madison Square Garden as the presidential campaign roared into its final days. Nothing remarkable about that, except the fact that only 16 days earlier, Theodore Roosevelt had been the victim of an assassin's attack. As he left a Milwaukee hotel to make a speech, a lunatic named John Schranck shot him with a revolver.
Roosevelt biographer William Roscoe Thayer writes, "The bullet entered his body about an inch below the right nipple and would probably have been fatal but for an eyeglass-case and a roll of manuscript he (Roosevelt) had in his pocket." Roosevelt's reaction when the assailant was overpowered and brought before him: "Don't hurt the poor creature." More painful perhaps than any wound his attacker caused was the two-week convalescence his doctors ordered.
Teddy Roosevelt had already spent nearly two terms as president, from 1901 to 1909. But unhappy at the performance of his successor, William Howard Taft, the Rough Rider ran once more in 1912 as the candidate of the new Bull Moose Party, challenging both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey. "I am glad beyond measure," Roosevelt now told his audience, "that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for brotherhood and for the welfare of mankind."
Remarkably, Taft seemed to rely almost totally on his reputation and a healthy war chest, taking "little or no active part in the campaign." With he and Roosevelt splitting the GOP vote, Wilson was elected handily with 6,286,000 votes out of 15,310,000 cast. Roosevelt received 4,126,000 and, amazingly for an incumbent president, Taft came in third with 3,483,000.
