Archive for the ‘Teddy Roosevelt’ tag
Teddy v. Taft v. Wilson: The Great Decision of 1912 and the Decline of the Presidential Mustache
In November 2008—if you can even recall now that the nation has been swept not only by a crippling economic collapse but a socialist (read: fascist) tide held at bay only by a few stout tea-bagging defenders of its glorious traditions (among them, irrational fear and discrimination)—America had quite a choice ahead of them: whether to vote for a black mostly liberal man and his gaffe-prone running mate, or for an old mostly conservative man and his gaffe-prone running mate (who just so happened to be a woman). That, dear reader, was nothing compared to the presidential election of 1912.
In November 1912, America faced a critical decision: a president without a mustache, or one with—and if siding with the latter, just which mustached candidate? Would it be the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, the clean-shaven, Southern-born, intellectual-cum-politician? Would it be the Republican incumbent William Howard Taft, the heavy-set former judge and trend-setting wearer of a brawny walrus-style mustache? Or would it be the stalwart Teddy Roosevelt—a Nobel laureate, former president, soldier, trust-buster and all-around bombast—seemingly set on destroying his former vice president (and friend) in order to restore a progressive federal government and his tight-cropped commanding mustache back in the White House? America not only chose a president that year, but set an electoral precedent—the ramifications we still feel today.
