kraftiekortie wrote:
The Bull Moose Party was the result of the Democrats nominated (President) Taft for the 1912 general election. The Bull Moose Party was a "third party," founded by the President who was before Taft: Theodore Roosevelt.
Taft and Roosevelt were once close colleagues (he recommended Taft for President in 1908)----but became bitter political rivals by 1912.
The first sentence in this post doesnt make any sense.
Taft was a Republican, so obviously the Democrats wouldnt "nominate" him.
Republican TR finnished McKinley's term because McKinley was assassinated in 1901 making TR the unelected POTUS for three years. He ran in 1904, won, and remained POTUS. TR and Taft were friends and partners in the progressive wing of the GOP. So TR threw his support to Taft and did not himself run in 1908 (he had already served essentially two whole terms). Taft got elected POTUS for the GOP in 1908 , but then as POTUS he disappointed the progressive Republicans including TR by being too conservative and to namby pamby. So in 1912 TR ran against him for the GOP nomination...but Taft won the GOP nomination (fairly or otherwise). So TR and his followers broke from the GOP and started the separate third Bullmoose party.
But youre right that that split in the GOP guaranteed that the Democrat (Woodrow Wilson) would win the 1912 general election.
It was a rather interesting election: Taft did the worst showing of any incumbent in POTUS history winning only 23.2 percent of the popular vote, and only winning the 8 electoral votes of two states( Utah and Vermont). TR got 27.4 percent of the popular vote and got 88 electoral votes.
Wilson got 435 electoral votes but even he only got the plurality (but not the majority) of popular votes by winning 41.8 percent.
And Eugene Debs ran for the Socialist Party, winning zero electorial votes, but getting 6 percent of the popular vote.