Thomas Dewey

Thomas Edmund Dewey was the 33rd President of the United States 47th Governor of New York, a leader of the liberal and centrist wing of the Republican party, and one of the most popular men to fail to become President of the United States despite three attempts in a row. Prior to his entry into state and national politics, Dewey was a highly-successful prosecutor in New York City, fighting against the influence of the mafia during the Great Depression, with his greatest victory being the 1936 conviction of mafioso.

Presidential bids
Dewey ran for Governor of New York in 1938 on his crime-fighting credentials and nearly won. By 1940, he had achieved folk hero status across the nation, and despite his lack of political experience, he began a serious bid for the Republican nomination. Although he placed first on the first ballot of the convention, he did not have enough delegates to secure the nomination. After a deadlocked convention with arch-conservative Robert Taft, the RNC chose the popular lawyer Wendell Willkie as a compromise candidate...who got beaten by FDR anyway.

In between elections, Dewey was elected Governor of New York in 1942. He was known for running a tight ship and punishing any Republicans who opposed his agenda in any way but also ran a highly-effective progressive administration. The state debt was reduced, education spending was greatly increased, government employees saw pay raises, a state thruway was commissioned, and businesses flocked to the state. Unsurprisingly, he was handily elected to two more terms in 1946 and 1950.

In 1944, Dewey was nominated by the Republicans but lost the general election to the ever-popular FDR by a wide margin of 7.5%. He also lost 432-99 in the electoral college.

In 1948, Dewey was renominated and went against the unpopular incumbent Harry S. Truman. He had the advantages of name recognition and a very split vote but the disadvantage of a rather cold personality. Unfortunately, Dewey and his advisers assumed his victory would be a given, and he ran a fairly weak and uninspiring campaign compared to Truman's aggressive tours and speeches. Despite polls showing Dewey with a comfortable lead, on election day Truman pulled off an upset and extremely close victory. This led to the infamous Dewey Defeats Truman incident with the Chicago Tribune the next day.

Dewey would be the last presidential candidate to have any facial hair and the last New Yorker to be nominated by a major party until 2016.

Later years
He was the epitome of a centrist and liberal politician, and he was a progressive in the Republican Party. He basically agreed with the FDR's New Deal but emphasized fiscal soundness and efficiency. In the aftermath of FDR's New Deal, the Republicans were drawn towards the center and needed a moderate to win, allowing Dewey, who would have been on the fringe a decade before 1940, to prevail over the more conservative elements of the Party.

He served as governor of New York from 1942 to 1954, combining the advantages of New Deal progressivism and fiscal conservatism to reduce state debt while also improving education and water quality, as well signing the Ives-Quinn Act of 1945, the first state law in the country to criminalize racial discrimination in employment. Dewey also strongly supported the death penalty. He increased the overall welfare of New York City, but after World War II, along with Republicans in the New York House, closed child care centers in New York City. He also represented the Rockefeller Republican forces in the Northeast after the 1950s.

In 1952, Dewey decided against another campaign but used his influence to convince the moderate Eisenhower to run and defeat the very conservative Robert Taft which, in the long run, turned out to be a very smart move. He supported moderate Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton's presidential bid in 1964, hoping to block Barry Goldwater's nomination, with considerably less success.

After his term as governor expired in 1954, Dewey returned to his very successful law practice and died of a heart attack in 1971.