Wendell Willkie 1940 presidential election

Wendell Willkie is speaking in this 1940 spot against Roosevelt as the Republican nomination.

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• wendell
• willkie
• 1940
• president
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• republican

[maximalyst0292]

So he wanted all kinds of federal spending and regulations, but no New Deal spending and regulations... Just a SLIGHT self-contradiction...

[bj615]

@maximalyst0292 This was the era where everyone was trying to be "liberal" as it was the preferred philosophy. Today, Democrats stand up and say they want to be "conservative". To be honest, America has really screwed up the definition of the words liberal and conservative in the past 30 years, and its shocking to see America's progressive party have so many conservatives within it. It is why the Republicans seem to have so much power, the opposition party doesn't stand up for its own values.

[heythereariana]

Amazing history on You Tube. Thanks for this clip.

[bj615]

@heythereariana Thanks. That was the reason why I posted this archive, simply to show history in the reality that it was. The Republican party of today is a shell of it's former self, obsessive with far-right wing rhetoric just to get votes from people who aren't intellectually capable enough to know the difference between communism, socialism, liberalism, progressive, nazi, fascist ideologies. The last two of which are extreme right wing ideology... Hitler hated Communists and invaded the USSR.

[freedom8758]

Willkie in '12

[18Sheababy]

Willkie was not a conservative right winger! He was for advanced for his times, and would have been a great leader.

[Sistarovat]

I see a lot of Democrats and Indepedents commenting on how the Republican Party has "shifted to the right" since Wilkie. That's not true. If you would inform yourself beyond short clips on YouTube, you would realize that Willkie was FAR to the right of the Republican Party of HIS day. He was a part of the Rockefeller mob who played centrist but protected their own through crony capitalism with the help of the Federal Reserve.

[amac1511]

What you are viewing is as extinct as the Passenger Pigeon, a real museum piece, something to be viewed or learned about only here and in American history books. It is called a Liberal Republican. That party, and for that matter America itself, has tipped politically so far rightward in the nearly 62 years since this film was made that all such Liberal Republicans as represented by Wendell Willkie and Theodore Roosevelt no longer exist. I say this not with pride, but with shame.

[marcostar57]

My Gawd!! Wilkie IS (was) a liberal and in 2011 he'd be NO REPUBLICAN! The Rethugs would call him a socalist/fascist..whatever idiotic label they could find.

[pjf57]

A Republican who proudly called himself a liberal! What a concept!

[somersetdc]

And he was a Republican. The US has moved so far to the right...no matter who is president. And it has dragged everyone to the right also. People need to realize that the political ceter has become a more Republican than anyone could possibly imagine. We need to swing the ceter to the left. We need to stop worrying about American Idol stars and Lyndsey Lohan and focus on our shrinking middle class.

[sweetcurmudgeon]

If Wendell Willkie ran today, Faux News would denounce him around the clock as a communist.

But, then again, they're a bunch of lying right wing assholes.

[Atheist2006]

Where's his mustache?

[Themaddprof]

Willkie and Bobby Kennedy were my favortiite "almost presidents." Read "One World" (1943) and "An American Program" (1944, published the day before his his untimely death). He was talking about anti-colonialism and speaking out against segregation WAY before these became popular causes. Truly a forgotten giant. The right wing of the GOP hated him then and conveniently forget about him now.