31: 2. Warren G. Harding: The Available Man and the Ohio Battlefield David Pietrusza 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents Warren G. Harding emerged as the Republican nominee in the 1920 election, a year Republicans anticipated winning. Harding was nobody's fi
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 October 2025
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Summary
David Pietrusza
1920: The Year of the Six Presidents
Warren G. Harding emerged as the Republican nominee in the 1920 election, a year Republicans anticipated winning. Harding was nobody's first choice, perhaps the fifth or sixth, positioning himself as "the available man" due to his moderate, non-alienating nature. A small-town Ohio publisher, Harding benefited from Ohio's status as the key battleground state; Democrats also nominated an Ohioan, Governor John Cox. Harding avoided the campaign spending issues that plagued his rivals. Notably, Harding's extensive infidelity was known to his wife, Florence, but did not become a public issue during the 1920 campaign, which she tolerated as part of their political partnership.
1922 TAFT, HARDING, ROBERT LINCOLN
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with David Patricia Historian, author of 1920, the year of six presidents. |
| 0:06.0 | Roosevelt is dead. Teddy Roosevelt is dead. Woodrow Wilson is perpetually frail and in denial. |
| 0:14.0 | We now have candidates in the Republican Party that are seen as second raiders, but one has to be chosen in the convention that's meeting in June of 1920. |
| 0:27.2 | Wilson has fantasies and being a candidate for the Democratic Party. |
| 0:32.2 | But what about the Republicans? |
| 0:33.9 | This is seen as their year. |
| 0:35.4 | Wilson is stymied and the Democrats don't have a strong voice to appeal to the modern East Coast and the modern Midwest. |
| 0:45.3 | So we come to a man named Warren G. Harding, who is nobody's first choice. Nobody's second choice. |
| 0:51.3 | How far down do we have to go, david before he's the fifth or sixth |
| 0:55.6 | choice what do you think they fifth or sixth yes definitely and that's that's his strategy and that is |
| 1:00.6 | the strategy of his his pal and campaign manager a guy named harry daherty who is from ohio like |
| 1:08.4 | harding is and they are determined |
| 1:11.1 | not to say boo really |
| 1:14.3 | about any other contender |
| 1:16.5 | in the Republican ranks |
| 1:18.1 | or even to boost Harding |
| 1:20.1 | too strongly to be too |
| 1:22.6 | vociferous on his |
| 1:25.2 | qualifications which are |
| 1:27.4 | kind of like. |
| 1:28.3 | I think his main qualification, he's a man in the middle, |
| 1:36.3 | and he's an accommodator. |
... |
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