This is John Batchel. The election of 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt versus the Republican nominee, Alf Landon, the very popular and pleasant governor of Kansas. The puzzle for the Republicans pouring money into everything they can in order to defeat Roosevelt.

The puzzle is, what is our message?

What does our candidate make of the New Deal?

Well, David describes a candidate, Alf Landon of Kansas, during a severe heatway,

is very okay with the New Deal.

In fact, he's going to continue the New Deal.

He's just going to do it, well, as David describes more efficiently.

That's the message, just the same as Roosevelt, except I'm pleasant.

I'm from Kansas.

Here's David Petrucia on the campaign strategy of the Republican Party in 1936.

The book is Roosevelt sweeps the nation. I guess you know the end of this story. FDR's 1936 landslide, it was an earthquake, and the triumph of the liberal ideal.

David Petusha.

The Republican Party continues to pour money and speakers and organization into the race,

but absent a compelling candidate, and actually absent a compelling message, because Landon

continues to be this sort of progressive Republican,

and he's promising just to be more efficient. He's not going to really tinker that much with the

new deal, and he had supported it throughout his earlier tenure as governor of Kansas.

But so the message is, oh, we'll just keep doing what we're doing, only we're going to do it better.

And that is not as compelling as a message as Franklin Roosevelt has, which is, I've already done this. I've done all this for you, and I'm going to

protect you from these bad, rich guys. More of this later tonight. Thank you.