Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft

James Patterson delivers an excellent biography of Robert Taft which categorizes the Republican Party during his involvement. Taft was aptly named Mr. Republican by those around him because of his consistent desire to work within the republican machine. Making three attempts for President he proved unable to do what his father had. Taft's run in 1940 was foiled by Wilkie who captured a war hawk vote. Taft himself was very isolationist and did not want to become involved in a war with Germany and thought both the UN and NATO were wrong. A staunch anti-New Dealer, Taft proved to be an irrevocable foe of the FDR administration opposing the socialist tendency's of the program. Taft's start as a state representative and senator in Ohio showed he was not completely against social programs but they were only to be taken in moderation and the idea of higher taxes was against his core beliefs. Taft found himself again defeated in 1948 when Dewey took the presidential race and ultimately lost to Truman. At the end of the race Dewey's power in the party was sapped and Taft became the clear candidate for the next leg of the race. Taft himself became boiled down in trying to restrain but not divide the party over McCarthy's trials. When 1952 rolled around Taft polled well against Eisenhower but at the end was unable to overtake the general's popularity. While a VP slot was considered Eisenhower wanted someone younger and Taft came in as majority leader in the Senate. Using his influence there he was able to deliver several bills for Eisenhower and try to uphold his unpopular Taft-Hartley act. This biography does an excellent job of explaining these events and putting them into the context of political history at the time. Robert Taft was one of the more powerful republicans of his day and did an excellent job of upholding party unity in the face of splintering opinions. For those looking for a different perspective on the World War II and early cold War era this cannot be beat. Patterson is in the top of his field and this book delivers as his always do. I highly recommend it for those interested in modern American history.

Robert A. Taft of Ohio was a bastion of the Republican Party. Son of President William Howard Taft and elected to the U.S. Senate in 1938, he was "Mr. Republican" in that venerable chamber for fifteen years till his untimely death in 1953. Widely respected as a legislative tactician, he developed a fiercely loyal public following. He was a major contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States in not one but four presidential campaigns: 1940, 1944, 1948, and 1952. In all four contests, however, he was ultimately passed over in favor of the likes of Wendell Willkie, John Bricker, Thomas Dewey, and Dwight Eisenhower. One would like to say that these successive defeats are merely disappointments in an otherwise brilliant career, but in fairness they do raise the question of whether Taft was "Mr. Electible Republican."James T. Patterson approached the Taft family in 1968 and became the first biographer to receive full access to the late Senator's archives. This 1972 biography thus enjoys preeminence among the several works about the Ohio Senator. Patterson's intent was a readable biography; he admits in his preface that the sheer amount of documentation [1400 boxes] and the closeness in time to the subject's life [then less than twenty years] made a definitive treatment impossible. All the same, Patterson does not shy away from a treatment of Taft's character and motivations, his place in the American political spectrum, or the painful details of his various presidential campaigns.The fact that no major treatment of Taft's life has appeared in the three decades since this work is an indicator of several things. First, Patterson did in fact achieve a reasonably thorough presentation of the Taft persona. And secondly, Taft's predictability and innate conservatism as portrayed by Patterson have led historians to suspect that there would be few surprises in those 1400 cartons. Patterson is kind to his subject and admires him to a point, but he is compelled to present him as essentially colorless, efficient, predictable, self-assured, opinionated, and inflexible. These are wonderful qualities for a tax lawyer or a Midwestern state legislator, and indeed Taft was both of these over his career. It is fair to say that as Taft's ambition grew, his personality became more of a liability. Patterson does not run from this hard truth.Taft inherited much of his personal philosophy from his father, but the mentor who seems to have energized him toward public service was Herbert Hoover. Young Bob Taft served under Hoover during the latter's extraordinary tenure as emergency relief coordinator in Europe at the close of World War I. His tutelage under Hoover impressed Taft in several ways: he returned home convinced of the importance of American agriculture, the potency of effective business management, and the necessity of disengaging from European politics. He was thus a poster boy for Ohio political life, and Republican bosses such as

Simply put, this is the best biography of an American political figure that I have ever read. The book focuses on the life and political career of Robert A Taft (1889-1953) of Ohio, one of the most powerful - and unluckiest - men ever to sit in the US Senate. In the late 1950's a Senate committee named Taft as one of the five greatest Senators in history. The son of a US President, Taft, like John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, was the product of a great political family. In the 1920's Taft got married (to the daughter of a close friend of his father's), served in the Ohio state legislature, and appeared to have a great political future. But then the Great Depression struck, and Taft, a fiercely loyal Republican and a diehard pro-business conservative, fell on hard times. Patterson does a wonderful job of describing Taft's ultimate tragedy - that while America changed dramatically during the Depression (from conservative Republican to liberal Democrat, from belief in small government to belief in the welfare state) Taft refused to alter his pre-depression views, and thus was prevented from ever winning the Presidency. In 1938 Taft was elected to the US Senate, where he soon became the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He was re-elected in 1944 and 1950 and became one of the most respected, powerful, and controversial politicians in the nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt and many liberal Democrats AND liberal Republicans (especially New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, with whom Taft waged a bitter 12-year war for control of the GOP) despised and ridiculed him, yet many conservative Republicans and even some Democrats (including, privately, Harry S. Truman) came to respect and admire him for his political courage, high intelligence, and blunt honesty - even when it hurt him with the voters. In 1940 and 1948 Taft was a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination but lost to liberal Republicans from New York. In 1952 he made his last, strongest try for the Presidency, but narrowly lost to Dwight Eisenhower at a bitterly divided Republican convention. He died suddenly from cancer in 1953. Thanks to the skills of James Patterson, the reader is given an in-depth, well-rounded view of this forgotten political giant. The writing is both eloquent and detailed, and Patterson does not forget to include the human face behind an often cool and private man. Patterson is also admirably objective - he offers praise or criticism of Taft when he feels it is necessary, but he never allows his own views to get in the way of his story. Whether you're interested in high political drama that no novel can match, or simply looking at the human face behind a major politician who was often considered to be "cold" and "colorless" in his day, "Mr. Republican" is as good as it gets...this book should provide any reader with many days of reading pleasure.