For that matter, FDR outlived Wendell Willkie.
According to McCullough’s Truman, the Democratic power brokers understood very well they were picking the next president in selling FDR on a veep, and IIRC, FDR knew it too. Running was just a way to ensure passing of the mantle, and keeping the White House Democrat. FDR barely had to run.
“Sure we voted in FDR at first, but we didn’t know he’d hold onto the job like a pope!”
-Archie Bunker, All In the Family
(Ironic quote of the day)
I think this is a large part of it - FDR at the big conferences frequently laboured under the illusion that he could ‘woo’ Stalin, at one point trying to cool tensions by telling Stalin that he was affectionately referred to as ‘Uncle Joe’ by the American press. Having never been told this before Stalin was insulted by what he saw as a disrespectful nickname. Ironically it was Churchill who diffused the situation with a toast to the Allies.
Truman on the other hand went the other way and believed a tough stance was the way to go with the Soviets. Used to dealing with Roosevelt, upon his first meeting with Truman Molotov stormed out claiming “I have never been talked to like that in my life.” Roosevelt would never have been so brunt.
It’s even been suggested that in order to appease Stalin Roosevelt went so far as to hush up the 1940 Katyn Forest Soviet massacre of the Polish officer corps.
Moderator Note
The term “Jap,” while used extensively in the time period, is pretty much a slur in the US and many other nations today. Try not to use it.
samclem, moderator
I wonder if there was any personal animosity in FDR’s decision to run. Thomas Dewey was the front runner for the Republican nomination and FDR didn’t like Dewey personally (he did like the 1940 nominee Wendell Wilkie). Critics of Dewey described him as a man who could strut while sitting down.
It’s probably a minor reason if any at all but FDR would not have liked the idea of someone he detested following him.
Incidentally as President, Roosevelt would have nothing to do with his predecessor Herbert Hoover. When Truman became President, he reached out to Hoover, using his administrative skill to reduce government waste and also because Hoover was the only living former President, Truman figured he had some insight as someone who sat in the Oval office.
In the Bob Woodward book on the Supreme Court of the 1970s “The Brethren”, there are some stories on how hard it is to convince ailing, aging SC justices to retire.
Yes, a combination of ego; certainty that no one could do the job better than him; belief that it would be a mistake to switch leaders in the middle of the war; disdain for Dewey and the GOP; and, although he was aware of his increasingly frail health, a willingness to gamble that he would live long enough both to win the war and secure the peace afterwards.
I think you mean William O. Douglas: William O. Douglas - Wikipedia
European… huh?
It’s the same reason why guys like Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond stayed in office right up until the end, even though it had become screamingly obvious that they were on their last legs. Power is a drug, and they were addicts.
I recall hearing a discussion about the origin of the Nuremberg trials. Toward the end of the war, the Yalta conference I think, this discussion came up - what to do about the Nazis. Stalin said “easy, just execute the top 50,000 Germans.”
Roosevelt, apparently, thought he was joking and said “49,000 should be enough.” Churchill knew Stalin was serious.
I guess, but the difference here is FDR was actually fully capable of making decisions. He was physically impaired, but everybody agreed his mental acuity was undiminished. Likewise for Byrd, who was making prominent speeches and casting key ballots up until the end. If anything, they’re examples against ageism in politics.
That’s in contrast to Strom Thurmond, who had a whole staff around to tell him how to vote at the end and was essentially useless for his last couple decades.
[QUOTE=mattm]
The democrats were pretty much a shoe-in for the 1944 election, the European invasion was going full out and the [Japanese] were being pushed back in the Pacific.
[/QUOTE]
It’s already been mentioned regarding the war in Europe but in 1944, complete victory over Japan was not considered a sure thing. Granted, the U.S. was making steady progress in the Pacific but there was still the planned invasion of Japan after that and the overwhelming consensus was that it would take at least several years and require as much–if not more–military manpower and force than the war in Europe. As for the A-bomb, while Roosevelt knew and authorized its development, you have to realize the project was still unfinished. At the time, there was still the possibility that complications would delay completion or perhaps even put the kibosh on it altogether. After all, in terms of science, this was still a mostly unexplored frontier.
Indeed, a rather curious conversation over dinner at Tehran. Stalin also bugged their rooms to listen in on the conversations, something the western leaders assumed would happen. Roosevelt kept up his charm offensive while Churchill seemingly didn’t give a rat’s ass.
having other people finish his sentences for him. 
Well, the consensus seems to be continuity and ego. I’ll have to read some FDR biographies and political commentary from the day.
[quote=“samclem, post:25, topic:651528”]
Moderator Note
The term “Jap,” while used extensively in the time period, is pretty much a slur in the US and many other nations today. Try not to use it.
Certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone, but that’s the first I’ve heard the j word ™ as a present day slur. Not that I go around insulting people of any persuasion, but I have used it many times referencing the WWII Pacific enemy. The things you learn around here.
Matt
It might have to do with your location. Here in California, “Jap” has been frowned on for at least 40 years.
Shoo-in.
/ We now resume our regularly-scheduled thread.
Who did Franky have to come home to? Eleanor?
I’d have kept on working too.
Some information from the excellent book The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency, by Jeremy Lott:
[Roosevelt’s first vice president] "[John Nance] Garner was appalled by Roosevelt’s decision to run for a third term in 1940. He said privately that he wouldn’t vote a third term for his own brother.
Breaking with tradition himself, he ran against his president, but his was a passive campaign swept away by the domestic repercussions of Hitler’s triumphs in Europe."
The book also says that during the 1944 election, Roosevelt “was clearly grievously ill, but the press downplayed it, and he was easily reelected yet again.” And there was a plot afoot by FDR’s daughter Anna, similar to the Edith Wilson scenario in which Anna and her husband John Boettiger would be the true powers behind the throne, as it were.
Roosevelt also kept Truman (who was only veep for all of 82 days before FDR died), completely in the dark on the most vital national-security issues, ranging from Roosevelt’s private meetings with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, to the freakin’ Manhattan Project. When he became president, Truman swiftly helped push the National Security Act of 1947 through Congress, ensuring that the vice president would receive the same national security briefing that the president does, and sit in on all briefings of the National Security Council.
If you need a one-line reason, here it is: Roosevelt could have died in 1943 and he still would have run in 1944 to keep a Republican out of the White House.
I think denial is also a major factor. Roosevelt may not have believed he was as sick as he was. High blood pressure doesn’t seem like as life-threatening a condition as cancer. Roosevelt may have figured that if he had survived polio, he would survive this also.