page_title: 1952 United States presidential election
section_title: Campaign issues
hierarchical_section_title: 1952 United States presidential election / General election / Campaign issues
caption_attribution_description: English: Democratic party poster 1952 for Adlai Stevenson. never copyrighted; no (c) symbol
context_page_description: The 1952 United States presidential election was the 42nd quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson, ending a string of Democratic Party wins that stretched back to 1932.
  Incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman had remained silent about whether he would seek another full term, but the unpopular incumbent announced his withdrawal from the race following his defeat in the New Hampshire primary by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver. After Truman's withdrawal, the president and other party leaders threw their support behind Stevenson, the moderate Governor of Illinois. Stevenson emerged victorious on the third presidential ballot of the 1952 Democratic National Convention, defeating Kefauver, Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia, and other candidates. The Republican nomination was primarily contested by Eisenhower, a general who was widely popular for his leadership in World War II, and conservative Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio. With the support of Thomas E.
context_section_description: The Eisenhower campaign was one of the first presidential campaigns to make a major, concerted effort to win the female vote. Many of his radio and television commercials discussed topics such as education, inflation, ending the war in Korea, and other issues that were thought to appeal to women. The Eisenhower campaign made extensive use of female campaign workers. These workers made phone calls to likely Eisenhower voters, distributed "Ike" buttons and leaflets, and threw parties to build support for the GOP ticket in their neighborhoods. On election day, Eisenhower won a solid majority of the female vote.
  Eisenhower campaigned by attacking "Korea, Communism, and Corruption"—that is, what the Republicans regarded as the failures of the outgoing Truman administration to deal with these issues. The Eisenhower campaign accused the administration of "neglecting Latin America" and thus "leading them into the arms of wily Communist agents waiting to exploit local misery and capitalize on any opening to communize the Americas." Charges that Soviet spies had infiltrated the government plagued the Truman Administration and also became a "major campaign issue" for Eisenhower. The Republicans blamed the Democrats for the military's failure to be fully prepared to fight in Korea; they accused the Democrats of harboring communist spies within the federal government; and they blasted the Truman Administration for the numbers of officials who had been accused of various crimes.
  Stevenson hoped to exploit the rift between the conservative Taft Republicans and the moderate Eisenhower Republicans. In a speech in Baltimore, Stevenson said, "The GOP elephant has two heads nowadays, and I can't tell from day to day who's driving the poor beast, Senator Taft or the General. I doubt that America will entrust its future, its hopes, to the master of a house divided against itself." Stevenson, Truman, and other Democrats campaigning that fall also criticized Senator Joseph McCarthy and other right-wing Republicans for what they believed were reckless and unwarranted attacks and congressional investigations into leading government officials and public servants. In a Salt Lake City speech Stevenson stated that right-wing Republicans were "quick with accusations, with defamatory hints and whispering campaigns when they see a chance to scare or silence those with whom they disagree. Rudely, carelessly, they invade the field of thought, of conscience, which belongs to God, and not to Senators...McCarthy and men like him can say almost anything, and if my opponent's conscience permits, he can try to help all of them get reelected." Stevenson said that right-wing attacks on government officials such as General George Marshall, who had served Truman as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, reflected a "middle of the gutter approach" to politics. President Truman repeatedly criticized Senator McCarthy's character and temperament, and called on Eisenhower to repudiate him. Stevenson ridiculed right-wing Republicans "who hunt Communists in the Bureau of Wildlife and Fisheries while hesitating to aid the gallant men and women who are resisting the real thing in the front lines of Europe and Asia...They are finally the men who seemingly believe that we can confound the Kremlin by frightening ourselves to death." In return, Senator McCarthy often jokingly confused the names Adlai and Alger, the first name of convicted Soviet spy Alger Hiss, by stating "Alger, I mean Adlai..." in his speeches. McCarthy, in response to Stevenson's criticisms, also stated during the campaign that he would like to get on the Stevenson campaign trail "with a club and make a good and loyal American" out of Stevenson.
  Neither Stevenson nor Sparkman had been a part of the Truman administration and they largely ignored its record, preferring to hark back to the Roosevelt's New Deal achievements while warning of against a repetition of the Hoover depression. Historian Herbert Parmet says that although Stevenson:
  tried to separate his campaign from Truman's record, his efforts f
caption: Adlai Stevenson warns against a return of the Republican policies of Herbert Hoover
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