page_title: Adlai Stevenson II
section_title: 1956 presidential bid
hierarchical_section_title: Adlai Stevenson II / 1956 presidential bid
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of Adlai Stevenson and campaign supporter Joe Smith of Chicago at O'Hare Airport. Stevenson and Smith were leaving for four days of campaigning in the Pacific Northwest and California on the United Air Lines plane, the "Joe Smith Express". This was the US Presidential campaign of 1956.
context_page_description: Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat.
  Raised in Bloomington, Illinois, Stevenson was a member of the Democratic Party. He served in numerous positions in the federal government during the 1930s and 1940s, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Federal Alcohol Administration, Department of the Navy, and the State Department. In 1945, he served on the committee that created the United Nations, and he was a member of the initial U.S. delegations to the UN. He was the 31st governor of Illinois from 1949 to 1953, and he won the Democratic Party's nomination for president in the 1952 and 1956 elections.
  In both the 1952 and 1956 elections, Stevenson was defeated in landslides by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. After President John F. Kennedy's election, he appointed Stevenson as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Stevenson served from 1961 until his death in 1965 from a heart attack in London, following a United Nations conference in Switzerland.
context_section_description: Unlike 1952, Stevenson was an announced, active candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956. Initially, with polls showing Eisenhower headed for a landslide re-election, few Democrats wanted the 1956 nomination, and Stevenson hoped that he could win the nomination without a serious contest, and without entering any presidential primaries.  However, on September 24, 1955, Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack. Although he recovered and eventually decided to run for a second term, concerns about his health led two prominent Democrats, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and New York Governor Averell Harriman, to decide to challenge Stevenson for the Democratic nomination. After being told by his aides that he needed to enter and win several presidential primaries to defeat Kefauver and Harriman, Stevenson entered and campaigned in the Minnesota, Florida, and California primaries. Stevenson was upset by Kefauver in the Minnesota primary, who successfully portrayed Stevenson as a "captive" of corrupt Chicago political bosses and "a corporation lawyer out of step with regular Democrats." Stevenson next battled Kefauver in the Florida primary, where he agreed to debate Kefauver on radio and television. Stevenson later joked that in Florida he had appealed to the state's citrus farmers by "bitterly denouncing the Japanese beetle and fearlessly attacking the Mediterranean fruit fly." He narrowly defeated Kefauver in Florida by 12,000 votes, and then won the California primary over Kefauver with 63% of the vote, effectively ending Kefauver's presidential bid.
  At the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, former President Truman endorsed Governor Harriman, to Stevenson's dismay, but the blow was softened by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt's continued enthusiastic support. Stevenson easily defeated Harriman on the first ballot, winning his second Democratic presidential nomination. He was aided by strong support from younger delegates, who were said to form the core of the "New Politics" movement. In a bid to raise enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, Stevenson made the unusual decision to leave the selection of his running mate up to the convention delegates. This set off a frantic scramble among several prominent Democrats to win the vice-presidential nomination, including Kefauver, Senator Hubert Humphrey, and Senator John F. Kennedy. After fending off a surprisingly strong challenge from Kennedy, Kefauver narrowly won the vice-presidential nomination on the second ballot. In his acceptance speech, Stevenson spoke of his plan for a "New America", which included extending New Deal programs to "areas of education, health, and poverty." He also criticized Republicans for trying to "merchandise candidates like breakfast cereal."
  Following his nomination, Stevenson waged a vigorous presidential campaign, delivering 300 speeches and traveling 55,000 miles (89,000 km); he crisscrossed the nation three times before the election in November. Robert F. Kennedy traveled with the Stevenson campaign, hoping to "take home some lessons on how to manage a presidential campaign." Kennedy was deeply disillusioned by Stevenson's campaign, later saying that "I thought it was ghastly. It was poorly organized...my feeling was that he had no rapport with his audience – no comprehension of what campaigning required, no ability to make decisions...In 1952 I had been crazy about him...Then I spent six weeks with him on the campaign and he destroyed it all." Kennedy voted for Eisenhower in November. For their part, Stevenson and many of his aides resented Kennedy's attitude during his stay with the campaign; Stevenson friend and aide George W. Ball recalled "My impression was that Bobby was a very surly and arrogant young man...he wasn't doing any good for Adlai. I don't know why we had him along." The tension that developed between Stevenson and Robert Kennedy would have significant consequences for the 1960 presidential campaign, and for Stevenson's relationships with both John and Robert Kennedy during President Kennedy
caption: Stevenson and supporter Joe Smith leave Chicago's O'Hare Airport for four days of campaigning in the Pacific Northwest and California.
exif: {"Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Express Editor", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "81"}