Bid for the Presidency
Harding was nominated to run for president for the Republican party as a dark horse candidate. The convention could not decide on a candidate, so a group of party leaders got together to choose him even though he was relatively unknown outside of Ohio. His running mate was Calvin Coolidge. He was opposed by Democrat James Cox and Cox's vice presidential running mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harding ran under the theme, “Return to Normalcy.”
IN THEIR OWN WORDS…
Harding never seemed fully suited to be president, as evidenced by this comment: “I don't know what to do or where to turn on this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don't know where the book is, and maybe I couldn't read it if I found it!”
The campaign was noteworthy for many reasons. For one thing, it was the first to be widely covered by the press and to use Hollywood to its advantage. Notably, Florence Harding courted the press and had an active role in getting her husband elected to the presidency. More importantly, however, it was the first election in which women had the right to vote. Harding ended up winning easily with 61 percent of the popular vote and 404 out of 531 electoral votes.
