{"id":1283,"date":"2008-04-18T16:03:49","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T21:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2024-05-04T12:55:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-04T19:55:41","slug":"william-howard-taft-attack-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=1283","title":{"rendered":"William Howard Taft Attack Ad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the 1908 U.S. presidential election, William Howard Taft was attacked for his Unitarianism. He refused to respond to the attacks, and won the election. But imagine if his opponents had had TV attack ads in their arsenal&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/942778191?share=copy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"868\" src=\"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016-1024x868.jpg\" alt=\"Screen grab from video showing Taft.\" class=\"wp-image-8354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016-1024x868.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016-300x254.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016-768x651.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016-624x529.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/image016.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A note about the historical facts behind this attack ad&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The [1908 presidential] campaign was notable for the vicious attacks on Taft&#8217;s Unitarianism, particularly in the Midwest. Evangelical Protestants, in a flood of letters and newspaper articles, accused him of being an infidel, a Catholic, etc. His religion was no secret. He attended All Souls Church faithfully. Roosevelt and others responded sharply to the attacks. Following his own instincts, as well as the advice of the President, Elihu Root, and other Republican leaders, he said nothing himself in response. Bryan did not attack Taft personally, but he would not criticize those who did, thereby implying that he agreed with them. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www25.uua.org\/uuhs\/duub\/articles\/williamhowardtaft.html\">Link<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Any resemblance between the content of this attack ad, and attacks on the religious liberal running in the 2008 U. S. presidential primaries, is entirely intentional. 1:27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Note: Although blip.tv is now defunct, I had a copy of this video and uploaded it to Vimeo. Click on the image above to view the video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the 1908 U.S. presidential election, William Howard Taft was attacked for his Unitarianism. He refused to respond to the attacks, and won the election. But imagine if his opponents had had TV attack ads in their arsenal&#8230;. A note about the historical facts behind this attack ad&#8230;. The [1908 presidential] campaign was notable for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,309],"tags":[203],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-religion","category-political-culture","tag-unitarian-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8355,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/8355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}