Campaign Trail Results: Game #722793
Play The Campaign Trail
This Game:
- Year: 1896
- Player Candidate: William McKinley
- Running Mate: Garret Hobart
- Difficulty Level: Easy
- Winner Take All Mode?: Yes
- Game Played:
- zambitocharles3
View overall results, or a specific state:
| Candidate | Electoral Votes | Popular Votes | Pop. Vote % |
|---|---|---|---|
| ---- William McKinley | 319 | 7,414,278 | 53.46 |
| ---- William Jennings Bryan | 128 | 6,252,490 | 45.08 |
| ---- John Palmer | 0 | 202,922 | 1.46 |
Answers:
- What is your opinion on measures that would aim to restrict the sale or production of alcohol?I am a proud "wet" in the alcohol debate. What a man drinks is no one's business but his own.
- Which of the following will be your primary campaign message?I am the candidate who brings the reasonable, tested ideas of sound money, protection, and prosperity. Bryan on the other hand will usher in radicalism and instability.
- What points do you wish to touch upon as you accept the Republican nomination? A written transcript will be transmitted to voters across the country.Labor agitators and agrarian radicals are threatening to overthrow our system of government. They have put forward a preposterous array of Constitutional Amendments and confiscatory welfare programs.
- Bryan's nomination has electrified the western voter, and he is now planning to campaign on the rails, six days a week. Will you break precedent as well and make a speaking tour of the nation?There's no way I can compete with Bryan's oratorical talents. Instead, I will receive groups of visitors at my home in Canton, Ohio. We have the financing to pay for these visits, and anyone who shows up will receive a free sandwich while I deliver a speech.
- You have the support of the important newspapers, and they are willing to accept your guidance on the proper campaign message. What do you want them to print?The big newspapers should remind the voters that I represent a return to prosperity after the Democratic disaster of the previous four years. They should be paying as little attention to Bryan as possible.
- John Palmer, a Gold Democrat, is also running against Bryan. He has offered to remove his name from the ballot on the East and West Coast if you will do the same in the South. He argues that this will consolidate the anti-Bryan vote. What do you think?If Palmer will remove himself from the ballot in Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, then I will give him free reign in the Deep South.
- Bryan's reputation amongst industrial workers is actually suspect (he is often perceived as being too pro-farmer and too evangelical). Do you have any plans to win this traditionally Democratic block of voters?We will remind laborers that inflation will debase the value of their wages. Silver coinage is a rural policy.
- The West Coast is a very competitive region. Can you make the case for Republican policies there, particularly in those places such as San Francisco which rely on foreign trade?One of my highest priorities in office will be a canal through Nicaragua, which will greatly enhance our national trade. Democrats lack the ambition for such far-reaching projects.
- Some of the border states (Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky) are very close this year. Do you have a strategy to make these states jump to the Republican side?There is a burgeoning textile industry in the Upper South. Their success depends on cheap cotton, protection, and an absence of destabilizing labor issues.
- You've got a fairly clean reputation in politics. Can you leverage this to mend the rift between the party establishment and the so-called Mugwumps (who tended to support Grover Cleveland)?Fear of William Jennings Bryan should be more than enough to drive the Mugwumps back into our camp.
- Will you send campaigners to Nebraska, in an attempt to deliver an embarrassing defeat to Bryan, or should those resources be focused on South Dakota, Wyoming, and Iowa?We are running a 45-state strategy. I want our victory and repudiation of the silver Democrats to be as large as possible.
- There is one week left until election day. Every state is important, but where will you give an extra push with what is left of your financial resources to educate the American voters?Let's take the fight to Bryan. I want us to be campaigning the hardest in Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Our extra cash will ensure a landslide on election night.
- Can you state your definitive position on the American monetary system?I support a strict adherence to the gold standard, which is fundamental to American prosperity.
- What is your definitive position on the tariff issue?We need high tariffs on a variety of products and commodities to stimulate American manufacturing.
- The United States is in the midst of a financial calamity, with masses of unemployed men on the streets. What will you do to revive business in this country?We need to reaffirm our commitment to non-intervention in business affairs. Companies need stability before they will have the confidence to expand.
- Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Illinois to end the Pullman Strike without the request of Governor Altgeld. Was this an overreach on his part?It's not the job of government to regulate labor disputes, but the fact of the matter is that these strikers were allowing no rail traffic to pass through Chicago whatsoever. Something needed to be done.
- What is your position on the struggle for independence in Cuba?We extend our sympathies to the people of Cuba in their struggle for independence from Spain.
- Do you believe that immigrant labor is undermining the American worker? Should there be some restrictions put into place on immigration?It's time that we had severe restrictions on who we let into this country. A walk down the streets of New York is hardly distinguishable from the Tower of Babel, and these new arrivals crush the bargaining power of the American worker.
- In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. the Supreme Court ruled that a 2% income tax contained in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff was unconstitutional. Would you support a Constitutional Amendment allowing the federal government to collect an income tax? Good for the Supreme Court for taking a firm, principled stand on this issue. Increased tariffs will be more than sufficient to cover the funding needs of our federal government.
- Would you support federal "Blue Laws" to protect the sanctity of Sunday?This debate has no place in our system of federalism. The individual states have every right to decide how they wish to handle the issue of commerce and drinking on Sunday.
- Do you think that there should be federal oversight of the New York and Chicago trading markets?The New York Stock Exchange is a private company providing liquidity to other companies. The last thing our fragile economy needs is some hare-brained intervention in this process.
- Do you think that local jurisdictions should be allowed to use hanging or other forms of capital punishment for crimes?This is perfectly within the realm of acceptable punishment.
- Do you believe that the federal government should monitor and improve important waterways in the interests of commerce, such as the Mississippi River?Internal areas of the country have the same rights to use our waterways as the coastal regions. Making the Mississippi more navigable and more flood-resistant could prove to be an economic windfall.
- Will you press for your party to include a condemnation of lynching in the party platform?This isn't an issue worth addressing. It will please no one and offend everyone, at least within our party's rank-and-file.
- Do you support greater regulation on the sale and labeling of opium, cocaine, and morphine when used in patent medicines?This isn't an issue we should be concerned about. Additional regulation of drugs and medicinal practice would undermine our national liberty.