unemployment programs as the key to industrial peace. The party also wholeheartedly

endorsed Dewey's civil rights record, citing the FEPC and a new law barring

discrimination in public housing as examples of the Republican commitment to racial

equality.83

 The 1950 New York GOP platform reflected Dewey's Princeton lectures and

not the more conservative statement he made to the legislature in January. Empire

State Republicans ran the 1950 campaign on the tenets of liberal Republicanism.

Dewey and his backers attacked the Democrats for wasteful spending and a tendency

for centralization of government while promoting their own record on civil rights,

labor, and fiscal responsibility.84 The Republicans could only afford to run as liberals

once the popular incumbent rejoined the campaign. Dewey's personal prestige could

easily offset any substantive challenges from his opponents and squelch ideological

divides amongst the party faithful. Although there was not much of a conservative

element within the New York GOP, Dewey's campaign repudiated his own early

efforts to run a conservative campaign more oppositional to the Democratic effort.

 Dewey's campaign strategy paid off on election day, as he defeated his

opponent Edward Lynch by nearly 500,000 votes. Hanley could not unseat the

popular Democratic incumbent Herbert Lehman, however, and went down by more

than 200,000.85 Correspondents attributed these results to the differences between the

candidates and paid tribute to Dewey's reputation as an effective governor. The

Christian Science-Monitor believed that the Governor had redeemed himself after





83 New York Times, 7 September 1950.
84 See, for example, New York Times, 2 October 1950, and New York Times, 13 October 1950.

85 New York Times, 8 November 1950.