limited government, free enterprise, and individual initiative, and would support the

Old Guard Republicans if given the opportunity. He viewed Dewey and his "forward-

looking" party as a surrender of Republican principles and their efforts to dictate party

policy as an undermining of American values. Taft went along with Dewey in 1944,

but saw the 1948 campaign as an inept effort to parrot the Democratic program.

Because he believed Americans were generally conservative, he saw Dewey's

rhetoric of confidence and platitudes as a wasted opportunity, and the Republican

defeat in 1948 drove him to consolidate his political base through appeals to a

platform that opposed the modern liberalism of the Democratic Party. This plan

appealed to a growing segment of conservative Republicans active at the grassroots,

and provided an aggressive opposition to the New Deal. It was the direct antithesis of

Dewey's campaign program.

 The worldviews of the two candidates guided their campaign efforts and

provided the framework of their factional dispute. Their fundamental belief that either

liberalism or conservatism would repel voters drove their selection of campaign

tactics and publicity strategies. In 1948, Dewey purposely hid his plans for a

sweeping investigation of communist subversion, distanced himself from the

Tidelands Oil controversy, and campaigned against the Republican-authored Taft-

Hartley labor act because he genuinely thought that the American people would reject

these initiatives as part of an outdated conservatism. Taft, likewise, promoted his

stands on the Tidelands, Taft-Hartley, and his rejection of the FEPC as efforts to

restore limited government and thought these programs would enhance his electoral

potential. Essentially, both factions thought that the other promoted losing strategies

that would doom the GOP to further national defeats. The desire to win the