Dewey–Stassen debate
Dewey was the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 1948, but Stassen gained a surge of support as some states held primary elections.
Stassen believed that the Communist Party was working on behalf of Russia and that failing to ban it would threaten the security of democratic nations.
Stassen made the proposed Mundt–Nixon Bill the center of his argument by incorrectly asserting that its passage would outlaw the Communist Party.
[5] He showed little interest in campaigning for the nomination, essentially remaining inactive as the year's primary elections took place.
[7] One of Dewey's rivals, former Minnesota governor Harold Stassen, campaigned more vigorously and built a surge of support through his activity in the states that held primary elections.
[6] A small number of states held primary elections at the time, and they determined only 77 of the 1,094 delegates that were appointed to select the nominee.
Stassen hoped that strong performances in the primary elections would prove his viability as a candidate and earn him support during the nomination process.
[18][19] Stassen in turn dedicated little time to the state, only occasionally appearing in the month leading up to the primary election.
[20] Although Stassen had intended to start campaigning on May 17, Dewey's sudden activity prompted him to move his schedule up three days, saying that he wished to make time for a debate.
[21] Stassen made his proposal to outlaw the American Communist Party the centerpiece of his rhetoric when he arrived in Oregon,[23] and it became the key issue for the state's primary election.
[24] At the same time, two Republican members of the House of Representatives, Karl Mundt and Richard Nixon, were sponsoring the anti-communist Mundt–Nixon Bill.
[25] On a similar point, the House Un-American Activities Committee published a report on May 11 concluding that the Communist Party sought to violently overthrow the government.
[26] The program director of the KPOJ radio station, Tom Swafford, noticed that the Communist Party ban was the strongest point of disagreement between Dewey and Stassen.
[27] He was inundated with political news as attention moved to the Oregon primary election, and he frequently interacted with both candidates and attended their campaign events.
Dewey declined, but he expressed interest in debating the Communist Party issue because he deemed it dangerous enough to warrant "a full discussion".
[30] Dewey's team wanted the Multnomah Country Republican Central Committee to sponsor the debate and for the scope to be limited to the question of the Communist Party.
[36] Dewey had his chief researcher, John Burton, and his counsel, Charles D. Breitel, produce a swathe of information about anti-subversion laws and congressional hearings.
[37] Although it was not listed among his formal policy positions, Stassen proposed that the Communist Party should be outlawed, playing on the strong anti-communist mood that had grown popular in the United States.
[39] Stassen's position was that the Communist Party functioned as a fifth column working at the behest of Russia,[38] and that stopping it was necessary to prevent World War III.
[31] He disagreed with other anti-communist measures, such as the Taft–Hartley Act, which he felt did not do enough to protect civil rights and due process for those accused of being communists.
[49] Turning to the issue of communism, Stassen argued that the Communist Party worked for Russia and sought to take over democratic nations, citing the example of Czechoslovakia.
[53] Stassen proposed that the United States should pass a law that bans organizations which seek to overthrow the American government on behalf of a foreign nation.
[35] He rejected the logic of Stassen's fourth question, arguing that forcing the Communist Party to operate in secret would be more likely to cause future military conflict.
[58] Dewey followed this with the argument that banning a party would give up the nation's principles of freedom and make it totalitarian, describing his time prosecuting criminal rackets without using the dictatorial approach that many wanted.
[59] In his rebuttal, Stassen argued that the Mundt–Nixon Bill's outlawing of conspiracies to establish a totalitarian government on behalf of another nation would effectively ban the Communist Party.
Dewey went on to invoke the Alien and Sedition Acts and the censorship efforts of Ambrose Burnside in the Civil War as evidence that ideas should not be banned.
[67] As he spoke, he periodically held out his hand, received a note card from his team, glanced at it, and returned it without breaking his focus.
[49] Dewey also spoke steadily at a rate of 120 words per minute, adjusting his volume rather than his tempo as he made each point.
[73] Stassen's poor performance in the debate and subsequent loss in the Oregon primary shattered his image as a strong candidate,[52] and it effectively ended his chances of receiving the Republican Party's nomination.
[52][80] He spent the following decades entering and losing elections for various political offices and made several more unsuccessful attempts to receive a presidential nomination.
