John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator and the 54th governor of Ohio.

[1] He was Thomas E. Dewey's running mate on the Republican ticket in the 1944 election, campaigning against the New Deal and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's judicial nominees.

Bricker was born on a farm near Mount Sterling in Madison County in south central Ohio.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio State in 1916 and from its law school in 1920, he was admitted to the bar in 1917 and began his legal practice in Columbus in 1920.

[4] During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918.

He was elected governor for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory.

His final remarks came on radio on election eve from the governor's office in Columbus, when he declared: "Not only has the New Deal depleted our resources, recklessly spent our money, but it has undermined the very spiritual foundations of our government.

"[5] Though most of his campaigning was in New England, the Midwest, and the West, Bricker even visited the then-historically and -heavily Democratic state of Texas, where in Dallas, he called Franklin Roosevelt "a front for the Hillman-Browder Communist Party," referring to the respective leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Communist Party of the United States of America.

[6] However, even if Dewey had carried both California and Ohio in 1948, the two large states would have been insufficient to elect him president in that second campaign.

Kaiser had served on the police force as a protege of Bricker's predecessor in the Senate and had complained of losing substantial money on Columbus real estate.

Few thought that Young, 70 at the time, could win; even members of his own party had doubts, particularly Ohio's other senator, Democrat Frank J. Lausche.