Leonard Wood - Republican Politics

Republican Politics

Wood was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the election of 1920. He was urged into running by the family and supporters of his old friend Theodore Roosevelt, who had himself been considering another campaign before his illness and death in 1919. He won the New Hampshire primary that year, but lost at the convention. Among the reasons why he did not become the candidate were several strong rivals for the nomination, his political inexperience, and the strong support he gave to the Red Scare, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's campaign against Bolsheviks and anarchists. After the major candidates deadlocked, the nomination went to Warren G. Harding.