# Bull Moose Party The Bull Moose Party — formally the **Progressive Party of 1912** — was the vehicle for [[Theodore Roosevelt]]'s insurgent third-party run for president after he broke with his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, and the Republican establishment. When the 1912 Republican convention renominated Taft, Roosevelt bolted, declaring himself "fit as a bull moose" — the phrase that named the party. Its platform, the "New Nationalism," was the high-water mark of Progressive-Era reform: women's suffrage, an eight-hour day, social insurance, workers' compensation, regulation of trusts, direct primaries, and the initiative, referendum, and recall. Running against both Taft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt finished **second** — the best showing by any third-party candidate in the modern era — splitting the Republican vote and handing the presidency to Wilson. Without Roosevelt the party had no future; it faded after 1916 as he returned to the GOP. For this KB the Bull Moose run is the **paradigmatic "spoiler" third party**: a charismatic defector splitting his own party and throwing the election to the opposition — the dynamic later invoked around [[Ross Perot]] and the [[Green Party]]. ## See Also - [[Republican Party]] — the party Roosevelt split - [[Populist Party]] — the reform insurgency that preceded it - [[Reform Party]] · [[Green Party]] — later third-party spoiler cases - [[Fourth Party System]]