# Thomas Dewey Thomas E. Dewey (1902–1971) was the racket-busting Manhattan District Attorney (1937-1941), three-term Governor of New York (1943-1954), and two-time Republican presidential nominee (1944 vs. [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]; 1948 vs. [[Harry S. Truman]]). He lost both presidential races — to FDR by 432-99 in 1944, and (in the canonical American upset election) to Truman by 303-189 in 1948 despite every major poll and most major newspapers having predicted his victory. The *Chicago Tribune*'s "**DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN**" early-edition headline produced one of the most famous photographs in American political history — the post-election picture of a smiling Truman holding the erroneous newspaper. Dewey's pre-political career as a federal prosecutor and Manhattan District Attorney made him one of the most prominent crime-fighters of the late 1930s — he convicted Lucky Luciano and other major organized-crime figures, establishing the prosecutorial template that subsequent generations of New York federal prosecutors ([[Rudy Giuliani]] most prominently) would follow. As Governor of New York he built the state Republican Party machinery, mentored a generation of moderate-and-internationalist Republican politicians (including the young **[[Richard Nixon]]**), and operated as the operational head of the post-Willkie internationalist-Republican wing through the 1940s. His 1948 loss substantially damaged the moderate-Republican-establishment hand within the party. The Eisenhower 1952 nomination effectively continued the Willkie-Dewey internationalist line; the Taft-Goldwater conservative-movement insurgency that displaced it after 1964 ran specifically against the post-Dewey establishment. ## Right-wing relevance Dewey's right-wing significance is principally as a foundational figure of the post-Willkie internationalist-Republican tradition. He mentored Richard Nixon, supported Eisenhower's 1952 nomination over Taft, and through the 1950s and 1960s operated as one of the party-establishment elders the Goldwater-movement insurgency was constructed against. The contemporary right rarely invokes Dewey by name; the structural significance is that he is one of the figures whose Republican Party — moderate, internationalist, broadly New-Deal-accepting — the post-1964 conservative movement displaced. ## Connections - [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] — 1944 opponent. - [[Harry S. Truman]] — 1948 opponent; the upset. - [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] — Republican successor; Dewey's protégé in important respects. - [[Wendell Willkie]] — Predecessor in the internationalist-Republican wing. ## See also - [[1944 Presidential Election]], [[1948 Presidential Election]] — Dewey's two losses. ---