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Edited on Sat Oct-02-04 08:26 PM by RoyGBiv
Roosevelt's 1940 election was largely a referendum on how best to deal with domestic issues, particularly the economy. Republicans ran on a small government, no foreign entanglements platform. The Democrats ran on continuing with New Deal policies, expansive government to face the crisis, the relationship between world events and the US economy, i.e. pro-foreign entanglements, etc. The whole era was pretty much a settling period as the new political coalitions that took root in 1932 shook themselves out.
The '44 election was a different sort of animal. FDR mostly responded to personal attacks on him, and most famously his dog, whether a forth term was wasn't against the spirit of the Constitution, whether he was getting too old to serve, etc. but other than that he dealt more with internal disputes within his own party, particularly the elements that hated Henry Wallace. He answered by replacing Wallace with the more conservative Truman. The election was closer than ones in recent years, but it was never really in doubt.
As for fear, well, your question is self-evident. It was FDR who said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Shrub's message is exactly the opposite.
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