Piece Description

Whistle-Stops: The 1948 Presidential Campaign Lester Graham and Matthew Algeo The biggest political upset in American presidential politics comes alive in this half-hour documentary. The whistle-stop campaigns of Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey have become political folklore. Who hasn?t seen that photo of Harry Truman holding up the banner headline ?Dewey Defeats Truman?? Here are the stories leading up to Truman?s surprise victory from people who were there and from the historians who?ve written about them. Listeners will hear historic recordings from the 1948 campaign trail. Interviews for this documentary include Pulitzer-Prize-winning Truman biographer David McCullough, aide to President Truman George Elsey, Dewey biographer Richard Norton Smith, Margaret Truman, Walter Cronkite and other reporters who covered key moments in the campaign, and the only living 1948 presidential candidate at the time this documentary was produced, Dixiecrat J. Strom Thurmond. The documentary covers one of the United States? most interesting political lessons. It reminds the pollsters, pundits, and journalists who really decides who?ll be president.