As mainstream Democrats ponder the real possibility that Bernie Sanders will be their presidential nominee, it is worth considering how the party handled a similar challenge in 1944.
The renomination of President Franklin Roosevelt for a fourth term was a foregone conclusion, but that of his vice president — the staunchly liberal and fiercely pro-Soviet Henry A. Wallace — was not. Though vice presidents have little official power beyond resolving tie votes in the Senate, they reside a heartbeat from the presidency. And though Roosevelt’s medical diagnosis was a well-kept secret (even from him), his advanced congestive heart failure was, by the spring of 1944, visible in his pallor, trembling hands and declining weight.
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