Early Political Experience

   

        After returning home shattered from his experience in the military, the young adult Roosevelt took on responsibilities as a millwright working under his father.  It was there, under those profoundly unstimulating conditions, that his fiery desire to enter the political ring was rekindled.   He began to work his way up to his ultimate, long-held goal: To be President of the United States.  Under the advice of a close friend of the family, G. Wilcox Ubernachten, he took up a collection and entered the Halifax mayoral race.  As Ubernachten had predicted, the citizens of Halifax had become bored with the old crowd of politicians in the village, and they were galvanized by Roosevelt's idealistic dogmatism.   Roosevelt won, and he held the office for five years.  After he felt that his tenure was served, he bid farewell to his beloved hometown and went off to Washington, D.C. to enter his name on the ballot as  candidate for Senator of New Hampshire.   To make a long story short, Roosevelt lost this election.  His hopes and dreams seemed ashambles.  A Presidential campaign now seemed much farther off than before.  He took on legal work for a local House Representative and aided his staff in legislation-writing.  His deft skill of simplicity and his ability to get the spirit of the law across through the letter earned him heraldry all around Washington.   By the age of thirty-two, he had made many powerful friends.  He would now find it much easier to win recognition in his next race; for the New Hampshire Governorship. 

    Putting in overtime to beat the incumbent establishment, Roosevelt threw together a grassroots campaign that won over the simple folk and the city folk alike.  The final straw was his sound defeat in the debate rounds of incumbent governor Heathcliffe von Willowsby, a supercilious old nobleman who had held power for upwards of twenty years.  Roosevelt won the election in a landslide, partially due to the deft campaign strategy that his old friend G. Wilcox had helped him formulate.  A common campaign theme song during the race had been:

Wigglesby or Willowsby,

Whichever fop our eyes can see

Roosevelt's our man,

For we believe he can

Win.

   Roosevelt's service as Governor was untarnished, and he received much of the credit for the economic growth caused by the Industrial Revolution.  His newfound popularity and stronghold in the Northeast would aid him in the race that would take place six years later.  He would, he thought, make a great President after all.

 

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