The Invisible Candidates.

Parker's bold statement of his position on the gold standard led many Democrats to believe that they had indeed found a candidate aggressive enough to take on Roosevelt. That hope quickly dissipated with the reading of his acceptance speech in August. He spoke out for self-government in the Philippines and said that the states had all the power needed to regulate trusts. The rest of his remarks listlessly ran through a litany of Democratic positions. Parker's decision to run a front-porch campaign, as McKinley had done in 1896, showed how little energy his campaign had. It was difficult to reach his hometown of Esopus, New York, and the voters stayed away. The Democratic National Committee had money to spend on the campaign, but it did so inefficiently, further hurting the party's chances. In taking a conservative stance on the issues...