IX. Caretaker "I Like Ike" Cycle (1953-1961)

IX. Caretaker "I Like Ike" Cycle

[2 Terms]

Major Parties: Democrats, Republicans
Major 3rd Parties: None
Presidents: (R) Dwight Eisenhower
Vice Presidents: (R) Richard Nixon

Dominant Issue: Cold War

Events: Korean War, Cold War, Red Scare, NASA, First Presidential TV ad, Suez Canal Crises, Brown vs. Board of Education, Ike's Farewell Speech Warning of a "Military Industrial Complex" and a "Scientific-Technological Elite", Vice President Nixon's "Checkers Speech", Interstate Highway System, U2 Spy Plane Incident, Satellites 

--Democrat Party Factions:

New Deal Democrats, Progressive
Democrats (those more socially focused, especially on the Civil Rights issues) began to emerge in the North and the Dixiecrat Democrats still ran the the Party in the South.

--Republican Party Factions: Moderate Republicans were the former watered down New Dealers

who rallied behind Ike's hands off approach of not adding much or taking much from the government policies in place but rather being good stewards of running the day-to-day operations of the government. The Conservative Republicans had been mostly the Anti-New Dealers who focused now on being staunch Anti-Communists.

3rd Parties: None popped up. So far the only Cycle not to produce a Major 3rd Party Movement.

End of Cycle: Election of a young Civil Rights Activist President

1952:
Republican Convention: Across the Midwest in Chicago, Illinois

Stevenson

Republican Ticket: Eisenhower/Nixon
President: Former Army General Dwight Eisenhower (New York)  Vice President: U.S. Senator Richard Nixon (California)
Democrat Convention: Across the Midwest in Chicago, Illinois
Democrat Ticket: Stevenson/Sparkman
President: Governor Adlai Stevenson (Illinois) [grandson of Former Vice President under Cleveland] Vice President: U.S. Senator John Sparkman (Alabama)

1956:
Republican Convention: Out West in San Francisco, California

Eisenhower

Republican Ticket: Eisenhower/Nixon
President: President Dwight Eisenhower (Pennsylvania) Vice President: Vice President Richard Nixon (California)
Democrat Convention: Across the Midwest in Chicago, Illinois
Democrat Ticket: Stevenson/Kefauver
President: Former Governor and Former Presidential Nominee Adlai Stevenson (Illinois) Vice President: U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver (Tennessee)

Hotly Contested Election of the Cycle:

1952:

In the above County Map (R) Eisenhower is in Red and (D) Stevenson is in Blue.

This would be the more contested race by virtue of being an open race
after 20 years of Democrat rule at the ballot box for the office of President. 

The following 1956 race would just be a near carbon-copy rematch without wondering the outcome.

-Note of Interest--

The First Presidential TV Campaign ad was by the Republican

Eisenhower. CLICK ON LINK TO WATCH https://www.youtube.com/embed/YP7WaUPACuY?si=q3LGzegiuY09LHLw