Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States, a Republican from Ohio who served in the Ohio Senate and then in the United States Senate, where he played a minor role.
With the Republican Party convention near deadlock, Harding was chosen as an inoffensive compromise candidate in the 1920 election. He brought leading advertising experts on board, especially Albert Lasker, to publicize his presidential appearance and conservative promises. He promised America a "return to normalcy" after World War I, with an end to violence and radicalism, a strong economy, and independence from European intrigues. Harding represented the conservative wing of his party in opposition to progressive followers of the late Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Sr. He defeated Democrat and fellow Ohio newspaper publisher James M. Cox with the largest popular vote landslide in presidential history.
Harding sought out the "best minds" in his cabinet, including Andrew Mellon at the Treasury, Herbert Hoover at Commerce, and Charles Evans Hughes at the State Department. He rewarded friends and contributors, known as the "Ohio Gang", with powerful government positions.
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything. friendship
America's present need is not heroics but healing not nostrums but normalcy not revolution but restoration. politics