Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William McKinley presidential campaign, 1896/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 09:39, 20 February 2016.

William McKinley presidential campaign, 1896

 * Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

This article is about... McKinley's groundbreaking campaign of 1896. I did the Bryan campaign a few years ago, now we see the other side of the first modern presidential election. Enjoy.Wehwalt (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Support Very clean and readable article; only a couple minor copy edits. Weird to think of Karl Rove as a Reliable Source for anything, but his book on this subject was well-received. Good work, Wehwalt. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 17:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I felt the same way, actually. But Rove has the credentials, studied McKinley, and he wrote an excellent book (though I don't agree with all his conclusions).  In fact, the publication of the book made me feel I had enough material to go forward.  Everyone gets distracted by Bryan's campaign.  Thank you for the review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Support How could I not, I just wrote a McKinley-related article myself! LavaBaron (talk) 11:06, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your support.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I was perusing the FA nominations section and, because I have an interest in American history, clicked on this one. In the lead, it is stated that McKinley's victory launched "an era of dominance for the Republican Party." I have no problem with the article saying that the victory as a "realigning election," but the era of Republican dominance did not with this victory. It began with the victory of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. From 1860 until 1912, Republican candidates won all but 2 of the presidential elections of the period. Perhaps the sentence could be amended to say something like this: "McKinley's decisive victory in what is sometimes considered a realigning election brought about an end to the Third Party System and ushered in the Fourth Party System by helping to continue Republican dominance of national politics." Display name 99 (talk) 23:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your thoughts. I'm flexible on the subject, but I wonder if saying "Third Party System" and "Fourth Party System" in text rather than behind links is a good idea, because the reader very likely will not know what they are, and I'd rather keep them than lose them to another article.  Instead, I tried to have the explanation be the text, with the articles available by pipe. As for Republican dominance, from the distance of 120 years, of course, we see who was elected and who was not.  But from an 1896 perspective, the Republicans had to deal with a Democratic president.  The Democrats had won the popular vote in the last three elections, in fact the only Republican to win the popular vote in the past 20 years was Garfield.  Barely. Presidential elections were turning on who would win New York and Ohio. Beginning in 1896, Republicans generally had a popular majority and a easy electoral victory, and usually were in control of Congress.  Since 1875, Republicans had only really controlled Congress in 1889-91 and 1895 on. Democrats only controlled Congress in the 1910s, because of the Roosevelt/Taft conflict. So I'm dubious that Republicans controlled national politics at any time between Grant and McKinley.  What do you think?--Wehwalt (talk) 09:44, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Butting in: Please keep the matter simple. The terms "Third Party System" and "Fourth Party System" will, as Wehwalt indicates, befuddle and confuse British readers, who will not, I believe, read through the link articles. I think the above explanation justifies the wording presently used, but as a possible alternative, can I offer: "McKinley's decisive victory, sometimes seen as a realigning election, ended a period of close presidential elections and ushered in an era of electoral dominance for the Republican Party". This avoids "launching", which seems the word most objected to. Brianboulton (talk) 21:43, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've adopted Brianboulton's suggestion. Please let me know if this does not resolve the matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Image review
 * Suggest scaling up the map size
 * File:William_McKinley_campaign_speech_1896.ogg: source link is dead
 * File:Front_porch_campaign_2.jpg needs a US PD tag
 * File:ElectoralCollege1896.svg should include a data source. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:59, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I have fixed those. Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Support: I gave this a detailed going-over at peer review. It's a fascinating account, one of several of its kind that Wehwalt has expanded and improved. Required reading in a presidential election year (how they used to do things). Brianboulton (talk) 21:43, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:49, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Support -- I read this through today with much ease and enjoyment. It also has one of the most attractive lead images I've seen in a while.   Cassianto Talk   20:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the review and support. I agree, and it matches the one on the Bryan article.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Sources review

 * ref 94: pp. should be p.
 * For the two Kindle books (Dean and Taliaferro) you give the publisher location for the latter but not the former.
 * The OCLC for the Walters book is 477641
 * I'm no expert on state abbreviations, but "Kan" doesn't seem consistent with the earlier "NE", "TX", "OH" etc
 * I don't want to be over-fussy, but footnote "d" deems to contain a little more than simple clarification details, and as such probably ought to be supported by a citation.

Subject to the above, all sources look to be of appropriate quality and reliability, and are formatted consistently. Brianboulton (talk) 00:12, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Those things are fixed. Thank you for the review.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:12, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Support - I missed the peer review for some reason, but reading through the article now with critical eye I find nothing to quibble about, and am happy to add my support for the FA candidacy. The article meets all the FA criteria in my view.  Tim riley  talk    10:22, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the review and support. I will be sure to notify you of the next one!--Wehwalt (talk) 20:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 09:39, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.