Joseph Sabino Mistick: Shades of 1948 in Joe Biden's comeback

Last Tuesday night, as many of us watched the Democratic Party primary election returns, we got a taste of how our parents must have felt in November 1948. They remembered President Harry S. Truman, grinning broadly, while holding aloft a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the erroneous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

That headline ran in the paper’s earliest edition, anticipating the night’s results. Everybody — all the experts and pundits and people in the know — figured Truman to be a loser and had counted him out. As it turned out, no one was for Truman except the voters.

It was an astonishing victory by Truman and the regular Democrats that no one saw coming. And that’s the way it was for Joe Biden and his followers, who had been counted out on Super Tuesday.

As the story went, Biden was a tried and true guy, but a guy with no money, little advertising and a political style that seemed out of place and out of step with today’s bombastic politics. Even his old school manners hobbled him during the shouting matches that now pass for debates. At least that’s what the experts were saying.

But the capacity of the electorate to surprise is still alive, just as it was for Truman. As breathless political reporters called Biden the winner in state after state on Tuesday night — most of which Bernie Sanders was supposed to win — it became clear that the voters had found their candidate and this was a new contest.

Now, Biden is not a perfect guy, but he is a good guy. Some people were very happy with this turn of fortune, and others not so much. But Biden and Sanders both worry about the same things that are worrying most Americans, even if their messaging and solutions are different.

Truman and the Democratic Party had a tougher task in 1948, because they had double trouble. Both the left and right wings of the Democratic Party had fundamental disagreements over human rights and values. Within the Democratic Party, there was a struggle for its soul, more than just a disagreement over how to give Americans the government they deserve. Truman, the former vice president, was the sitting president, following the 1945 death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he didn’t have the mandate that comes from winning an election.

Progressives wanted Truman to go easier on the Soviet Union, and conservatives hated his civil rights policies, especially his promise to integrate the military. Truman refused to budge.

So, the Progressive Party ran Henry Wallace for president and the Dixiecrats ran Strom Thurmond. It tore the party into three parts and, with a split vote, Truman was not supposed to win.

But, “Give ’em Hell” Harry gave them hell. He stayed in step with average Americans and defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey, the odds-on favorite to win the presidency.

For Sanders and his followers, some bitterness is only natural now. And Biden and his followers must avoid the pitfalls of victory. At the end of these primary contests, one of them will be the nominee and the other better be his champion. There is no room for a Henry Wallace or Strom Thurmond this time around.