Roosevelt's Revolt: The 1912 Republican Convention and the Launch of the Bull Moose Party

The 1912 presidential election is the only one in American history in which candidates included a president, a former president and a future president. Theodore Roosevelt was president from 1901 to 1908 but chose not to run again. He hand-picked his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft to succeed him and Taft was elected easily. But when Taft took actions as president that infuriated Roosevelt, he chose to challenge Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination, setting off the most raucous convention in American history. When Taft emerged as the nominee, Roosevelt bolted from the Republican Party and ran as a third-party candidate on the Progressive (Bull Moose) ticket. That caused a split in the GOP that allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to become president. The impact of the Roosevelt revolt has affected the Republican Party for more than 100 years.