100 years ago in Spokane: Hope alive locally for Spokane senator’s presidential aspirations

The national Republican convention was getting underway in Chicago, and local Republicans had still not given up on the idea of a presidential candidate from Spokane.

Sen. Miles Poindexter had performed poorly in nearly every primary, but a Spokesman-Review correspondent at the convention reported that “the recent turn of events has brought the Poindexter candidacy to something resembling a real boom.”

None of the three leading candidates appeared to have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. That meant a compromise candidate might have to be found, and Poindexter’s boosters believed their man from Spokane would be the obvious choice.

Poindexter explained why he might be the perfect compromise candidate in case of a deadlock. All of the leading candidates were “inclined to be friendly to me, and not to each other.”

“I want to remind you that this analysis of the situation is not only mine, but is that of some of the shrewdest politicians in the nation,” Sen. Poindexter said.

The Spokesman-Review’s editorial page was a staunch supporter, and the editors certainly believed that a Poindexter victory was in the cards.

“Poindexter is presidential possibility, indeed, a presidential probability, because he has a broad national point of view, a set of principles that will not let political expediency come ahead of what he considers right, and an abiding determination to preserve intact the solid groundwork on which this country was built,” said an editorial.