Dale Harold Learn, December 8, 1897 (East Swiftwater, Penn.) - March 16, 1976 (East Stroudsburg, Penn.)
VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1948)
Running mate with nominee: Claude A. Watson (1885–1978)
Popular vote: 103,708 (0.21%)
Electoral vote: 0/531
The campaign:
Claude Watson was nominated again for President but not without a contest. Other names proposed were Enoch Arden Holtwick (future 1952 VP nominee and 1956 Presidential nominee), David Leigh Colvin (1920 VP nominee and 1936 Presidential nominee with Watson as his running mate) and Dale Harold Learn, a realtor from Pennsylvania. Watson won the prize and Learn was nominated as the running mate.
Watson knew how to work the media. He publicized the fact he was the first Presidential nominee to pilot his own campaign airplane. A tall tale was told that Mrs. Watson had already visited the White House in order to make redecoration plans when she assumed the role of First Lady.
The 1948 Prohibition Party platform did indeed have a few extreme statements regarding alcohol and God being the source of all government, but on many other issues it is a surprisingly centrist document given their earlier hard Right religious turn in 1940 and 1944. This time they probably had the most moderate platform in tone of the many third parties running that year.
They earned 0.21% of the national vote, landing in 6th place. As paltry as that sounds the Party would never come close to finishing with a percentage that high again. Their 103,708 popular votes marked the final instance where they surpassed 100,000.
On Election Day, the Watsons were unable to vote since their absentee ballots had been misplaced.
With recorded votes in about two dozen states, the Watson/Learn ticket had their largest percentages in Indiana (0.89%), Kansas (0.82%), Washington (0.68%) and Michigan (0.62%).
Election history:
1942 - Governor of Pennsylvania (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1946 - US Senate (Penn.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1947 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated
Other occupations: school director, realtor, lay minister for the United Methodist Church in East Stroudsburg, Penn., Trustee of East Stroudsburg State College, US Army soldier WWI.
Buried: Laurelwood Cemetery (Stroudsburg, Penn.)
Notes:
Mason
Buried in the same cemetery as Walter Burke and A. Mitchell Palmer.
