Smith's Challenge.

Besides needing to unite his own fractured party, Smith had the unenviable task of convincing Americans that in an era of unprecedented prosperity they should put a different party in control of the White House. Both of these challenges were complicated by Smith's background, religion, and opposition to Prohibition. Smith's wife, Katie, attracted considerable criticism for her lack of social grace and excessive talking, which tended to cause political trouble for her husband. For many voters, especially rural Democrats, Smith embodied the essence of what they perceived as a threat to America and its future: he was an Irish Catholic New Yorker with connections to the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine that ran New York City, and he favored the termination of Prohibition. For Americans who feared radicalism, sympathized with the anti-Catholicism of the Ku Klux Klan, supported immigration restrictions...