oh yeah...

[Paul Mackin]

Willkie is a better remembered guy than I would have thought. Both Rob J and
Diogenes T remember things about him I'd forgotten. Didn't know about the
German fund. W, though from the midwest (the State of Indiana), was of the
Internationalist or Eastern Branch of the otherwise isolationist Republican
party. Made a pile of money in New York investing and was nicknamed the
barefoot boy from Wall Street. Willkie  might have been a pal of Bush and
his father in law Prescott along with other investors in Europe in the
between-the-wars period. Though Willkie lost badly to FDR in 1940 he did
considerably better the Alf Landon had  in 1936 who carried only Maine and
Vermont. Before that time it was said that as Maine goes so goes the Nation.
After, it was as Maine goes, so goes Vermont. Oh well . . .

                P.