When Politics Get Personal: Politicians’ Most Insulting Slurs & Feuds

Roosevelt’s Team Called Hoover A “Fat, Timid, Capon”

During the 1932 presidential election, Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover and his challenger, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, didn’t pull any punches. Roosevelt’s campaign called his opponent a “fat, timid capon” (a castrated cock), but Hoover had his own insults up his sleeve. He suggested that Roosevelt flip-flopped on several important issues and called him “a chameleon on plaid.” Roosevelt ended up winning the election in a landslide, taking both the electoral and popular vote. Roosevelt united the Democratic party and pointed out the various failures of Hoover’s administration. He promised the American people that his “New Deal” would lead them out of the Depression.