Charles E. Coughlin. A
Catholic priest who became a top-rated
radio personality of the
1930s, with
sermons that struck a nerve in people
battered by
The Great Depression. A proto-
televangelist, selling
"
religious"
tchotchkes and such to his
audience - he had 50 million
listeners in the
US at the peak of his popularity. He branched out into
politics, founding the National Union for Social Justice and
Social
Justice magazine.
Huey Long and FDR eventually stole some of his
populist thunder and constituency. He had once supported Roosevelt and the
New Deal, but when radio fame made the padre nouveau riche, his ox was
gored by some of FDR's policies. The president became a whipping-boy and
"rival" for the increasingly-hysterical Coughlin, who, it would seem, came to see himself as America's führer-messiah.
Maybe
Coughlin wanted to be president, but, being Canadian-born, he could
never be elected - only a coup or similar event could get him
real power. Reduced to "kingmaker" status, he pledged allegiance to the "vast anti-FDR conspiracy", and is now remembered for the company he kept - America First, and the darker right-wing and anti-semitic parts of the vast coalition.
He wasn't the first (or last) cleric to tell you how to vote and what to believe, but he stumbled onto the sheer power in the combo of politics, broadcasting, and the trust that a "flock" (whether in a church, or gathered around the
radio or television) puts in its pastor. Which makes him, though near-forgotten, very important: he paved the way for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson... and Rush Limbaugh.