Every president since Taft, except for Jimmy Carter, threw out at least one ceremonial first ball or pitch for Opening Day, the All-Star Game, or the World Series, usually with much fanfare.

In surveys of presidential scholars, Taft is usually ranked near the middle of lists of all American Presidents.

While Roosevelt was popular with the public, most Republican politicians and party leaders supported Taft, and their support proved difficult to counter in states without primaries.

Butt continued to serve as a social functionary for Taft, but he also proved to have strong negotiating skills and a good head for numbers, which enabled him to become Taft's de facto chief negotiator on federal budget issues.

The supposed business, religious, and military advantages of having an empire proved illusory ; by 1908 or so the most ardent imperialists, including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Elihu Root turned their attention to building up an army and navy at home and to building the Panama Canal.

But his devotion to the law also often made Taft a slave to precedent, and less adroit in politics than Roosevelt ; he therefore lacked the flexibility, creativity and personal magnetism of his mentor, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable.

Taft was less likely to speak critically of big business than Roosevelt.

Taft acknowledged this, saying, " the longer I am President, the less of a party man I seem to become.

It had to overcome isolationists, including Senator Robert A. Taft, who wanted less world involvement, as well as intense anti-Communists such as James Burnham who proposed an alternative strategy of rollback that would eliminate Communism or perhaps launch a preemptive war.

However, when the Taft Broadcasting Company of Cincinnati, Ohio began building Kings Island Amusement Park in nearby Mason, Ohio, less than a 2-hour drive from Parker's site, financing for Parker's venture dried up.

Secretary Taft stated that the establishment of a suzerainty of Japan over Korea ( i. e., the less powerful Korea would pay tribute to or be somewhat controlled by the more powerful Japan ), with Japanese military troops ensuring a requirement that Korea enter into no foreign treaties without the consent of Japan, was a logical result of the war, and would contribute to permanent peace in the East.

Peter W. Bronson, a conservative columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer, wrote " Hackett's surprising finish was less a repudiation of Bush than a repudiation of Ohio Governor Bob Taft, whose name is now officially radioactive poison.

* 1899 – Ezra Taft Benson, American missionary and politician, 13th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( d. 1994 )

* 1857 – William Howard Taft, American politician, 27th President of the United States ( d. 1930 )

* 1889 – Robert Taft, American politician ( d. 1953 )

** Kevin Taft, Canadian politician

Robert Alphonso " Bob " Taft II ( born January 8, 1942 ) is an Ohio Republican Party politician.

Liberal candidates at a press conference in Calgary during the 2008 election ( left-to-right ): Dave Taylor ( Canadian politician ) | Dave Taylor, David Swann, Kevin Taft, Darshan Kang, Harry B.

George von Lengerke Meyer ( June 24, 1858 – March 9, 1918 ) was a Massachusetts businessman and politician who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, as United States ambassador to Italy and Russia, as United States Postmaster General from 1907 to 1909 during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and United States Secretary of the Navy from 1909 to 1913 during the administration of President William Howard Taft.

When he returned to Cincinnati after serving for President Truman, he joined the law firm Taft, Stettinius, and Hollister, which had been founded by another prominent Cincinnati politician, Robert Taft, and became its managing partner.

Kevin Taft ( born September 9, 1955 ) is a Liberal politician in Alberta, Canada.

* Kingsley A. Taft, American politician

Charles Phelps Taft II ( September 20, 1897-June 24, 1983 ) was a U. S. Republican Party politician and member of the Taft family.

* Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the oldest continuously running law firm in the United States, and named in part after John Lambert Cadwalader ( 1836-1914 ), an American lawyer and politician.

* Ezra Taft Benson ( 1899-1994 ), American politician and religious leader

Charles Phelps Taft I ( December 21, 1843 – December 31, 1929 ) was an American lawyer and politician.

Seth Chase Taft ( born December 31, 1922 ) is an American politician of the Republican party.

Taft promoted a different progressivism, one that stressed the rule of law and preferred that judges rather than administrators or politicians make the basic decisions about fairness.

One of Harding's earlier decisions as President was the appointment of former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a position Taft had always coveted, more so than the Presidency.

Taft then persuaded Congress to appropriate more than $ 7 million to purchase these lands, which he sold to Filipinos on easy terms.

Mrs. Taft even commented during this time, " never did he cease to regard a Supreme Court appointment as more desirable than the presidency.

Wilson soundly defeated Lewis in the general election by a margin of more than 49, 000 votes, although Republican William Howard Taft had carried New Jersey in the 1908 presidential election by more than 80, 000 votes.

As the delegates belonging to " favorite son " candidates were released by their original candidates, Willkie steadily gained more of them than Taft.

Taft – Hartley was one of more than 250 union-related bills pending in both houses of Congress in 1947.

The park was opened in 1972 by the Taft Broadcasting Company and after more than $ 275 million in capital investments, the park features over 80 rides, shows and attractions including 13 roller coasters and a water park.

Longworth didn't like Warren G. Harding any more than she had Taft or Wilson.

In the general election, Cummins supported Roosevelt rather than Taft, even though he opposed Roosevelt's creation of a third party.

This appointment was technically a significantly lower appointment than he had held in other administrations, but it permitted him to work with his wife, Julia Taft, a top State Department official in charge of refugees who also served during the Clinton administration.

In some settings, Taft is perhaps better known for his published writings than for his sculpture.

He ran as the candidate of the newly formed Progressive Party, better known as the Bull Moose Party, and received second place, doing better than the Republican candidate William Howard Taft but being defeated by the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.

Taft was generally given credit for being more tenacious than the soft-spoken Nicol in his performance in the legislature during the lead-up to the 2004 election, especially on issues such as public auto insurance, public accounts, and government contracts.

Taft also saw his support in Riverview solidify ; he received more votes than any other candidate, of any party, in the 2004 election.

To make it appear that they were more pro-Filipino than the Spaniards, the American governor-general William Howard Taft in 1901 named Rizal as the Philippine national hero.

As a measure, perhaps, of both Schmidt's unpopularity, and a growing anti-Republican trend in Ohio due to the unpopularity of Bush and Ohio Governor Bob Taft, Schmidt defeated Victoria Wells Wulsin, the second-place finished in the 2005 Democratic primary, by an even smaller margin than that by which she had defeated Hackett in 2005.