This cartoon appeared on the last day of the second session of the 62nd Congress. Members of Congress were eager to return home in order to campaign for reelection as well as muster support for the presidential candidate at the head of their party's slate. The presidential nominating conventions had been held the previous month, and it was clear that 1912 would be a three-way race between the President William Howard Taft--the Republican and the incumbent, Governor Woodrow Wilson--the Democratic nominee (and eventual winner), and former president Theodore Roosevelt for the Progressives.