Theordore Roosevelt QUESTION! PLEASE ANSWER!!!!?

Question

"As 1916 election approached, Republicans hoped to regain their normal electoral majority, and Theodore Roosevelt hoped to be their leader again. But he had committed the deadly sin of bolting his party in 1912 and, what was more, he expressed a bellicosity on war issues that would scare off voters."

What does it mean? Like, can you explain it to me in plain english?

This is what I have so far.

Theodore wants to become a Republican leader once again.

During his party in 1912 he showed __?__ on war issues that would scare off voters.

Answer 1

Bellicosity = agressiveness.  In other words, he really, really wanted war very much; and voters were not in favor of this....In 1916, Americans did not want their country to go into WWI.

Also, the Republicans wanted to win the 1916 election, but were unsure of having T. Roosevelt as leader, since they didn't look kindly on someone who had left the R.party so recently, in 1912. (In the 1912 election, he got enough votes running as an independent to cost the R. party the election.)

Answer 2

In 1912, the Republicans gave the nomination to Taft and Roosevelt got mad enough to form his own party, the Bull Moose party. Because he left his party and separated his followers from the Republican party, they weren't really happy to have him back in 1916. He was very aggressive against Taft and those in the party who supported Taft. That made the Republicans scared of sending the message that Roosevelt had been right. They needed him, but were too pig-headed to let him back in. As a result, they lost the election to Woodrow Wilson.

The blank is probably "progressive attitudes"