Working-class voters experienced the campaign fever of 1908 in diverse ways. Some marched in Taft parades organized by the National Association of Manufacturers, while carrying banners that proclaimed “Prosperity First!” Others sat in barber shops reading the pro-Bryan literature sent there by the AFL, debating the Federation's program and the Democrats' virtues. In cities like Detroit, the talk centered not on Bryan or Taft, but on the congressional campaign of union activist William Mahon, in a race that pitted AFL members against nonunion workers at firms like the Ford Auto Company.

The 1908 elections highlighted the concerns of workingmen in unprecedented ways and thus presented workers with unusual opportunities. Yet they also took place amidst a rapidly changing political world. Scholars such as Paul Kleppner have shown that the ethnocultural and religious associations that so dominated Gilded Age politics faded rapidly after 1900. The decline in voting participation and the attacks on party domination from so many different corners, meanwhile, threatened to make politics less democratic, particularly for working-class voters. Because the parties remained the main institutions capable of attempting mass mobilizations, a decline in their power made it more difficult for nonelites to influence the American state. In this context, the AFL's campaign program was potentially quite important, providing a way to mobilize large numbers of voters who might otherwise fall into the great “party of nonvoters.”