The Republican Party was riding the crest of national popularity in 1928, basking in the glow of the economic boom which Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge had seemingly engineered. Herbert Hoover's election became inevitable when many lifelong Democrats in the South and Southwest rejected their party's nominee. Rural Democrats simply could not vote for Smith because he seemed to represent everything that threatened their America. He was a practicing Roman Catholic in a decade of virulent anti-Catholicism. He opposed national prohibition and openly flaunted the law during the election campaign. Furthermore, he was suspect because of his links to the urban political machine - Tammany Hall of New York City.