The candidacy of Arthur was doomed to failure. He had alienated the Stalwarts by his independence, while he had failed to win the reformers because he had not invariably refrained from playing the politician. In the fall of 1882 he had interfered in the campaign in New York, allowing his Secretary of the Treasury, Charles J. Folger, while retaining that office, to be the Republican candidate for governor. This had led to the belief that the patronage was being used for local purposes, and had stirred up an opposition to Folger which defeated him. Arthur's veto of the Chinese Exclusion Bill and the River and Harbor Bill further increased his unpopularity in various sections. He failed to win over the Blaine faction, who regarded him as an intrusive accident and waited impatiently for the next national convention. Blaine was the leader of the Republican party in 1884, so far as it had a leader, and he possessed all the weaknesses of such a leader as well as personal weaknesses of his own. Rarely has it been possible to nominate or to elect one who has gained a dominant place through party struggles. Such men, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and their kind, have commonly created enough enemies, as they have risen, to make them unavailable as leaders of a national ticket. Blaine was handicapped like these. His prolonged fight against Conkling and the Stalwarts created a breach too deep to fill, while the old questions respecting his honor would not down. Early in 1884 Blaine was the leading candidate for the nomination in spite of all opposition. The Republican National Committee was in charge of men who sympathized with him. Dorsey had resigned as its secretary after the star-route exposure, though his associate in land speculations, Stephen B. Elkins, remained as one of the managers. The control was in the hands of men who had close affiliation with the old organization, and of the manufacturers who had blocked tariff revision in 1883. It was improbable, in the opinion of many independents, that a tariff reduction could be got from an Administration headed by Blaine; they questioned his sincerity upon civil service reform; and they thought it not right that any man, concerning whose character there was a doubt, should be President. They put forward, within the party, Senator George F. Edmunds, whom they had desired in 1880, and who had since become President of the Senate. Other candidates with local followings were General John A. Logan, of Illinois, John Sherman, and the President himself.