If it’s Scoop it’ll be a big deal who his VP is considering Jackson died in 83
Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Maybe Ted Kennedy or Mo Udall. Mo Udall does have the same sort of charisma if not moreso compared to Reagan, but was a prominent lefty.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
He's also just about Establishment as you can possibly get, which relates to my point earlier. Oh, and he's pretty much first and foremost known as the Democratic Party's greatest war hawk, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, which most of the country (and primary voters) consider the worst mistake of any Democratic administration in the past half century.
(I also have a vague memory that he was more "socially conservative" than other typical New Democrats of the time, even as he remained an avid economic populist -- but I admit I'm having a hard time finding anything solid to illustrate that, other than quick turn of phrase buried in a 1971 NYT editorial.)
As mentioned, Mo Udall was diagnosed with Parkinson's, so he's out; Ted Kennedy, I expect, ain't playing second fiddle to anybody.
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So maybe a southern or northeastern liberal that at least wasn't for Vietnam?
Cliff Finch, Reubin Askew, Hugh Carey,
, Birch Bayh, or Edmund Muskie?
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Reubin Askew could run a strong campaign, since he ticks a lot of the same boxes Jimmy Carter did in 1976. Similarly, Hugh Carey can easily enough sell himself as a New Democrat, albeit of the centrist (or "neoliberal", or "austerity" -- depending on who you ask) model.
Birch Bayh, I'm afraid, is likely a no go, if for no other reason that he would still be mourning his wife during the invisible primary. Muskie would be seen as more "establishment" by 1980. And Cliff Finch... I have to say, I'm not sure what to make of him.
Yet Udall still considered running in 1984 when he was diagnosed in 1980 and he was sidelined by Parkinsons that kept him from going anywhere with that. So he may see 1980 here as his one last final shot and he could choose a prominent VP.
I doubt the Dems would go with a conservative Dem since Carter was one and he lost to Ford, despite the hauntings of Watergate of the Nixon administration so here, I imagine the more radical lefties think they need to go real all in here
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
I agree Conservative Democrats are going to have a harder time of it than Liberals, all other things being equal; if we were to agree that the advantage of Outsiders over Insiders is equally or more strong, than it would seem to follow we'd be looking for a candidate that leans to the left of viable anti-establishment candidates.
So someone like Mo Udall (but without Parkinson's) or Jerry Brown.
Thanks! Really appreciate that! I’m gonna try to do at least biweekly updates moving forward... my other TL Cinco de Mayo commands most of my time when it comes to writing/research, this one is mostly for fun
Exactly. ITTL, anti-establishment Democrats had two chances to get it right with McGovern and Carter, and in both cases, they lost. The Democratic establishment, and likewise the voters, are unlikely to give them a third crack at the whip, and they're more likely to favour an establishment figure this time.
That's the thing tho, IOTL Carter screwed up the Iranian hostage crisis, which was a major reason why he lost reelection. While the OP may well prove me wrong, I honestly see Ford doing the same thing here. In reaction, the Democratic establishment would argue that the Republicans can't be trusted on national security, and that a neocon like Scoop Jackson is necessary to defend US interests abroad and all that. They'd probably overlook Vietnam at this point, because to hell with that, they haven't held the White House for twelve years, in spite of Watergate, and they just need to beat the Republicans.
Paul Tsongas maybe?
A GOP that's mostly recognizable but big tent on abortion could come as a result of a second Ford term.
Well, the Oil Crisis probably screwed up Carter more and Carter was a conservative Democrat. 1980's election is pretty much a Democrat win after 12 years of Republican reign and the Watergate Administration looming. Even if Ford didn't screw up the Hostage Crisis, people would've been sick of the GOP and well, there is the economy to think about.
After all, both oil crisies occurred during GOP time and it caused large economic shifts so the Democrats would be wise to capitalize on that.
The Panama Matter
"...Ford revived the stalled negotiations with Panama over the Canal's status, though the process was driven primarily by Bush. Cheney and Rumsfeld expressed skepticism; conservatives in Congress, upon hearing that talks with the Torrijos government had restarted, were outraged and sought to kneecap the negotiations before they could proceed much further. Barely a few months into his full term, Ford was already facing a major revolt on his right, led primarily from within Washington by Senators Helms and Thurmond and from outside of it by Reagan, who that same year started a widely syndicated radio show to keep his name - and views - in the public sphere..."
- The Ford Presidency
"...Panama was really pushed by George, and its really all because when he flew with the President to the G-7 in '77, to England that is, he had brought with him a book on the Suez Crisis to read on the trip. He was really shocked by it, by how Nasser - who he thought Torrijos reminded him of, and Torrijos compared himself to Nasser more than once, of course - well, Nasser just took the Canal. And it was a disaster. And then the UK and France, they, they - they went it, and it was one of the biggest embarrassments of the early Cold War. Right after Vietnam, another jungle country, our own Suez... George was absolutely petrified of the idea, and he and Ford had similar worldviews and temperaments. George more than anything pushed to start talking to Torrijos again..."
- Brent Scowcroft, "Remembering the Panama Crisis"
"...it was a really terrible fucking idea. I didn't always see eye to eye with Henry [Kissinger], but if we'd kept him around instead of George and Brent... well, Henry showed how you deal with people like Torrijos. Ask Salvador Allende. Oh wait, you can't."
- H.R. Haldeman, Interview from Prison
- The Ford Presidency
"...Panama was really pushed by George, and its really all because when he flew with the President to the G-7 in '77, to England that is, he had brought with him a book on the Suez Crisis to read on the trip. He was really shocked by it, by how Nasser - who he thought Torrijos reminded him of, and Torrijos compared himself to Nasser more than once, of course - well, Nasser just took the Canal. And it was a disaster. And then the UK and France, they, they - they went it, and it was one of the biggest embarrassments of the early Cold War. Right after Vietnam, another jungle country, our own Suez... George was absolutely petrified of the idea, and he and Ford had similar worldviews and temperaments. George more than anything pushed to start talking to Torrijos again..."
- Brent Scowcroft, "Remembering the Panama Crisis"
"...it was a really terrible fucking idea. I didn't always see eye to eye with Henry [Kissinger], but if we'd kept him around instead of George and Brent... well, Henry showed how you deal with people like Torrijos. Ask Salvador Allende. Oh wait, you can't."
- H.R. Haldeman, Interview from Prison
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
TTL!Bush and co might be less antsy if they were to simply remember that the reason the Brtish/French/Israeli intervention in the Suez ended up being such a disaster was because of the economic pressure by... the United States.
As to comparisons with Vietnam -- well, from a purely operational perspective, geography alone can guarantee that Torrijos' forces in Panama simply don't have the supply lines to be capable of posing anything remotely resembling the persistent threat that the Vietcong posed; whether the blowback (political, geopolitical, and general) would be enough to kill the operation before it was finished or dissuade Ford from trying to forcefully keep the Canal, that's another matter entirely.
One thing does occur to me -- if Ford is re-elected in (early November) 1976, could that have some effect on Chevy Chase's decision to leave SNL? I realize he had other reasons for leaving around this time -- he asserted later it was mainly because he finance didn't want to move to New York -- but it strikes me as a least plausible that the prospect of spending more time as the nation's foremost impressionist-lampooner of the president on national television could be enough to convince him to stick around longer.
If he did, that would have implications in its own right -- for example, Bill Murray IOTL was brought on as a full SNL cast member specifically to replace Chevy.
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Jackson has several large advtanges out of the gate in '80. First of all, Humphrey is dead and buried by 1980. Shame, but him being alive was the biggest obstacle for Scoop not winning the nomination in '76. So organized labor will be all-in on Jackson, a powerful base. Then you have the fact that the Anti-Establishment in two flavors, namely the New Left (sort-of) in George McGovern and the conservative anti-establishment in Carter have both tried and managed to fail. Enter a committed New Dealer, who will likely not face a right flank in the primary, what with Wallace most likely sitting out 1980, and Jackson should be able to almost immediately build up enough momentum to crush whomever crops up (Maybe Brown tries again? Mondale? Who knows)
Correct me if I’m wrong - I thought Chase left SNL even before the ‘76 election? (That was the sense I got, ironically doing research for this, but the precise date wasn’t super clear)
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
His last show was very shortly prior to the election; I'm having trouble myself finding out exactly when he stopped showing up to work prior to that (or exactly why, for that matter); what I can somewhat gather that at some point after he "left" he continued on the show during the second season in some capacity (as host for "weekend update", or in "cameo appearances", I've read different things).
What I was getting at was that Ford winning re-election, without the popular vote, might very well be a big enough deal that it might be enough to convince Chase to stick with SNL after all, since it could give him the opportunity to bathe in the public spotlight possibly even more than say, Foul Play. Now I'm not saying he stays that much longer or anything, maybe not even another four seasons, but even sticking around Spring 1978 say might be enough to set all kinds of butterflies flapping -- I've already mentioned Bill Murray, but we could also see Chevy making his first foray into film stardom being a DC political comedy that plays off his Ford persona, and by 1979 he's not showing any interest in things like silly little screenplays about golf or what have you.
Like I said, it's a small maybe, and a small seeming change at that, but it's something to keep in mind.
First -- this ignores that the Ultimate Establishment Democrat also lost in 1968, and that an Anti-Establishment Democrat (even TTL) still performed better. (And before anyone cries "but what about lately?" -- it's literally one more additional election cycle back, and furthermore...) Are you really saying that not only do Democratic voters have short term memories but that literally the shallowest freaking argument possible -- "You guys have been losing every election so far, except for the one that we lost" -- is going to be enough to overcome actual preferences of the Democratic Primary Voters?
Has it occurred to anyone that, prior to 2000 but following the McGovern-Fraser Reforms, primary voters actually showed a strong preference for anti-establishment candidates outside of a vague sense that they'd be more likely to win elections? Because it strikes me that the New Left, the New Centrists, the Atari Democrats, and pretty much every brand of New Democrat you could think of, actually could all agree on one thing that set them apart from the Establishment -- and which proved fairly key to generating the kind of enthusiasm that gets supporters to show up en masse in a series of primary elections -- and that is that they were adamant about ending the era of the "big deals" being made "behind closed doors". The Democratic Party, they all said, needs to listen to its voters, and that specifically means listening to the Primary Voters and Caucus Goers -- which, naturally enough, said Primary Voters and Caucus Goers were very enthusiastic to hear.
Scoop Jackson, by 1980, has practically become the walking, talking poster boy for the literal anti-thesis of this way of thinking -- he's an avid war hawk at a time when the vast, vast majority of Americans (both Republican and Democrat) have as their one Foreign Policy mantra "No More Vietnams"; he not only enthusiastically supports the Great Society, he is convinced that it doesn't need any major tweaking or rebranding, or even any reconsideration of any possible mistakes (an arrogance that upsets pretty much everybody, from those who susceptible to talk about the "welfare trap" to activists upset at Johnson's pivot toward law and order issues, and so many more besides); and he ran ad hoc as the Establishment Candidate (after Muskie's withdrawal) in the first primary election when primary voters were the ones who got to decide on the nominee, and then tried to the final moment to take their choice away from them.
Now that last point means, at minimum, the New Left is going to hate, hate, hate the man's candidacy -- and before any of you lot scoff that off with "Yeah, but McGovern...", I'm going to stop you right there, because -- this negative feeling is going to find plenty of sympathy for a wide variety of Non-New Left factions in the Party, who (for their own varied ideological reasons) want the Democratic Party candidates and platform to be decided by "the people" (read: the primary participants) and not the networks of older, machine elected men.
So yeah, I think Scoop's going to be a lot less warmly received than a lot of people here assume, and the primary voters less than inclined to throw their support to him aren't going to be especially won over by cries of "BUT MCGOVERN AND CARTER LOST! THAT MEANS IT'S OUR TURN NOW!" But then hey, that's just my analysis.
The SNL oral history book is pretty good. Lorne didn’t want him for season 2 for fear of SNL becoming the Chevy Show and Chase wanted to be a movie star.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Now that's another thing I hadn't even considered -- does SNL even endure as a TV institution?
Even if Lorne wants to get rid of Chevy, Ford winning can only add to the sense (which I imagine at least some higher ups had at the time OTL) that Chase was the show's main draw and that getting rid of him would gut it; alternatively, if a number of TV executives (across multiple networks) get the impression that Chevy could sustain a TV sketch show more or less on his own name, he might get very tempting offers to headline his own show in Los Angels (which, even if he does want to be a movie star, he can easily enough be brought around to seeing as a major stepping stone).
In the first scenario, SNL becomes the Chevy Show as Lorne feared; in the second, his show gets upstaged by their former cast member. In both cases, SNL is now significantly less likely to remain hit for the rest of the decade, much less become the institution that survived, and occasionally thrived, up to present day.
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