maverick
Banned
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="] The High and the Mighty[/FONT]
[FONT="] President John Wayne[/FONT]
A Time of Choosing
Now, the President, then still serving as Governor of California, was not particularly expecting much from the National Convention, yet he had had the intention of attending and addressing the party from the very beginning, as such was his duty, or so did the Duke perceived it. Those that know the story are also aware that the path that led the then Governor of California to the White House had begun in a similar event, held four years prior at the similarly sunny state of California.
[Taken from…John Wayne, the Man Behind the Myth]
***********************************************************
San Francisco, California
July of 1964
The crowd was getting somewhat anxious as the minutes went on. For the entirety of the convention, the tensions that divided the often called Grand Old Party still ran high and threatened to further divide the party as dissent grew amongst the party’s ranks and animosities between the Conservatives and Moderates failed to disappear.
For the past months, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona have engaged in a fierce battle for the nomination that continued within the convention itself as supporters of the Liberal Governor and the Conservative Senator clashed continuously at the halls of the Cow Palace of San Francisco. The Liberals and Moderates saw Goldwater as a dangerous extremist, a view that contrasted with the view of the Conservatives that considered Rockefeller a member of the Eastern Liberal Establishment.
When Rockefeller attempted to deliver a speech yesterday, he was booed by the convention's conservative delegates, who regarded him as a member of that said "eastern liberal establishment and some feared that the same could happen with Goldwater or the Conservative spokesman.
And now one of them was missing!
Rumors began to circulate on the floor of the convention about what had happened to Reagan, rumors that were later dispelled when news reached the convention that the former actor turned republican spokesman had fractured a leg in a household accident and wouldn’t be able to make it even to the last day of the convention.
Little was the surprise when suddenly the speakers were switched on and the Delegates and party leaders asked to remain quiet as a speech was to be delivered.
Behind the podium he stood, tall and dignified, or at least that would be the general description given by most of the attendants and almost every republican that listened to the speech, even by those who didn’t listen to the speech.
The Man, then colloquially known as ‘The Duke’, began the speech:
"I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
****************************************************************
John Wayne was, amongst many things, a perfect symbol for the Republican Party and the ideal holder of the party’s banners. He was wildly popular, especially amongst Republicans, was a Hollywood Icon and the best known Republican Star if one was to remember the fact that Jimmy Stewart was not particularly keen on campaigning back in the 1960s.
The timing was otherwise perfect for the California Republican Party.
Nixon had lost by a considerable margin in 1962 and Brown was still a mostly popular incumbent when the first attempts to persuade Wayne to run began, the day after he gave his famous “A Time of Choosing” Speech. Yet despite his active role as a spokesman for the party and conservative causes, as well as his moderate role in the Goldwater Campaign in 1964, the man was otherwise uninterested in politics, as seen by his joking about the public not taking an actor in the White House seriously.
His good friend, Republican Senator George Murphy, and Conservative Spokesman Ronald Reagan played an important part in the ‘Draft John Wayne’ Campaign that finally resulted in the Duke consenting to run for the Governorship of California in 1966.
Incumbent Edmund G. (Pat) Brown had been a relatively popular Democrat in what was, at the time, a Republican leaning state... Brown's popularity began to sag amidst the civil disorders of the Watts Riots and the early anti-Vietnam war demonstrations at U.C. Berkeley. His decision to seek a 3rd term as governor (after promising earlier that he would not do so) also hurt his popularity. His sagging popularity was evidenced by a tough battle in the Democratic primary - normally not a concern for an incumbent. Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty received 38% of the primary vote while Brown barely received 52%, a very low number for an incumbent in a primary election.
The Republicans seized upon Brown's sudden unpopularity by nominating a well known and charismatic political outsider in the figure of Wayne. With Richard Nixon working tirelessly behind the scenes and The Duke trumpeting his law and order campaign message, Wayne received almost 2/3 of the primary vote over George Christopher, the moderate Republican former mayor of San Francisco, and went into the general election with a great deal of momentum.
At first Brown ran a low key campaign, stating that running the state was his biggest priority. As Wayne's lead in the polls increased, Brown began to panic and made a gaffe when he told a group of school children that an actor, John Wilkes Booth, had killed Abraham Lincoln. The comparison of Wayne to Booth did not go over well and led to a further decline of the Brown campaign.
Facing an enormously popular man in a usually republican leaning state was bad enough for Brown, but having to face John Wayne himself was probably more than Pat Brown imagined he’d have to endure in his political career. Some years later he’d comment about the move to nominate the actor as a cheap shot that left him with little chances to win.
Come Election Day, Wayne was ahead in the polls and favored to win a relatively close election. However, Wayne won in a landslide; his nearly 1 million vote plurality surprised even his most diehard supporters.
[Taken from...An Encyclopedia of American Politics]
To be Continued...
Notes:
This is something of a side-project for me to distract from the big stuff, like my Argentinean Civil War TL
The POD here is that John Wayne doesn't have Lung Cancer, so I'll have to assume that it was the godawful movie The Conqueror which gave the Duke Cancer, so go with me on this one
Second POD is of course that Reagan breaks his leg and Wayne has to fill in for him, attracting the attention of the California Republican Party.
Now, I'm a John Wayne fan, but let's be assure, this is going to be as realistic as possibly...those who know the Duke probably know what kind of policies and views he held IRL and know that if he was president, it wouldn't be pretty
[/FONT]
[FONT="] The High and the Mighty[/FONT]
[FONT="] President John Wayne[/FONT]
A Time of Choosing
Now, the President, then still serving as Governor of California, was not particularly expecting much from the National Convention, yet he had had the intention of attending and addressing the party from the very beginning, as such was his duty, or so did the Duke perceived it. Those that know the story are also aware that the path that led the then Governor of California to the White House had begun in a similar event, held four years prior at the similarly sunny state of California.
[Taken from…John Wayne, the Man Behind the Myth]
***********************************************************
San Francisco, California
July of 1964
The crowd was getting somewhat anxious as the minutes went on. For the entirety of the convention, the tensions that divided the often called Grand Old Party still ran high and threatened to further divide the party as dissent grew amongst the party’s ranks and animosities between the Conservatives and Moderates failed to disappear.
For the past months, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona have engaged in a fierce battle for the nomination that continued within the convention itself as supporters of the Liberal Governor and the Conservative Senator clashed continuously at the halls of the Cow Palace of San Francisco. The Liberals and Moderates saw Goldwater as a dangerous extremist, a view that contrasted with the view of the Conservatives that considered Rockefeller a member of the Eastern Liberal Establishment.
When Rockefeller attempted to deliver a speech yesterday, he was booed by the convention's conservative delegates, who regarded him as a member of that said "eastern liberal establishment and some feared that the same could happen with Goldwater or the Conservative spokesman.
And now one of them was missing!
Rumors began to circulate on the floor of the convention about what had happened to Reagan, rumors that were later dispelled when news reached the convention that the former actor turned republican spokesman had fractured a leg in a household accident and wouldn’t be able to make it even to the last day of the convention.
Little was the surprise when suddenly the speakers were switched on and the Delegates and party leaders asked to remain quiet as a speech was to be delivered.
Behind the podium he stood, tall and dignified, or at least that would be the general description given by most of the attendants and almost every republican that listened to the speech, even by those who didn’t listen to the speech.
The Man, then colloquially known as ‘The Duke’, began the speech:
"I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
****************************************************************
John Wayne was, amongst many things, a perfect symbol for the Republican Party and the ideal holder of the party’s banners. He was wildly popular, especially amongst Republicans, was a Hollywood Icon and the best known Republican Star if one was to remember the fact that Jimmy Stewart was not particularly keen on campaigning back in the 1960s.
The timing was otherwise perfect for the California Republican Party.
Nixon had lost by a considerable margin in 1962 and Brown was still a mostly popular incumbent when the first attempts to persuade Wayne to run began, the day after he gave his famous “A Time of Choosing” Speech. Yet despite his active role as a spokesman for the party and conservative causes, as well as his moderate role in the Goldwater Campaign in 1964, the man was otherwise uninterested in politics, as seen by his joking about the public not taking an actor in the White House seriously.
His good friend, Republican Senator George Murphy, and Conservative Spokesman Ronald Reagan played an important part in the ‘Draft John Wayne’ Campaign that finally resulted in the Duke consenting to run for the Governorship of California in 1966.
Incumbent Edmund G. (Pat) Brown had been a relatively popular Democrat in what was, at the time, a Republican leaning state... Brown's popularity began to sag amidst the civil disorders of the Watts Riots and the early anti-Vietnam war demonstrations at U.C. Berkeley. His decision to seek a 3rd term as governor (after promising earlier that he would not do so) also hurt his popularity. His sagging popularity was evidenced by a tough battle in the Democratic primary - normally not a concern for an incumbent. Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty received 38% of the primary vote while Brown barely received 52%, a very low number for an incumbent in a primary election.
The Republicans seized upon Brown's sudden unpopularity by nominating a well known and charismatic political outsider in the figure of Wayne. With Richard Nixon working tirelessly behind the scenes and The Duke trumpeting his law and order campaign message, Wayne received almost 2/3 of the primary vote over George Christopher, the moderate Republican former mayor of San Francisco, and went into the general election with a great deal of momentum.
At first Brown ran a low key campaign, stating that running the state was his biggest priority. As Wayne's lead in the polls increased, Brown began to panic and made a gaffe when he told a group of school children that an actor, John Wilkes Booth, had killed Abraham Lincoln. The comparison of Wayne to Booth did not go over well and led to a further decline of the Brown campaign.
Facing an enormously popular man in a usually republican leaning state was bad enough for Brown, but having to face John Wayne himself was probably more than Pat Brown imagined he’d have to endure in his political career. Some years later he’d comment about the move to nominate the actor as a cheap shot that left him with little chances to win.
Come Election Day, Wayne was ahead in the polls and favored to win a relatively close election. However, Wayne won in a landslide; his nearly 1 million vote plurality surprised even his most diehard supporters.
[Taken from...An Encyclopedia of American Politics]
To be Continued...
Notes:
This is something of a side-project for me to distract from the big stuff, like my Argentinean Civil War TL
The POD here is that John Wayne doesn't have Lung Cancer, so I'll have to assume that it was the godawful movie The Conqueror which gave the Duke Cancer, so go with me on this one
Second POD is of course that Reagan breaks his leg and Wayne has to fill in for him, attracting the attention of the California Republican Party.
Now, I'm a John Wayne fan, but let's be assure, this is going to be as realistic as possibly...those who know the Duke probably know what kind of policies and views he held IRL and know that if he was president, it wouldn't be pretty
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