No JFK in 1960

[TMOT1955]

Suppose John F. Kennedy had lost the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. Who would the Democrats nominated instead and how well would he have done against Nixon? If he had won what kind of president would he have been and how would it have changed history?

[JoeMulk]

Probably Humphrey, A Humphrey/Johnson ticket is my guess.

[The Oncoming Storm]

To me the first big question is wether or not the Apollo programme would have proceeded as in OTL?

[DuQuense]

?Wasn't LBJ the main contender to JFK in the Primaries?

[037771]

Originally Posted by DuQuense

?Wasn't LBJ the main contender to JFK in the Primaries?

No.

And it depends what primaries you're looking at. In Wisconsin and W. Virginia, it was Hubert Humphrey; in Indiana, it was a favourite son...and a pipe fitter. LBJ counted on the convention in California to tie up votes, because that's where Democratic nominations were really made. In '52 and '56, Adlai Stevenson had been drafted by his supporters after a judicious speech or two, even after Estes Kefauver won more impressive primary victories. JFK ironically made history in the party by overtly relying on the primaries to garner himself support, but without his negotiations with favourite sons like Pat Brown and DiSalle in Ohio, that would have been worth less than you think. There was even a 'draft Adlai' movement in the convention hall in '60 which, if the former nominee hadn't dithered so much, held a fatal chance of unseating JFK from what was becoming a sure-fire nomination.

[Wendell]

The South is going like Humphrey less than they did Kennedy. Humphrey is also less telegenic than Kennedy. Nixon wins.

[RogueBeaver]

Nixon can paint Humphrey as an unrepentant New Dealer. As Jack Kennedy himself put it: "many in the business community object to his extremism." IOTL both Nixon and Kennedy (in both elections) were centrists, Humphrey's easier to slam on ideological grounds. Nixon in '60 is far more likely to do this. Also, in the debates, even if Nixon has a bad makeup day, it won't matter because Humphrey is even less telegenic than Nixon.

[037771]

Originally Posted by Wendell

The South is going like Humphrey less than they did Kennedy.

Obviously, considering his advocation of a strong civil rights plank at the '48 convention.

Originally Posted by Wendell

Humphrey is also less telegenic than Kennedy. Nixon wins.

So was Nixon, but he still very nearly won the popular vote, 219 electoral votes and 26 states, four more than Kennedy. His campaign was terrible, be banged his knee and thus appeared gaunt and awful during the first televised debate, but on the radio he was judged to have won, and in the next two debates performed very well indeed under the circumstances; after all that, he still made the election very close indeed.

Put Humphrey up against Nixon in '60, and you probably have a GOP victory, but not one that can be attributed to television debates. Being telegenic isn't everything, and certainly was not in the 1960 Presidential Election, nor did it help 'tip the balance' as it were. The reason Nixon lost was not because of a five o'clock shadow, but because his campaign itself was poorly organised and micromanaged far too much by its own candidate. Humphrey would lose in an ATL '60 fight probably because, as you said, his lack of broad appeal; even having television debates during Presidential campaign is not a foregone conclusion. Usually they're called for by a losing campaign, or accepted by both warring campaigns as a means to gain an edge over the other. In the case of the former, they're usually dismissed as an unnecessary enterprise.

And even so, why would Humphrey necesserily be nominated by the Democrats in 1960, if JFK doesn't run, considering that the power players at the convention would probably consider all the aforesaid before a nomination? Within the party, Adlai Stevenson still had a strong factional appeal, and, while he hadn't won the past two occasions, he wasn't an incompetent campaigner. Given the fact that a 'draft Stevenson' move in the convention hall made even the Kennedy campaign shiver, one against an ATL Hubert Humphrey (who would likely win the Wisconsin, W. Virginia, D.C and South Dakota primaries), without that Kennedy money, organisation and glamour, would topple him over, as had Kefauver in 1952 and 1956. Certainly in my mind, Humphrey comes across either as a Kefauver-like also-ran, or a Vice-Presidential nominee.