Harold Stassen's america

[Straha]

Stephen (Sandcastles)
Registered Member
Username: Sandcastles

Post Number: 4
Registered: 09-2002
Posted on Thursday, September 05, 2002 - 05:38 pm:

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Harold Stassen, 1907-2001, a Republican, ran for president many times and was never even nominated. What if he had been elected? The timeline would be different depending on when he was elected.

Here's one site about Stassen:
http://www.wilder.org/goodage/Rememb.../klink401.html

It says he ran first in 1948 but had a really bad debate with Thomas Dewey. What if he had won that year?

Here is another site about him; it says he was against the Vietnam War and thought the Republicans shouldn't fight Civil Rights measures.

http://www.msys.net/cress/ballots2/stassen.htm

I read a timeline, somewhere which mentioned Eisenhower having a mistress, so he wasn't nominated in 1952; Stassen serves two full terms in the 50s? Well, he was an internationalist who disagreed with John Foster Dulles on many points. Perhaps he would have encouraged cooperation in the Mideast and kept us out of Vietnam somehow. He might have made the Cold War less dangerous. When the Russians launch Sputnik he encourages a NATO space agency with engineers from many Western countries working on a space program.

Or, Stassen waits 8 years and defeats Kennedy instead. Oh, that's almost too easy--some Republican reporter gets Kennedy's girlfriends to blab to Playboy magazine.

Or, Kennedy wins, gets killed, Johnson serves a few years and then...what might Goldwater have done to be defeated by Stassen in the primaries?
Stassen encourages the Civil Rights movement and the big riots are done by white racists objecting to Stassen, and harms their cause.

Or Stassen wins in '68, and '72. When the Apollo moon shots fail to get funding, Stassen encourages private enterprise to get going. Can he convince China to let Taiwan go?

Can Stassen beat Carter after Watergate?

Or, in 1980, Reagan has a stroke and Stassen beats Mondale.

That's about the last time Stassen can win, though.

These are of course separate timelines. Which is most likely? Which is most desirable?