Nixon refuses to resign

[tom]

How does the course of Watergate change? How does the following generation change?

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by tom

How does the course of Watergate change? How does the following generation change?

Its probably ends up another case of political corruption, nothing out of the ordinary. Public trust in the government might not be as damaged, though Nixon personally will lose support. If he does retain enough support, you could see Ford or Reagan as the next president. If not, its Carter, then Reagan.

[Derek Jackson]

Nixon would certainly be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate if he did not resign. The trial would be the background for the 1974 mid term elections. The Republican defeat might have been even heavier than in OTL.

Ford would become President.

I doubt Ford would have pardoned Nixon. (NB at any moment up to the point he was convicted Nixon legally could have pardoned himself)

I think it possible that Ford would have been less conservative simply because of his weak position.

[Straha]

ford gets 2 terms then we have a Carter 80's....

[NapoleonXIV]

He would be impeached by the House but only censured or reprimanded by the Senate. He would serve out his term as a very crippled Pres with a return to main OTL events by 1976.

[Derek Jackson]

By the time he resigned tapes proving Nixon's obstrution of Justice came out. I would be surprised if he got 10 votes for an aquital. I remember a comment by Alastair Cooke in an alleged conversation between Sentator Goldwater Nixon about whether he would be convicted. Goldwater was said to be leaning towards conviction

[Mike Collins]

By the time Goldwater came to Nixon, it was too late. However, there were not necessarily enough Senators ready to remove him after the articles of impeachment left committee. Nixon did a lot of stupid things in dealing with the impeachment. Things like firing the investigating attorneys, fighting release of the tapes, doing nothing after the tapes were released to inoculate himself, not "taking care" of Hunt, the Plumbers, etc.

Nixon could have survived and finished his term had he conducted a Clinton-style offensive rather than circling the wagons. He should have attacked the Watergate Committee members (something to the effect of theyre trying to overturn a legitimate election because theyre mad their hippie bed wetting commmie fellow traveller McGovern lost), destroyed the tapes, fired but paid off those that could have hurt him, etc. He might have survived, but the story could have gotten out eventually and bit him in the rear. Instead of becoming an elder statesman respected by future leaders, he could have just become a joke.

I can feel the pending assaults coming. Please understand, Im writing this as a realpolitik option.

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by Mike Collins

By the time Goldwater came to Nixon, it was too late. However, there were not necessarily enough Senators ready to remove him after the articles of impeachment left committee. Nixon did a lot of stupid things in dealing with the impeachment. Things like firing the investigating attorneys, fighting release of the tapes, doing nothing after the tapes were released to inoculate himself, not "taking care" of Hunt, the Plumbers, etc.

Nixon could have survived and finished his term had he conducted a Clinton-style offensive rather than circling the wagons. He should have attacked the Watergate Committee members (something to the effect of theyre trying to overturn a legitimate election because theyre mad their hippie bed wetting commmie fellow traveller McGovern lost), destroyed the tapes, fired but paid off those that could have hurt him, etc. He might have survived, but the story could have gotten out eventually and bit him in the rear. Instead of becoming an elder statesman respected by future leaders, he could have just become a joke.

I can feel the pending assaults coming. Please understand, Im writing this as a realpolitik option.

Actually, sounds pretty good to me.

[Straha]

the republicans splinter to the point where McGovern wins in 1976 and 1980 then for 1984 and 1988 we have the Carter administration

[Scott Rosenthal]

After 72, McGovern was a political zombie, not even Nixon's humiliation was going to change that. Whatever Nixon's crimes (and there were many of them), McGovern sunk his own campaign, and there wasn't any real dispute over this at the time.

As for Carter, why does everyone always seem to think that he was an inevitability? It was a sign of the weakness of the Democratic party in 1976 (a weakness concealed by the even greater screwups among the Republicans) that even allowed this incompetent to rise in the first place, and the complete lack of any real impact on the Democratic party following his presidency shows this better than anything else.

All of this said, I suspect that a decision by Nixon to fight impeachment/trial would have only made the end result more of a sure thing. Nixon waited until his position within the GOP was hopeless before resigning, and by this time impeachment was inevitable. I cannot imagine any significant number of GOP Senators sacrificing their careers to try to defend a politician as manifestly unpopular as Nixon was by this time. My best guess is that even a very bloody battle for impeachment/conviction would simply have resulted in the same result a bit later (perhaps early 1975 as opposed to 8/74, an anniversary that I will happily celebrate this year), with a relatively rapid return to the events of OTL by 1976. One change would have likely been the absence of Nixon's (partially successful) attempt to rehabilitate his reputation in the years before his death....

Good riddance

[Grey Wolf]

Odd, I answered this post in another thread...was there a double post ?

Grey Wolf