Suppose that HHH wins in 1968 for some reason or another. What does Nixon do afterwards?
Get a dartboard with HHH's face.Suppose that HHH wins in 1968 for some reason or another. What does Nixon do afterwards?
I think he'd be out of politics.
He could be a successful international lawyer and political commentator, and with his reputation intact, would be a potentially attractive Secretary of State in a future Republican administration.
President Reagan 1977-1985 with Nixon as Secretary of State
It depends on how he loses. If it's because the recordings of him sabotaging the Paris peace talks got leaked to the press than I figure he'd get to spend a whole lot of time in what's called administrative segregation.
As an alternative, Chicago could go smoother.
President Reagan 1977-1985 with Nixon as Secretary of State
Reagan loses badly in 1972, so he is not the candidate in 1976. It would be very hard to get reelected in 1980.
That, or have LBJ and other leading Democrats not actively sabotaging (or at the very least neglecting) their own party's candidate. If HHH actually had the money to properly campaign and had local support, then he could have done better.
Regardless, "how does this happen" wasn't what I was interested in.
Well, that's sort of a given. Certainly he's not going to get tapped for the Presidency again, no matter how hard he campaigns, but I wondered whether he would try for another position (he could probably wrangle a Representative's seat, at least), stick around as Gaius' "elder statesman," or leave politics altogether for some other subject like law (despite his comment on what would happen if he practiced law alone).
I'd strongly debate that. Part of the reason HHH was able to tear away from Wallace was that the labor machines and bosses realized how much appeal Wallace had and went into DEFCON mode for him.
I'm going off of what I read in Nixonland the other day about his campaign; I wouldn't dispute that at the low level there was hard work, but at the upper level support for HHH seemed to be lacking. Funds for advertising and similar activities in particular were called out.
Again, though, I don't really care how Nixon loses, just that he loses. Assume it's not something that will send him to jail or anything, just the numbers coming in differently Election Night.
I'd say that the rank and file Democrats were the problem, not the Daleys and Meanys.
As I mentioned, Chicago not forcing him into an utter law and order stance is great. As is LBJ being less stubborn and letting him be more flexible would help.
The trouble, as I recall, was mentioned as being LBJ in particular, and some of the other bosses (I think John Connally was mentioned specifically, too) as sometimes acting more as if they were for Nixon than for HHH, or at least not allowing him to run an effective campaign (sort of the inverse of Gore's problem, where Humphrey was being lashed to a sinking ship). I also specifically recall money problems being mentioned, compared to the Nixon campaign, so that Humphrey had to run fewer ads and ended up having trouble with some of their campaign activities (I can't recall whether they were ads or visits) having to be cancelled.
Chicago ought to have been avoidable, but honestly given the personalities of the people involved on both sides--both the rank-and-file and the bosses, such as they were on the protestor side--I think it's extremely difficult to prevent it from happening.
OK.I mention, for the third time, though, that I don't actually particular care why Humphrey wins. You could postulate Timothy Leary getting assistance from the Ascended Masters in dosing everyone in Ohio, Illinois, and California with acid or something, for all I care