Another change of death date Pod

[Paul V McNutt]

I am extending the life of James Earl Carter Sr., the father of Jimmy Carter. OTL he died on July 22, 1953 at the age of 58 and the future President decided to leave the Navy and come home to run the family farm and peanut warehouse. ITTL I have the senior Carter live four score and ten years and die on July 22, 1965. Captain Carter has complete confidence in his 28 year old brother Bully to run things, as he did during their father's illness. James Earl Carter Jr. stays in the Navy. He is promoted to admiral and retires as Chief of Naval Operations. Jimmy Carter does not run for president. Who wins the 1976 Democratic nomination? Who wins the 1976 general election?

 

[JVM]

I'm shamelessly crawling Gov. McNutt's recent posts, and I'm gonna bite a creative PoD.

Georgia has a different Governor who could go places, worth noting.

Ultimately, the '76 primaries were not about personalities - there were simply too many liberals gunning and relatively few moderates, and Carter picked up the moderate and conservative wings as the most appealing of their few candidates, while many liberals fought for their percentage of the larger wing, allowing Carter to gain steam more quickly. He also had a campaign smart enough to know how to gain momentum by winning early primaries, something few candidates understood yet. Someone else may inherit Carter's lead by being in the right place at the right time - the problem is, I don't really know who might be that person. I would say Jackson, but he made an intentional decision not to focus on Iowa or New Hampshire, so I doubt he inherits that lead, as someone else could fill that gap first.