I hope it's OK for me to finally continue my
The Elephant And The Bull Moose idea even though it's from the old thread, since I finally had more ideas for it.
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1968
Having been re-elected with the biggest popular vote share and second-biggest electoral vote of any contested presidential election, President Nixon, perhaps understandably, felt he had an enormous mandate going into his second term. However, what he used that mandate for during the next four years would turn him into one of the most notorious presidents of the 20th century.
Nixon was, of course, an avowed anti-Communist, and was mortified by the prospect of losing South Vietnam to communism, both for diplomatic and ideological reasons, rating it as an even higher priority than civil rights. As a result, in January 1965 he used the comfortable Republican majority he had won with his coattails to provide US military support for South Vietnam. Unfortunately, this decision had significant repercussions for his leadership, as many civil rights groups and leaders who had supported Nixon over Wallace were disgusted at him putting war first and equality second. While he did finally pass a Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act with support from Congress (including most non-Southern Democrats) in May and October 1965 respectively, the praise he received for it was muted.
This only got worse during 1966, especially when he finally enforced conscription due to limited progress in Vietnam. Capitalizing on this, liberal Democrats in northern and western states tied themselves to the anti-war and counterculture movement, railing against what they called 'Nixon's war' and effectively muffling the segregationist wing of the party. While this led to discontent from Southern Democrats, some of whom even switched to voting for the Republicans, the Democrats retook both Houses in the 1966 midterms with ease.
As atrocities from the Vietnam war continued to be reported and Nixon continued to show limited remorse, the Republicans looked increasingly unlikely to win again in 1968, and with the Democratic Congress's more liberal northern members voicing support for welfare programs to capitalize on the strong economy while Nixon continued ranting about Vietnam, some people questioned whether the Democrats were about to abandon their Southern base.
Those 'some people' included Democratic Senator George Smathers of Florida, who had regularly voiced his dissent from the views of many liberal Democrats in Congress, and was the favourite of Southern delegates during the 1968 Democratic primaries. He battled aggressively with the favorite of the liberals, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, but the winner was ultimately someone significantly less favourable to the left of the party than one might have expected: Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson of Washington, who shared their support for government programs to help the poor, but was also hawkish and would not commit to withdrawal from Vietnam. The party elite saw him as a good compromise, and managed to convince enough defections from both the liberal and Southern delegations to get him the nomination. His running mate was more left-wing on civil rights, namely Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, to compensate for Jackson's ambivalence on the issue.
The clash for the Republican nomination, despite its few participants, also involved a fierce conflict between factions. The only serious contenders were Vice President Scott and right-wing firebrand Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona; while Goldwater did better than expected, he was never in with a real chance of winning the nomination, especially when Nixon refused to endorse him over his VP despite Goldwater's more strident support for Vietnam. As Scott knew he was not popular with liberals due to his percieved complicity in the Vietnam war, he decided to showcase the biggest domestic achievement of Nixon's second term by making Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts his running mate.
Smathers was dismayed by the liberalism on civil rights both parties were showing, and decided to form his own, more conservative ticket. With his campaign in part bankrolled by Harland 'Colonel' Sanders, the KFC founder who was sympathetic to Smathers' conservative-but-not-segregationist approach to civil rights, Smathers and his running mate Governor Daniel Mahoney of Maryland (one of the few newcomers from the 1966 Democratic wave to not be pro-civil rights) used their sizeable war chest to campaign against liberal counterculture and calling for 'law and order'. This charge was strengthened when the infamous Republican National Convention in Miami was met with aggressive protests, with Smathers giving speeches criticizing what the 'permissiveness' he perceived as emerging was doing to his state.
Despite these setbacks, Smathers generally remained behind Jackson and Scott outside of the South, and in the rest of the country those two were neck-and-neck. Jackson was unable to muster huge amounts of eagerness from liberal Democrats and conservatives were inclined to break for Smathers, and when Scott announced he would instigate a bombing halt in cooperation with Nixon in September, it suddenly looked like he might eek out a victory after all.
But then the debates happened. While Scott aggressively criticized Smathers as 'a racist who minces his words', Jackson came off as much more affable, politely explaining his objections to things like busing and withdrawal from Vietnam, outlining his alternative plans, and building up the concept of what he called the 'Great Society', a series of programs intended to reduce poverty in America which he promised would be implemented 'regardless of race'.
Jackson's composure, as well as some allegations about Nixon's domineering behaviour and claims he had been wiretapping the Wallace campaign in 1964 (unfounded as these seemed to be), helped put him back in contention, and by election day no one knew what would happen. Some thought Jackson's 'Great Society' plan would be enough to reinvigorate liberal support, others expected Scott would come through the middle in the South and win by pluralities in enough places to win, others still that Smathers would hang the electoral college.
Jackson/Symington (Democratic): 327 EVs, 42.1%
Scott/Brooke (Republican): 147 EVs, 39.3%
Smathers/Mahoney (Independent): 64 EVs, 16.8%
Jackson's promises of the 'Great Society' had won him support from urban voters and avoiding the race issue had paid huge dividends in the South, where only six states ultimately did break for Smathers and only Virginia went to Scott. While the selection of Brooke did benefit Scott in the northeast, as he took every state in the region except New Jersey and New York, it caused large numbers of white suburban voters in states like California, Illinois and Michigan to vote for the 'race-blind' Jackson instead, costing the Republicans significantly in those states.
With Jackson's victory came a further increased Democratic gain in 1968, and with it a sizeable mandate for his Great Society. What came next was to be almost as contentious a period as the 1930s and 40s had been.
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1972
Jackson's 'Great Society' programs were ambitious, to say the least. He pumped funds into major cities like New York City, Chicago, Cleveland and Los Angeles to try and prevent ghettoisation and 'white flight', used the Democratic majorities in Congress to create the Medicaid program for disadvantaged groups to have free at the point of delivery healthcare (finally realizing an ambition that had existed since the days of Teddy Roosevelt), increased the hourly minimum wage by $1.25 an hour, and introduced new federal grants for non-segregated schools while discontinuing busing schemes nationwide. Partially to pay for this, he gradually reduced troop deployments in South Vietnam and funding to the war, as even by the time he took office in January 1969 it was clear the North Vietnamese had the edge.
As a result of these programs, which were applauded by liberals despite the fierce objections of conservatives, the Democrats did not suffer particularly sizeable losses in the 1970 midterms, losing 3 seats in the Senate and a dozen in the House but no more. As a result of Jackson's popularity, there was little enthusiasm in the Republican ranks to challenge him in 1972. Except, that is, from one quarter of it.
The main figure running for the Republican nomination in 1972 was Arizona Congressman and Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee John Rhodes, an outspoken conservative who criticized Jackson for 'government wastage' and aggressively attacked him as a 'socialist'. He saw off a few more moderate challengers like George W. Romney and Gerald Ford, but his campaign was stifled almost instantly when Jackson announced a spending increase to American forces in South Vietnam and famously quipped at a press conference, 'For a socialist, I'm awfully keen on warring with communism'.
Rhodes' choice of Hawaii Senator Hiram Fong as his running mate also did little to ingratiate moderates to his ticket, as despite Fong's potential status as the first Asian-American Vice President, he
was also an avowed conservative who had voted against the Civil Rights Act 7 years prior. Due to Jackson's sizeable poll leads, no debates were organized for Rhodes to really raise his profile, and his campaign remained fairly insular.
Jackson/Symington (Democratic): 516 EVs, 60.7%
Rhodes/Fong (Republican): 21 EVs, 36.6%
Jackson won the election in a blowout, with all but five states backing his re-election, winning the popular vote by almost as big a margin as Nixon had eight years prior and winning seven more electoral votes (it would have been eight were it not for a faithless elector in Virginia). He also surprised many pundits both by becoming the first Democrat ever to win the District of Colombia, which turned against the Republicans due to their ardently conservative candidate, and the first Democrat in 120 years to win Maine, traditionally one of the most ardently Republican states in the nation, something no Democrat since has achieved.
Jackson's enormous victory, however, meant he would be President during perhaps one of the most tumultuous times one could be elected to the office.