At the 1920 GOP convention, Calvin Coolidge was nominated as a favorite son / regional candidate but didn't get really serious consideration IOTL. Indeed, it was something of an act of defiance against the bosses by one Wallace McCamant of Oregon that got Coolidge the VP slot. But suppose that rumbles of Harding's extracurricular activities reached the smoke-filled room, and gave the bosses second thoughts, leading them to turn to Coolidge instead as a model of rectitude and paragon of law and order, given the Boston police strike?
Would Harding have then gotten the VP nod, on the grounds that the bosses would want someone intimately familiar with the workings of the Senate in the chair, or might it have gone to Lenroot instead? And what of Coolidge's son, who passed away from blood poisoning after getting a blister while playing tennis on the White House courts? Then there's Coolidge's cabinet, part of which might look like this:
State: Charles Evans Hughes
Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone
Treasury: Charles Dawes
Interior: Herbert Hoover
Commerce: William Sproul
Labor: James Davis
War: Dwight Davis
Agriculture: Henry C. Wallace
Postmaster General: Harry S. New
Navy: Curtis Wilbur
Would Harding have then gotten the VP nod, on the grounds that the bosses would want someone intimately familiar with the workings of the Senate in the chair, or might it have gone to Lenroot instead? And what of Coolidge's son, who passed away from blood poisoning after getting a blister while playing tennis on the White House courts? Then there's Coolidge's cabinet, part of which might look like this:
State: Charles Evans Hughes
Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone
Treasury: Charles Dawes
Interior: Herbert Hoover
Commerce: William Sproul
Labor: James Davis
War: Dwight Davis
Agriculture: Henry C. Wallace
Postmaster General: Harry S. New
Navy: Curtis Wilbur