A Different Nixon What-If?

Most Nixon AH seem to involve him becoming "President for Life" or something. How about one where he not only gets impeached, but jailed for treason for something much worse than Watergate:

http://hnn.us/articles/nixons-biggest-crime-was-far-far-worse-watergate

The relevant bit:


If America had learned in 1973 that the President had ordered the Brookings break-in himself. If the Senate had investigated that as thoroughly as it did the Watergate break-in. If investigators had looked into Nixon’s stated reason for ordering the break-in -- to “blackmail” Johnson -- and found it wanting. If they had investigated the Chennault affair. If Chennault had testified under oath to what she later wrote in her memoirs about candidate Nixon secretly making her his “sole representative” to the Saigon government before the 1968 election. If Americans had seen the FBI wiretap report of her conveying her “message from her boss” to Saigon to “hold on” three days before the election. If Ambassador Diem and Mitchell had been questioned under oath about possible Logan Act violations. The articles of impeachment drawn up against Nixon might well have included treason.

And if investigators had gone after Johnson’s tapes as well as Nixon’s, we might have learned then the most tragic reason Johnson had for not revealing the Chennault affair. It can be found in a November 9, 1968, conversation between Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

“If this thing ever got out, this war is over, as far as the American people are concerned,” Rusk said.

“Yes, yes, I think so,” the President replied.

Think they were exaggerating? There was a lot to anger Americans, including (1) interference with a U.S. presidential election (2) by a foreign government (3) that more than 30,000 Americans had died defending (4) and in whose defense hundreds of thousands of other American soldiers were then risking their lives. This interference (5) involved sabotaging peace talks aimed at producing a settlement that would allow those American soldiers to come home. Add to that the evidence that (6) this sabotage had the secret encouragement of the presidential candidate (7) who profited from it politically in an election he won by less than 1 percent of the vote. This was a scandal that could have changed history, had it the government not kept it secret.

If Johnson and Rusk were right -- if exposing the Chennault affair would have ended American involvement in Vietnam -- then one result of LBJ’s silence was that it gave Nixon the chance to add four years to the Vietnam War at the cost of more than 20,000 American lives.


So, here we have a scandal/evidence of treason that could either come out in 1973, ala Watergate...but much worse...or right before the election in 1968. It's probably too late in the game to change the results, and Nixon still wins, but it's a "win" that puts him into the presidency literally on trial, right during the height of 1960's antiwar protests.

This could be...interesting...
 
1968 was very close, it's not out of the question that this would win it for Humphrey.

Maybe. But this would be coming out less that two weeks (possibly less than a week) prior to the election, by which time most have made up their minds. It would take a (relatively) big swing for Nixon to lose the electoral vote - though he could lose the popular one.

I'm wondering how many, if turned off by Nixon this last week, would instead vote Wallace - or just not vote at all. That last week's campaign between Nixon and Humphrey would get...very, very dirty and might just turn off a lot of people to the election all together.
 
Maybe. But this would be coming out less that two weeks (possibly less than a week) prior to the election, by which time most have made up their minds. It would take a (relatively) big swing for Nixon to lose the electoral vote - though he could lose the popular one.

I guess it depends on what you call "a (relatively) big swing" -- give Humphrey an extra 2.3% baseline (that's 1.15% defecting from Nixon) and you flip MO (12 EV), NJ (17 EV) and OH (26 EV) to the Democrats. That gives you 246 EVs for Humphrey/Muskie, 246 for Nixon/Agnew, and 46 for Wallace/LeMay, which throws the election to the House of Representatives. There, Democrats control 29 state house delegations outright, so even if Dixiecrats manage to deadlock delegations in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, you'd still get 26 votes for Humphrey on the first ballot.

(In case you're wondering, Democrats control the Senate 62-38, so Ed Muskie will be elected Vice President regardless of what happens in the House.)

Give Humphrey another six-tenths of a percent, and he wins Illinois (26 EV) and the election outright, without having to go through the House.
 
Three Outcomes

I guess it depends on what you call "a (relatively) big swing" -- give Humphrey an extra 2.3% baseline (that's 1.15% defecting from Nixon) and you flip MO (12 EV), NJ (17 EV) and OH (26 EV) to the Democrats. That gives you 246 EVs for Humphrey/Muskie, 246 for Nixon/Agnew, and 46 for Wallace/LeMay, which throws the election to the House of Representatives. There, Democrats control 29 state house delegations outright, so even if Dixiecrats manage to deadlock delegations in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, you'd still get 26 votes for Humphrey on the first ballot.

So we have three possible outcomes then for this getting out - two in 1968, one in 1973.

A "Nixon wins, but gets impeached - making for a President Muskie" might be the most interesting outcome.
 
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