A Liberal Nixon in 1968

What if Richard Nixon in 1968 had opted against the Southern Strategy and campaigned as a liberal Republican? I'm thinking he picks Ed Brooke or Margaret Chase Smith as his running mate.

Washington, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and Michigan all come into play for Nixon. All were lost by under 8 points, so a 4 point swing outside of the south could give them to Nixon.

Wallace could win Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
 
Nixon was not a liberal. Complicated, yes. But the overall mood of everything he thought was moderate or conservative, albeit with tinges of the New Deal generation consensus (plural), leading to doublethink and hypocrisy in what he thought and his policy intents. He would run with liberal overtones if there was something to be gained in doing so, just as he was willing to play to the segregationists. By that same token, if Nixon were in for the 1980s, he'd be quite similar to Reagan and I would expect him to play to the Religious Right and Blue Collar workers, since the Reagan Coalition is what Nixon began and anted to make in the 1970s. But in 1968, there is little to be gained from going full on liberal for Nixon.
 
It seems like the Southern Strategy was a necessity for the Republicans that year. I get what the OP is saying, but I think it's sort of like expecting McCain in 2008 to have run as a liberal Republican, even though that's sort of where he was back during his 2000 run. By 2008, the Republican candidate basically had to find his base in the "red" states, while in 2000 there was more fluidity in which states would make up the post-Clinton GOP coalition.

Similarly, by 1968, there was such a focus by both parties on the South that Nixon basically had to make that his number one target.
 
I could see Nixon going Liberal if somehow you had an unpopular Conservative in office in the 1960s. Say Kennedy has a different running mate, or Lyndon Johnson is an asterisk Lyndon Johnson* where he was the Southern Conservative that liberal initially feared he would be. Nixon needs to differentiate himself from what he is running against. Even if Liberalism were in vogue in a world where there is no Vietnam and LBJ's approval remains high, Nixon's base to appeal to remains Conservatives and people who think Johnson has gone to far and government is too big, and tax money is being wasted.
 
Noam Chomsky believes Nixon to actually been the last liberal President the US has had.

Don't forget he was for Healthcare and guaranteed annual income, and his later price controls

Economically, he was Liberal
 
If Nixon had run as a liberal, he would not have gotten the nomination. The key to his nomination was the support of conservatives who might have favored Reagan, but were worried that doing so might let Rockefeller in. They would have no incentive to back Nixon if he himself ran as a Rockefeller Republican.
 
I think Emperor Norton I hit the nail on the head. Nixon was complicated. If he saw a winning way by posing as a liberal Republican, he would have done it without hesitation. I think you can most clearly see this in Mayor John Lindsay speaking at the Republican National Convention in 1968 fired up for the Nixon-Agnew ticket. While Nixon could not have picked Lindsay as his running mate as they were both New Yorkers in 1968, I could see a Nixon-George Romney ticket or maybe Nixon-Mark Hatfield ticket.

Could a more liberal Nixon ticket won in 1968? Maybe in that crazy three way race. Would Nixon have gone more liberal against RFK?
 
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