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1950: Taftite businessman Robert Welch wins the GOP primary for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. (He was considered simply a conventional Taftite conservative businessman at the time; the John Birch Society was still in the future.) In OTL, he was a poor second to Laurence Curtis, forrmer state treasurer and future congressman.from the Back Bay district. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=545650 But say something happens to Curtis. Then have Welch win in November. Given that Curtis lost in OTL http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=413434 that will be difficult, but say that Joe McCarthy campaigns hard for Welch and gets a lot of the normally Democratic Boston Irish to vote for him. Democratic Governor Paul Dever is so frustrated by quarrels with the right-wing Republican Lieutenant Governor (in those days, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor did not run as a team, even in November, so the offices could be held by people from two different parties) that he dies in 1951 instead of 1958, as in OTL. OK, I am stretching a bit (well, more than a bit) but I am intrigued by Robert Welch as Governor of Massachusetts...
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