AHC: George Wallace vs. Barry Goldwater

Not as the sole candidates. If Goldwater had voted for the civil rights bill in 1964, Wallace might run as a third party candidate, but that would just mean that LBJ would not only win as in OTL but that Goldwater might actually be shut out of the Electoral College.

BTW, Goldwater's "libertarianism" should not be exaggerated. However critical he *later* became of the Religious Right, in 1964 he ran a campaign that stressed morality and law and order in a way that later Republican candidates would make familiar. He was also a super-hawk in foreign policy, as Murray Rothbard lamented:

"Taft's death in 1953 was an irreparable blow, and one by one the other Taft Republicans disappeared from the scene. In fact, Taft's defeat in the bitterly fought 1952 convention was to signal the end of the Old Right as a political force. It is typical of Michael Miles's myopia that the only difference he sees between Barry Goldwater, the leader of the New Right, and the Taftites is that Goldwater was more 'optimistic' than they. In fact, Goldwater was--and is--an all-out interventionist in foreign affairs; it is both symbolic and significant that Goldwater was an Eisenhower, not a Taft delegate to the 1952 Republican convention." https://mises.org/library/requiem-old-right
 
George Wallace's 1958 campaign succeeds in which he isn't segregationist but more of a populist. LBJ declines running in 1964, and Wallace runs a Democratic Campaign against RFK and Humphrey. Wallace manages to eke out a tiny majority of delegates but only after it is leaked that LBJ says "Wallace is a great guy, but RFK or Humphrey could also be good presidents". GOP nomination goes the same. Goldwater, in the end, loses every state except for Mississippi to Wallace.
 
George Wallace's 1958 campaign succeeds in which he isn't segregationist but more of a populist. LBJ declines running in 1964, and Wallace runs a Democratic Campaign against RFK and Humphrey. Wallace manages to eke out a tiny majority of delegates but only after it is leaked that LBJ says "Wallace is a great guy, but RFK or Humphrey could also be good presidents". GOP nomination goes the same. Goldwater, in the end, loses every state except for Mississippi to Wallace.

Yeah, this.
 
George Wallace's 1958 campaign succeeds in which he isn't segregationist but more of a populist. LBJ declines running in 1964, and Wallace runs a Democratic Campaign against RFK and Humphrey. Wallace manages to eke out a tiny majority of delegates but only after it is leaked that LBJ says "Wallace is a great guy, but RFK or Humphrey could also be good presidents". GOP nomination goes the same. Goldwater, in the end, loses every state except for Mississippi to Wallace.

If he isn't a segregationist he loses a lot of influence in the Southern states and might well lose his governorship of Alabama to someone who is. He moved to a more segregationist position after losing an election to someone even more anti civil rights than himself. If he have moved away from segregation I don't see how he could win the governorship of Alabama.
 
George Wallace's 1958 campaign succeeds in which he isn't segregationist but more of a populist. LBJ declines running in 1964, and Wallace runs a Democratic Campaign against RFK and Humphrey. Wallace manages to eke out a tiny majority of delegates but only after it is leaked that LBJ says "Wallace is a great guy, but RFK or Humphrey could also be good presidents". GOP nomination goes the same. Goldwater, in the end, loses every state except for Mississippi to Wallace.

Even if he wins in 1958, there is no way Wallace can remain successful in Alabama politics without becoming far too segregationist to be acceptable as a candidate of the national Democratic party. And anyway he wouldn't get anywhere in 1964 nationally *without* being a flamboyant segregationist. If you think the key to his success in places like South Milwaukee or East Chicago, Indiana, or ethnic wards of Baltimore was "populism" rather than race, I would say that you are being naive. Indeed, Wallace simply would not have gotten any national attention without his segregationism.
 
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