AHC: Have Carter/Reagan or Reagan/Carter be a winning presidential ticket

Reagan tried to run for Congress as a Democrat in 1952, but the local Democrats said no because they thought he was too liberal. This rejected helped put the Gipper on the path to conservatism and he eventually switched parties ten years later. If the Democrats had supported him, he probably would've won. He could have gone on to be elected Senator in 1958 and be re-elected in 1964 and 1970. I don't think he could beat Nixon in 1972, but if he runs in 1976 and picks Carter as his running mate then Reagan beats Ford by a landslide margin. In such a scenario I don't think a Carter/Reagan ticket is likely, because as OTL 1980 showed Reagan was a far superior politician. Had they been running against each other as Democrats in a primary, Reagan would win.
 
They were both introverts. They were both intense, brainy, intellectual guys who lived a lot inside their own heads. People might throw smack at Reagan for being “dumb,” but he spent a lot of time refining his ideas for his radio broadcasts.

They were both artist-type personalities who focused on their own personal subset of issues. They were NOT policy generalists like you might expect for a chief executive.

They were too much alike.
 
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. . . against the popular notion of Reagan as the outgoing charismatic politician, . . .
I’ve read that some stand up comics are in real life shy, introverted persons.

So, I don’t view it as a conflict. For some people, if it doesn’t come naturally, they may work at it harder.
 
I’ve read that some stand up comics are in real life shy, introverted persons.

So, I don’t view it as a conflict. For some people, if it doesn’t come naturally, they may work at it harder.

It's not surprising at all that an artist like Reagan be introverted (or even that a successful politician would be an introvert, JFK once told Ben Bradlee he would rather read a book then talk to the other fellow on the plane), it's just that I've never read him being described as one.
 
Reagan tried to run for Congress as a Democrat in 1952, but the local Democrats said no because they thought he was too liberal. This rejected helped put the Gipper on the path to conservatism and he eventually switched parties ten years later. If the Democrats had supported him, he probably would've won. He could have gone on to be elected Senator in 1958 and be re-elected in 1964 and 1970. I don't think he could beat Nixon in 1972, but if he runs in 1976 and picks Carter as his running mate then Reagan beats Ford by a landslide margin. In such a scenario I don't think a Carter/Reagan ticket is likely, because as OTL 1980 showed Reagan was a far superior politician. Had they been running against each other as Democrats in a primary, Reagan would win.

Butterflies. A POD in 1952 might well impact on Presidents further down the line.

If the butterflies eventually lead to no Watergate, then Carter as President is a no-go - but a Reagan/Carter Democratic ticket might well be.
 
It's not surprising at all that an artist like Reagan be introverted (or even that a successful politician would be an introvert, JFK once told Ben Bradlee he would rather read a book then talk to the other fellow on the plane), it's just that I've never read him being described as one.

in fact . . .

Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America, Jonathan Darman, Random House, 2014, page 125:

' . . . His children, rushing into a room at day's end to greet their father, would find him looking puzzled, as if they were strangers. Have we met? . . . ’

https://books.google.com/books?id=1...ther, would find him looking puzzled”&f=false
(please scroll up to second paragraph from the top)
That is really way out there. His children are running into the room and Ronnie is puzzled at who they are ? ?

1) Maybe so nearsighted that he never learned to see clearly (as this book suggests), or

2) prosopagnosia (“face blindness”) for another reason, or

3) someone who really dives deeply into their intellectual work and temporarily loses orientation as to time and space, and this is probably more of a gift than not, or

4) some combo of the above and/or another reason.

Reagan was a pretty unique individual! :)
 
3) someone who really dives deeply into their intellectual work and temporarily loses orientation as to time and space, and this is probably more of a gift than not

As someone who knows introverts pretty well (they include some of my closest friends) I can tell you that not being able to recognize your own son has nothing to do with this. The most likely explanation is that Reagan did indeed have bad eyesight.
 
As someone who knows introverts pretty well (they include some of my closest friends) I can tell you that not being able to recognize your own son has nothing to do with this. The most likely explanation is that Reagan did indeed have bad eyesight.
Yes, the above book Landslide by Jonathan Darman also talks about how Reagan didn't recognize his son Michael when Reagan was the speaker at the young man's high school graduation. And also in the age of teleprompters, Reagan would remove the contact lense from his right eye just before going onto stage. I don't know if he did this when he used notecards to speak.

I've heard someone argue online that, look, not recognizing your son at graduation when everyone is freshly shaven with their hair pulled back under a cap is not that big a deal.

The part about looking puzzled when his young children bounced into the room at the end of the day, that part just blows me out of the water.
 
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President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime

By Lou Cannon, 1991, page 192.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7...to Ronnie and then something happens"&f=false

"You can get just so far to Ronnie and then something happens," said Nancy Reagan in 1989. "It took him a long time, I think, to feel that he could really trust me."
It may have been that Ronnie just needed more alone time than Nancy preferred and was comfortable with.

And to the extent Nancy is looking to Ronnie's first marriage as the reason he took a long time to really trust her, she may been looking for a complex narrative reason. And the truth may be a lot simpler, meaning that's just the way Ronnie was wired up.
 
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Reagan tried to run for Congress as a Democrat in 1952, but the local Democrats said no because they thought he was too liberal. This rejected helped put the Gipper on the path to conservatism and he eventually switched parties ten years later. If the Democrats had supported him, he probably would've won. He could have gone on to be elected Senator in 1958 and be re-elected in 1964 and 1970. I don't think he could beat Nixon in 1972, but if he runs in 1976 and picks Carter as his running mate then Reagan beats Ford by a landslide margin. In such a scenario I don't think a Carter/Reagan ticket is likely, because as OTL 1980 showed Reagan was a far superior politician. Had they been running against each other as Democrats in a primary, Reagan would win.

A liberal Democratic Reagan Presidency would be very interesting, especially in 1976. I expect that Reagan would govern much like his hero FDR and look to pass progressive healthcare and full employment programs. Stagflation would still be a problem, and if he handles the Shah like Carter did then the Hostage Crisis will still break out. That said, given Reagan's almost magical touch with the media I think he would be able to maintain his popularity in a time of crisis. The irony of this is that had Reagan not switched parties, he might've become a genuinely great President instead of a 1980's Calvin Coolidge. (As Much as conservatives pretend the Gipper was a great President, much of what he gets credit for actually happened thanks to Paul Volcker and George H.W. Bush).
 
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