AHC: Italian American President of VP

samcster94

Banned
It is something that has never happened, but could have happened and might happen in the future. What can be done to get one at any time??? Bonus points if before Kennedy.
 
FDR picks Fiorello H. La Guardia as his VP in 1940. FDR greatly admired him and perhaps he decides that if he's going to run for a third term he needs to pick a liberal Republican for the purpose of national unity in the run up to war.

If the Democratic Party leaders could stomach Wallace who was only barely a Democrat in the first place then I think they could stomach La Guardia if FDR insisted as a condition of him accepting the nomination.
 

Philip

Donor
Rudy Giuliani.

Gore wins in 2000, but he bungles the reaction to 9/11. Giuliani rides his "America's Mayor" fame to a VP nomination.
 
Rick Santorum's another (terrible) name to throw out there. How you'd get him to the Presidency I don't know, but he fits the Italian-American bill.

Edit: Also, Andrew Napolitano. Slightly less awful and definitely more interesting, IMO.
 
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Rick Santorum's another (terrible) name to throw out there. How you'd get him to the Presidency I don't know, but he fits the Italian-American bill.

Edit: Also, Andrew Napolitano. Slightly less awful and definitely more interesting, IMO.
For Santorum, as a Veep, you would basically need to butterfly Rove's attempt to gin up support by scheduling gay marriage referendums somehow to after 2008, or go with another strategy entirely. That means there's no occasion for Ricky to make the bestiality comment.

Of course the problem is, at the time, Santorum as a choice for Veep, even if Cheney retired, doesn't really do much except that he's from Pennsylvania. Santorum at the time had more a concern with domestic issues (RR influence on foreign affairs was more a Brownback thing), and Santorum's moderate to even liberal stances on economic issues would scare off the business community. And on social issues, he doesn't really balance the ticket because Bush has that covered already.
 
FDR picks Fiorello H. La Guardia as his VP in 1940. FDR greatly admired him and perhaps he decides that if he's going to run for a third term he needs to pick a liberal Republican for the purpose of national unity in the run up to war.

If the Democratic Party leaders could stomach Wallace who was only barely a Democrat in the first place then I think they could stomach La Guardia if FDR insisted as a condition of him accepting the nomination.

Either FDR or LaGuardia would have to change his official state of residence for them both to get the electoral votes of New York. Sure, Cheney changed his in 2000, but FDR is so closely associated with Hyde Park and La Guardia with New York City (despite his Arizona childhood) that it will look a little awkward.

If FDR wants an Italian-American running mate--in part to offset the damage caused by the "hand that held the dagger" speech [1]-- there is this famous California banker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini (admittedly, at 70 he might be a bit too old).

[1] See https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-no-hand-that-held-the-dagger-speech.446564/
 
With Cuomo, it depends on whether gay rights are an issue. We're talking about the man who gaybaited Ed Koch with "vote Cuomo, not the homo."

Unless it can actually be proved that Mario or Andrew was behind the posters--something they always denied--I doubt that will hurt much.
 
I'm embarrassed to say this (especially considering I included him in a TL) but it didn't register with me until recently that La Guardia was a Republican and a Progressive but never a Democrat.

There are plenty of Republican tickets he could be a part of, though.
 
Very surprised nobody mentioned Nixon's second choice as a running mate: Rhode Island senator John Volpe. It might not have taken very much to have him chosen instead of Agnew.
 
There are plenty of Republican tickets he could be a part of, though.

The problem is that La Guardia didn't achieve necessary prominence until the 1930s, which more or less coincided with the entire New Deal era. So unless FDR dies before he can run 1940 it's hard to see La Guardia as part of a winning ticket. He died in 1947 of pancreatic cancer so there's no real way to extend his political viability.
 
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