AHC: Johnson '60

However, given the closeness of so many northern states, LBJ probably loses to Nixon in November.
End result is that Nixon wins as Johnson lacks the charisma that carried Kennedy in the debate.

Sorry, but writing off LBJ's chances against Nixon in an Alt1960 general election, that's crazy talk...

...Or else you be posting from a TL where this Nixon is the supremely malleable politician tested in multiple close races here, backed to the gills by Big Oil money. While Johnson isn't.

Electorally speaking, Dick Nixon is still his own worst enemy for a cycle that's coming off the anti-Republican landslide of 1958, he's still the guy who thought it's perfectly alright to travel to all fifty states between Labor Day and the election. He's still the most divisive non-president presidential nominee since Al Smith, and unlike Smith he's worked hard to earn that honour!

As for appealing to Northerners; a Johnson who wins the nomination is the same Johnson who, when he was testing the waters for 1956 (in the event that Ike had vacated the White House after one term) had his staff get together with Walter Reuther's UAW to write a manifesto reviving the New Deal/Fair Deal. He delivered it in a speech in Texas to rave reviews.

OTOH, look at every attempt Nixon made at intraparty coalition building. He gets slighted by Eisenhower on leadership. He's made to look weak when he yields to Rockefeller on civil rights. He chooses yesterday's man as running mate, because Lodge has impeccable Eastern moderate credentials. Yet he's also lumbered with the rise of the modern anti-establishment Right on his flank.

Johnson didn't have Kennedy's charisma (yet it's not like he was untelegenic), but when it comes to positioning himself as the New Product, he was similarly well placed to take advantage of the personal weaknesses of VP Nixon, and the broader weaknesses of a Republican Party that had failed to create a new dominant party status for itself by 1960.
 
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