Bremer waits

WI Arthur Bremer waits until November 1973 to try and assassinate Nixon? At this point there is no Vice President, so Speaker Carl Albert is next in line. In OTL, he didn't block Ford's nomination because he felt it would amount to a coup. With his hand forced, how would Albert be as a president?
 
Probably he'd appoint a Republican VP (likely Ford) and then resign, citing "the Republicans won 1972, they deserve the Presidency until 1976". Public sympathy would be with the GOP due to Nixon's death.
 
Probably he'd appoint a Republican VP (likely Ford) and then resign, citing "the Republicans won 1972, they deserve the Presidency until 1976". Public sympathy would be with the GOP due to Nixon's death.

Probably he'd appoint a Republican VP (likely Ford) and then resign, citing "the Republicans won 1972, they deserve the Presidency until 1976". Public sympathy would be with the GOP due to Nixon's death.


Agree with all of this pretty much, though there's always a chance that Ford refuses the presidency ITTL (OTL he became VP extremely reluctantly-and his wife was even more against the idea). Being nominated for VP in this TL with the knowledge he'd automatically become president might give him second thoughts. Having said that I think it's more likely than not that Ford excepts the draft-he'd have known OTL that a Nixon resignation was a real possibility when he was nominated for VP anyway, at least here he knows he's in practice the presidential successor.

Assuming Ford is in place by late 73, I wonder how things proceed from there? Would he have a better chance at satisfactorily ending the conflict in Vietnam? I think he would, though he still has the trouble of being a new leader finding his feet after a national tragedy, all be it of a different nature to the one he faced OTL.

Does Ford's alternate path to the presidency effect his choice for VP in 73/74? I suspect not, in which case the conservatives are riled up enough to mount a primary challenge in 1976. I'm not convinced that challenger would be Reagan though-with a muted Watergate investigation, Ford's path to the 76 nomination is easier, which in itself might dissuade Reagan from going for it himself.

I do wonder who the 76 Dem nominee will be-I doubt it'll be Carter, since Nixon not resigning is going to take the wind out of his sails. Also since Wallace is in better health TTL, I wouldn't be surprised if he runs here, taking a slice of the Southern support Carter got OTL.

I'm not confident Yudal is the nominee here either-his performance in the 76 primaries was in part due to his appeal as an outsider. So I'm guessing the nomination shapes up with Scoop Jackson and perhaps Frank Church as the 'establishment' favourites, with Brown having an outside chance at the nomination (or at least at being someone's nominee for VP).

I think we see a relatively comfortable Ford victory in this scenario whoever he's up against, though the exact dynamics of the 76 Democratic primaries will shape what happens in 1980.
 
I think Ford's second term will be much rockier than his first in this TL, as he'll still face many of the problems Carter did. That said, I think he'd weather the storm better than Carter-aside from anything else, he'd be an incumbent president nearing completion of his time in office rather than the newby trying to find his feet that Carter was OTL. That said though, a Democratic win in 1980 is almost certain, whether the GOP nominee is Reagan or someone else.

I'd hazard a guess that the Vietnam War would end "better" for the US, maybe Ford concludes the Vietnamisation strategy.
 
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