Can Nixoon lose the 1968 nomination?

claybaskit

Gone Fishin'
Can Richard Nixon realistically lose the nomination to either Romeny .Rockefeller or Regan or someone else?
 
In a very Nixon outworks everyone kind of way, he had built up a ton of goodwill helping many of the party leaders get elected throughout the 60s. I suppose the first way you'd create a serious challenge is to have Romney never make the brainwashing comment. As for Reagan, it would be a fun TL if someone did a "Nixon must be stopped" movement that could get legs if Romney or Rockerfeller somehow deadlock Nixon to the convention, and then Reagan, being the freshest face at the convention, is chosen as a compromise candidate, kind of like Truman's VP nom in '44.
 
Can Richard Nixon realistically lose the nomination to either Romeny .Rockefeller or Regan or someone else?
As creighton mentioned earlier, no Romney "brainwashing" comment would help. Another way would be for Thurmond to not support Nixon. That would give the South to Reagan.
 
Nixon could at least be stopped from winning on the first ballot. I'll quote a 2013 post of mine from soc.history.what-if (my apologies for any links that no longer work):

***

On the 100th anniversary of Richard Nixon's birth, I thought it might be
interesting to explore what would have happened if he had failed to win the
presidential nomination on the first ballot at the Republican national
convention in 1968. What especially interests me about this is that 1968
was AFAIK the *last* year when, as a national convention of a major party
approached, there was a real possibility of it going beyond the first
ballot. My main sources for this post are Geoffrey Kabaservice, *Rule and
Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the destruction of the Republican
Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party* (Oxford UP 2012), and David
Broder's chapter "Election of 1968" in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Fred L.
Israel, and William P. Hansen, eds., *History of American Presidential
Elections, 1789-1968, Volume IV.*

The key to stopping Nixon on the first ballot was an unspoken understanding
between Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan. Rockefeller knew that he
could not stop Nixon by himself. But let Reagan peel off enough of Nixon's
support among southern and other conservatives, and let some "favorite
sons" peel off some centrist votes from Nixon, and Nixon might be stopped
on the first ballot--and after that, who knows what would happen? Reagan
did not declare himself a candidate until the last minute, but was
obviously interested in the nomination well before that. He too knew that
he could not by himself stop Nixon on the first ballot. According to
Kabaservice (p. 241) the members of the Ripon Society (at the time the
best-known organization of moderate and progressive Republicans) "received
an inside glimpse of Reagan's presidential strategy in what sems to have
been a remarkably candid exchange with William Rusher, publisher of
*National Review.*"

"Rusher and his Syndicate [1] comrade Clif White aimed to secure the
presidency for Reagan at the GOP convention by forging a tacit alliance
with Rockefeller's supporters to stop Nixon on the first and second
ballots. 'At the third ballot,' according to the notes of one Ripon member
at the meeting with Rusher, 'Rockefeller and Nixon forces part company.
Reagan, with Clif White as broker, 'aims at Reagan-Percy ticket with Nixon
as Secretary of State and Rockefeller (with a sneer from Rusher) as 'the
man who put it all together.' If Percy wouldn't take the vice-presidency,
they would look for another moderate. 'If I could be convinced that Ed
Brooke could deliver a portion of the Negro vote, we would take him.''
Rusher felt that the California governor would have no chance if he were
perceived as the 1968 version of Goldwater, so at Miami he would 'do
everything possible to appear moderate, humane, and compassionate...He must
start appearing progressive, responsible, and ecumenical in a hurry.'

"The Reagan-Rockefeller marriage at the convention would be strictly one of
convenience. Rusher admitted that if Rockefeller actually received the GOP
nomination, he would bolt to form a new party. Rockefeller was still
anathema to conservatives, while Reagan was almost as unacceptable to GOP
progressives as Goldwater had been in 1964. The implausibility of this
left-right coalition left Richard Nixon in the center, exactly where he
wanted to be. Nonetheless, Rockefeller and Reagan supporters believed that
they were tantalizingly close to blocking Nixon when the GOP convention
opened in Miami Beach in early August. 'The Rockefeller people actually
had Nixon stopped on the first ballot,' Ripon's Lee Auspitz maintained. 'I
know this because it was Ripon people who were on the delegate count
operation at the Rockefeller headquarters in Miami Beach.' Clif White and
the Reagan team relied on Rockefeller to withhold 400 first-ballot votes
from Nixon. Rockefeller more than met that target, with in excess of 250
votes of his own and about 150 favorite son votes in his column. Reagan had
to hold back another 250 votes if Nixon was to be stopped. Much of the
excitement centered around the delegtions from Florida and Mississippi,
both of which operated under the 'unit rule,' which awarded the entire
delegation to the candidate of a majority of delegates. If Nixon failed to
secure those states, he would lose 54 crucial votes."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tlr7zOjQjOMC&pg=PA241

As we all know, the Reagan-Rockefeller alliance failed, and Nixon was
nominated on the first ballot. Yet, as Broder (p. 3728) observes, "Nixon
won on the first rollcall, but his total vote--692, or 25 more than the 667
needed for nomination--showed how close the implausible Rockefeller-Reagan
combination had come to stopping him." Why did the combination fail?

First, there was the failure of the Reaganites to peel off southern
conservatives from Nixon. As Kabaservice notes, Clif White "failed to
persuade Goldwater loyalists such as Mississippi's Clarke Reed, Louisiana's
Tom Stagg, and South Carolina's Roger Milliken and Strom Thurmond to cross
over to the Reagan camp. White recalled that when he confronted Thurmond
and asked why he was supporting Nixon instead of Reagan, Thurmond replied
that if the South didn't back Nixon, Rockefeller might gain the nomination
instead. White protested that the delegates would back Reagan on a second
ballot. 'Well, you may be right, son,' Thurmond drawled, 'but we just
cain't take that chance and let Rockefeller slip in.'"

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tlr7zOjQjOMC&pg=PA242

Second, Reagan had started too late, and by the time White was trying to
persuade his old Syndicate friends to help Reagan, many had already come
out for Nixon.

Third, "White also erred by failing to poll the Florida delegation, which
could have allowed its members to break free and vote for Reagan."
(Kabaservice, p. 242.)

Fourth, Rockefeller had the problem that he felt he could not criticize
Nixon very stridently--to do so would just bring back the old charge that
Rocky was a rule-or-ruin party-wrecker. So instead he hoped that the
delegates would be persuaded by polls showing that he could do better
against the Democrats than Nixon could. However, as Broder notes, one poll
(Gallup) on the eve of the convention actually showed Nixon doing better
than Rockefeller against either Humphrey or McCarthy (though it was later
contradicted by other polls). In any event, that Rockefeller could win in
November and Nixon couldn't was just not clear enough to persuade many
delegates who were not already committed to Rockefeller.

Fifth, here is Auspitz's account of how Nixon went over the top: "A New
Jersey millionaire breezes into Miami from Nassau or wherever he's been
vacationing, gets his nose under the tent of the delegate count operation,
and learns that the Rockefeller people have Nixon stopped by ten votes or
however many it was. So, since he's from New Jersey, he shares this
exciting news with Nelson Gross, who's the chairman of Bergen County. And
then Gross suddenly realizes: 'I could shift this to Nixon!' The Bergen
County delegation split off from the state's slate, which was pledged to
favorite son Clifford Case, and announced that it would vote for Nixon,
'and then everybody knew--that was it.'"

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tlr7zOjQjOMC&pg=PA242

In any event, it is pretty clear that if his opponents had a bit more skill
or luck, Nixon could have been--at least temporarily--stopped on the first
ballot. What then?

(1) The least likely possibility is for Rocky to win the nomination. The
conservatives were more polite to him than they were in 1964, but he was
still just as unacceptable. In particular, he had virtually no support in
the South. Or rather, the only southern support he had was from the New
Orleans Rockefeller for President group, led by a Tulane University history
graduate student named Newt Gingrich...To show how hopeless Rocky's
position in the South was, consider this: Kentucky was the most
"northern" southern state; it had produced moderate Republicans like US
Senators John Sherman Cooper and Thruston B. Morton. Yet Governor Louis
Nunn told reporters in Miami, "Our delegates know that if they voted for
Rockefeller down here they wouldn't be allowed off the plane back home."
(Kabaservice, p. 243.) Rocky was also weak in the West, and hardly had the
Midwest--or even *all* the delegates from the East--locked up either.

(2) Another possibility--and IMO the most likely if Nixon falls just short
on the first ballot--is that enough delegates who were pledged to a
"favorite son" on the first ballot switch to Nixon so that he wins on the
second ballot. Even the California delegates were only bound to Reagan on
the first ballot, and some would probably switch to Nixon on the second.

(3) Another possibility of course is Reagan winning the nomination. We have
discussed this before, but one thing I would note is that if indeed he was
going to appeal to progressives in the way Rusher suggested (someone like
Percy as running mate, etc.) Wallace will probably run, and take away some
of the support that Reagan could otherwise get, especially in the Deep
South.

(4) A prolonged deadlock results in a "dark horse" or "favorite son"
actually winning? Very unlikely IMO. If it does happen, it won't be a
progressive. It also won't be a conservative--if the delegates wanted a
conservative, they would go for Reagan. It would presumably be a centrist
who could claim to be a more electable centrist than Nixon, but it is hard
to think of who that could be--I don't think many non-Ohioans were pushing
James Rhodes...

Thoughts?


[1] The "Syndicate" was the popular name for the conservative faction that
controlled the Young Republicans for much of the 1950's and 1960's; it was
led by Rusher and F. Clifton White--both of whom, ironically, had started
out as Dewey Republicans. While moderates were largely ignoring the Young
Republicans, the "Syndicate" was using the YR as a basis for taking over
the GOP as a whole and nominating Goldwater in 1964.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/tnx5RWPGyP8/Aso8Lavlx3cJ
 
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wikipipes

Banned
Yes, but the only reason why Reagan gathered enough votes was because of California, that is why CA is largely ignored during conventions for its disproportional representation.
 
Rockefeller either remains out of the race and fully supports Romney, or Rockefeller makes it known that he intends to run to Romney, makes a go of it from day one, and has Romney's support. Rockefeller screwed 1964 and 1968. Rather than supporting a Moderate candidate, he divided the Moderates, despite having no chance of winning the nomination as a result of his divorce. Thus allowing Goldwater to secure the nomination. In 1968, he screwed Romney by first not running and endorsing Romney, then deciding to run and thus undercutting Romney, and allowing Nixon a path to victory when Romney had been in the lead prior to his improper remark and Rockefeller getting into the race. Rockefeller wanted to be president, and it was always at the expense of him having a chance of actually being president.
 
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