Challenge: elect POTUS Robert McNamara (R-CA)

President McNamara

RogueBeaver

President McNamara. Speaking as an American, RogueBeaver, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT AGAINST US, ANYWAY?!:(:(:(
 
What's so bad about a Rocky Republican like McNamara, at least on domestic policy? Yes, he wasn't the best SecDef (to say the least), but without a substantial Vietnam commitment before 1965 I don't see the problem. He even made a bipartisan endorsement later in his career.
 
What's so bad about a Rocky Republican like McNamara, at least on domestic policy? Yes, he wasn't the best SecDef (to say the least), but without a substantial Vietnam commitment before 1965 I don't see the problem.
Easy for you to say. You'll be safely on the other side of the 3,000 mile wall he'll build to keep draft dodgers from escaping to your country and stealing jobs from hard working:p Canadians!;)
 
If the President might not be a domestic expert, he has a prime minister who happens to be his closest Cabinet colleague, close personal friend and his choice as successor.
 
He's ignorant of other peoples and cultures. I remember a line from a recent documentary, "I remember in grade school, I was one of the smartest kids in the class, next to me up front were an Indian and a Jew, you know people who are good at math and then there was me a nice scotch-irish boy just trying to get by." I may have the quote wrong but that was the jist of it.

Not to mention his wizkid technocracy would have been awful. Say what you will about LBJ but McNamara in '64 wouldn't have done anything for anyone.
 
GSM: you seem to forget that one reason that he was so popular in the administration was because he was cultured: interested in Catholic theology (despite being Protestant), Renaissance art, and the like. "Why is it that they call him the 'thinking machine', yet he is the one all my sisters want to sit next to at dinner?"

Re technocracy: I agree, who knows what that means for domestic policy.
 
Triple bonus? The Democrats are the only way this could happen. Maybe Bobby leads a Kennedy rebellion against LBJ after 1963 and puts up McNamara as the poster boy of Camelot.

1964 GOP nod goes to AuH2O no matter what! :cool:
 
That is ASB on a few levels, if original. The only way I see it is if LBJ picks him in 1964 (IOTL the offer was made) and Johnson dies in office.
 
If he becomes President on Johnson's death, he'd have to run against Nixon in '68. Since McNamara, an electoral noob, would have little chance against Tricky Dick, he would have to forgo a full term in favour of RFK or HHH, who do have a decent chance of putting Nixon away. Then McNamara goes to the Treasury in January 1969. :p
 
That is ASB on a few levels, if original. The only way I see it is if LBJ picks him in 1964 (IOTL the offer was made) and Johnson dies in office.
This. I found the tapes regarding this very note. Anyway, McNamara actually wanted to pursue Vietnamization rather than continue escalation, but LBJ would have none of it. Other proposals included building a line of fortifications from the coast of Vietnam along the de-militarized zone and through Laos to Thailand in order to cut off the Ho-Chi Minh trail.
 
A line of fortifications? How exactly does that work? :confused: IMO the only way to tackle the Trail is for the ARVN and USAF to cut it by turning it into a massacre zone ala the Somme, except this time with 1960s tech. But yes, LBJ didn't listen regarding Vietnamization, with fatal political consequences to come. Keep in mind that after 1966 LBJ was very suspicious (correctly) of McNamara's loyalties and disregarded much of his advice in fear he was 'going soft'. If he'd known that PDB-level Vietnam documents were ending up in unauthorized hands, grab your earmuffs.
 
A line of fortifications? How exactly does that work? :confused: IMO the only way to tackle the Trail is for the ARVN and USAF to cut it by turning it into a massacre zone ala the Somme, except this time with 1960s tech. But yes, LBJ didn't listen regarding Vietnamization, with fatal political consequences to come. Keep in mind that after 1966 LBJ was very suspicious (correctly) of McNamara's loyalties and disregarded much of his advice in fear he was 'going soft'. If he'd known that PDB-level Vietnam documents were ending up in unauthorized hands, grab your earmuffs.


The McNamara Line:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_Line
 
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