Challenge: HHH '60

If there's a way to put a dent into the Kennedy machine, it has to be done early on. Let's say that for the sake of the challenge that HHH has a more organized and disciplined political organization backing him than OTL, and a better ground game than the Kennedy camp in Wisconsin. With a Humphrey win in Wisconsin, you probably do enough damage to shake up the Kennedy campaign, at least temporarily.

Then, let's say that Humphrey goes on to win in West Virginia with the help on an anti-Catholic smear campaign (likely not initiated by Humphrey himself, but cautious supporters of Humphrey, '527s' if you will). Kennedy sticks with the race, having achieved a few modest wins himself, and both campaigns show up at the convention with a good number of delegates, though Johnson is still in the lead. A few rounds of balloting leaves the convention in Johnson's favor, but without a majority for him, and the bosses are still a bit iffy on nominating a Southerner, but they aren't going to nominate Kennedy for damn sure, thanks to his perceived inability to carry a 'protestant' state like West Virginia.

The bosses eventually come to an understanding, and swing their support behind Humphrey, who nominates LBJ as his running mate to solidify the southern vote. Kennedy becomes a campaign surrogate for the Humphrey-Johnson ticket, and is widely mentioned as a member of a future HHH-LBJ administration.

On the Republican side, Nixon takes the GOP nomination rather easily, and chooses a midwestern Republican (Everett Dirksen) for his Veep in order to blunt Humphrey's edge in that area.

On election day, Humphrey carries the northeast and southern states, while Nixon takes the west and the midwest. Humphrey wins a small plurality in the popular vote over Nixon, as well as a bare majority in the electoral college.
 
How would a Humphrey presidency turn out in '60? LBJ will be ineffective as the legislative guru because he doesn't have chits to trade like he did as Majority Leader (which both Kennedys ignored for their own reasons). I see the OTL legislative domestic deadlock, but will he get assassinated? Butterflies on Nam, and everything else? I think the electoral map would be similar to OTL.
 
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How would a Humphrey presidency turn out in '60? LBJ will be ineffective as the legislative guru because he doesn't have chits to trade like he did as Majority Leader (which both Kennedys ignored for their own reasons). I see the OTL legislative domestic deadlock, but will he get assassinated? Butterflies on Nam, and everything else?

Likely legislative deadlock, like the early Kennedy administration. Humphrey wasn't the biggest hawk in the world, either--he largely got pushed into taking a hawkish position on Vietnam because of the administration he was a part of IOTL. I doubt that Humphrey is going to do more than put military advisers there, and might pursue an earlier version of detente.

There's always the chance that he could be assassinated, but I'm not sure if it goes forward or not (Curse of Tecumseh, et al. :p). If not, I think he's going to be in an uphill battle for re-election in 1964. He's probably passed limited Civil Rights reforms and maybe some expanded welfare measures by this time, but not enough to really solidify the left behind him and the party as a whole. Maybe a JFK challenge from the right on the Convention floor?

The GOP is a different story. If Nixon wins the Governorship in '62, he's probably the frontrunner against an unpopular Humphrey. Then again, the far-right of the party is probably still going to be gunning for Goldwater, though I think Nixon can peel off enough conservative delegates to give himself the nomination, leading to a Humphrey-Nixon rematch in 1964.
 
Which Nixon wins, and I discount the possibility of a JFK challenge, because no President has ever been denied renomination during balloting in the 20th century. RFK and Kefauver effectively scared their Presidential opponents out of the race IOTL. ;) Then we get into 1968, and JFK is the nominee. If Nixon wins again, then we get into *sibling rivalry*. I'll spare you the gory details.

*There was always legislative deadlock in the Kennedy era: the Conservative Coalition of SoDems and GOP. The Dems had 67 Senate seats in 1962, but 22 were SoDems, therefore the administration had only 44 senators to count on. The House was much the same. Lyndon Johnson was the one who enacted most of the JFK agenda in 1963-4 and then enacted his own GS.
 
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