Challenge: President Goldwater

Taft gets GOP nod and wins due to a worse Korean War situation. Barry is Taft's VP. The civil rights debate is a little more peaceful discorse almost beacuse of the casulities in Korea. Korea then improves to about where we have a similar dmz to otl. Taft encourages the states (along with Sec. state Eiesnhauer) to adopt a modified version of the interstate highway system where it was more in the hands of the states. Overall Taft is remembered as a compentant but not as loved as IKE OTL. Fends off Stevenson/JFK in 56.

In 1960 Goldwater and JFK engage in a campaign for the ages where though they had several points of agreement, Jack criticized Barry's support of civil rights (Barry supported civil rights but thought the states should handle it) while Barry called Jack out for opposing the legislation ITTL 1957. Kennedy won but the rise of the New Right was certain.

John Kennedy (D-NY) 35th President 1961-1964
Much like OTL. Kennedy survives the assisans bullet but rumors of marital infedielity were brought to light which he flatly denies. This race between Goldwater and Kennedy was a bit more contentious due to media perception. Was America going to re-elect a possibily tarnished President or a born again noninterventionist? The Gulf of Tonkin sealed it.

Your 36th President: Barry Goldwater
 
The only way I can see Barry Goldwater becoming President, barring being the last man standing in the government after a nuclear war, is having him be given the V.P. nod by a Republican who can actually win in the sixties, for the sake of party unity.

But I suppose my exact POD goes back a bit further. In 1956, Eisenhower briefly considered dropping Nixon from the ticket in favor of Christian Herter, who was less controversial among Democrats. Let's say he does so, and Nixon accepts the top spot at the Pentagon. Herter declines to run in 1960, and the field is a bit wider without Nixon as heir apparent, though Nixon does decide to run anyway, as do Rockefeller and Goldwater.

Rocky makes a much stronger bid thanks to butterflies and Nixon not having the arsenal of incumbency behind him. Goldwater drops out early on and endorses Nixon as a proverbial 'lesser of two evils'. The Convention, however, proves that Rocky has enough strength within the rapidly fading 'Eastern Establishment' to force himself forward as the nominee. In the interests of keeping the Nixon-wing and the conservative wing of the party in line, he's forced to accept Barry Goldwater as his running mate.

Rocky and Barry beat John and Lyndon in the fall by a modest margin, continuing Republican domination of national politics for a modestly longer time than IOTL. Rocky, however, doesn't have much time, with an assassin's bullet ending his life on a presidential trip to New York City in July of 1963...

Barry Goldwater, in turn, is inaugurated as the nation's thirty-sixth President on July 6, 1963.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Have Kennedy just not get assassinated, and someone at some American newspaper make a half-assed attempt at investigative reporting. Within a year about 20 different incredibly embarrassing (and often downright creepy) scandals are all going to drop at once.
 
Let me repeat, yet again: Pre.Watergate. SOPs. Do. Not. Provide. For. "Lewinsky 30 years early". Scenario. Or to put that another way: they want to be the Administration's friends. Secondly, Bobby had *Nixonian methods* of dealing with recalcitrants, including Hoover's cooperation. I don't think many journalists wanted to face the combined resources of those two, or in a face-to-face meeting. Best described as a verbal waterboarding.

To give some RL examples: William Manchester & The Death of a President. Jackie sued him for invasion of privacy, and RFK could be accused of harassing him by banging on his hotel door at roughly 0100 on numerous occasions demanding that he be allowed to meet and revise the manuscript. Paul Fay, another old Kennedy friend, wrote an allegedly overfamiliar memoir. He was forced to excise two-thirds of the original manuscript, and never spoke to either Bobby or Jackie again. This was one of Jack's oldest friends of a quarter-century. And we're still only dealing with private resources.

As for the "outrageous scandals": many prominent Washingtonians were caught up as well. Ellen Rometsch (East German)? Also serviced numerous senators of both parties. Mary Meyer (the only longterm one)? Ben Bradlee's sister-in law. This is why the media let sleeping dogs lie.

P.S.: Bobby is (D-NY), Jack and Ted are (D-MA).

*By Nixonian I mean moles intercepting memos, private detectives, and numerous attempts at verbal persuasion.
 
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Goldwater in 72

In mid-September 1968, sensing that things were not going well for Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 Presidential election campaign, President Johnson, despite the advice of his close friend and adviser Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, decided to leak a story through friendly news sources that Republican Richard Nixon had been seeing a psychologist in New York for several years. The revelation became a minor sensation when third party candidate George Wallace used it to taunt Nixon.

At the same time Johnson announced a halt of U.S. bombing over North Vietnam at the beginning of October. The announcement was timed to make it appear that Humphrey lobbied the President for this concession. Humphrey continued to speak out in favor of a negotiated settlement in Vietnam and his poll numbers began to improve.

On election day the results were much closer than expected, due to a Humprey’s “peace surge”. Humphrey won 44% of the popular vote compared to 41% for Nixon and 14% for Wallace.

The Electoral College vote was:
Humphrey 258
Nixon 234
Wallace 46

(Shifts are in close races in Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin)

The election went to Congress since none of the candidates won 270 Electoral Votes. Nixon tried to negotiate a deal with Wallace which would have brought the Alabama Governor’s support to the Republican, but Wallace wanted too much say over the make-up of Nixon’s administration. As a result of a battle for control, and between two egos, the matter dissolved into an ugly, and very public spat between the two campaigns. Humphrey refused to negotiate with Wallace on principle.

President Johnson tried to strong arm Wallace into backing Humphrey, but Wallace refused to be pushed around by the lame-duck President.

Wallace played his last hold card, and using his influence deadlocked several Southern House delegations when the ballots for President were cast. By January 20, 1969 the House had failed to select a President-elect.

Although a few Southern Democratic Senators (looking over their shoulder at Wallace’s political influence in their home states) tried to block the election of Senator Edmund Muskie as Vice President, most acted in a responsible manner. Muskie won 51-49 over Spiro Agnew on the first ballot. Edmund Muskie was the Vice-President-elect.

On January 20, 1969 Edmund Muskie was sworn in as the 39th Vice President of the United States, and immediately he became the acting President of the United States.

Despite repeated rounds of balloting, the House failed throughout 1969 and 1970 to elect a President. The matter became a weekly ritual which, with its failure to produce results, soon became the focus of scorn and derision. The House leadership resorted to a once-a-week balloting round so as to continue balloting until a president was chosen as was required by the Constitution, but so that on-going balloting would not interfere with the regular work of the House.

Behind the scenes George Wallace was quick to remind the handful of key Southern Representatives that he could quickly destroy their political future (or at least make their re-election very difficult) if they rocked the boat by deciding to elect either Humphrey or Nixon.

Publicly, Wallace denied that he has any influence over the matter. Still he opined that the centrist (and un-charismatic) Edmund Muskie was a better “temporary occupant” of the White House than either "liberal to his core" Hubert Humphrey or "nutty" Richard Nixon. Wallace’s implied support made some pundits wonder if acting President Muskie had some kind of understanding with Wallace, and that impression did not help Muskie's overall approval.

Acting President Muskie named a Cabinet and attempted to govern over the next four years. He pointedly refused to meet Wallace’s terms, which included an end to Federally mandated de-segregation in the South, the right to name the Attorney General and control over the Interstate Commerce Commission. Instead the Muskie Administration pushed de-segregation in schools and federally mandated busing to acheive it across the nation. Very soon there was social unrest and confrontation throughout the country. Attorney General Walter Mondale soon found himself facing the same battles that Robert Kennedy had a decade earlier, but added to his were confrontations with local authorities and parents in Detroit, Boston, Chicago, New York and many other large cities and smaller communites across the nation. Not all situations ended in violence, but enough did to give national television a regular diet of unrest, which magnified the impression of disorder in the country.

Polling showed that the American people were dissatisfied with the outcome of the 1968 Presidential election. Largely unfamiliar with the terms of the 12th amendment, and conditioned by decisive elections (even if they were close as in 1948 and 1960) over their living memory, many voters, whether they supported Nixon or Humphrey, felt that they have been somehow cheated of their election. Acting President Muskie somehow seemed less than fully legitimate, even if his position was both constitutional and legal. From the outset this feeling tended to work against Muskie at the subconscious level: the word acting in his title only magnified that underlying ill-ease with many voters. Pollsters picked up on it, and it was much commented on over the next four years.

Wallace stoked anti-administration fires over school busing across the country as a building block for his planned 1972 Presidential campaign. To that end he continued to block the election of a president by the House after the 1970 mid-term elections. Those elections resulted in more Republicans membrs of the House, a situation that made a final outcome of the House balloting even less likely. (The number of deadlocked delegations went up in 1971).

Hampered by all this, acting President Muskie tried to negotiate and end of the war in Vietnam. He rejected Pentagon advice to invade Cambodia and Laos in order to cut-off the Ho Chi Minh trail, nor did he resume indiscriminate bombing of North Vietnamese targets. He also countermanded efforts by the CIA and the US military to stage a coup in Cambodia to oust Prince Shianouk and replace him with a military government which would support the American war. Muskie saw these ideas as only widening a war he was trying very hard to end.

The North Vietnamese entered into negotiations with the Muskie administration, but were unwilling to commit to anything before the 1972 Presidential elections in the United States, which lead to frustration on the American side.

Elsewhere Muskie attempted to reach détente with the Soviets, and began discussions through third parties with the Communist Chinese government on the mainland. (Chou Enlai didn't put much stock in Muskie's domestic political situation and so stayed aloof). Domestic inflation and a rising unemployment rate further reduced Muskie's approval rating until it fell into the single digits. In November 1971 Muskie announced that he would not seek another term.

Over the previous four years Senator Barry Goldwater, along with other conservatives, had been critical of acting President Muskie’s policies.

Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) January 10, 1971:

”Where has a decade of Democratic presidents, acting and otherwise, left us? Do our adversaries respect us? No, they laugh in our faces. Do we have peace at home? No, my fellow citizens, we have war in our streets. Everywhere we turn, we are under seige. Is this the America we sacrificed so much for? Is this the America our forefathers left us? Is this the America we want to give to our children?

Today we have an acting President who can’t do the job. Does he boldly stand-up to our adversaries and say to them ‘you may not tread on us?’ No, my friends, he hands them the boots to do it with. He speaks of justice, but where is justice when Federal Marshals control our schools, and deprive parents of their God-given right to guide their children’s education by enforcing so-called Federal mandates? Where is justice when decent, law abiding Americans are forced to cower in their homes while seditious, unpatriotic and evil people riot like animals in our streets because their welfare payments are late or because they just don’t feel like working? That’s not my America. I don’t believe it is yours either. Seven years ago I said, ‘we, as a nation, are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people.’ This is more true today. So, again, I say it is time to put conscience back in government. And by good example, put it back in all walks of American life. Our nation will be strong again the day acting President Muskie is sent back to Maine. Today, I announce that I will be a candidate for President, and my goal is to win so that we can bring conscience, common sense and commitment back to government and to our nation.”

Goldwater faced a tough fight for the Republican nomination, not least because many in the GOP were fearful of a repeat of the 1964 debacle. Nonetheless, Goldwater did well in the primaries against a field of candidates that included Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, George Romney, Ronald Reagan, John Asbrook, George H.W. Bush and Pete McCloskey. While Goldwater remained true to his conservative beliefs, he had learned from the 1964 campaign to even out some of his more provocative rhetoric. He didn’t talk of nuclear strikes this time; instead he focused on bedrock values and making the nation strong again. Richard Nixon’s poor showing in the primaries finished his presidential aspirations for good.

Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination, and in an effort to heal any rifts within the party, he chose Nelson Rockefeller as his running mate. With this he signalled that while the Goldwater of old would still stick to his true values, he had softened his image enough to prevent a repeat of 1964.

The Democratic Party was deeply divided going into the 1972 Presidential election. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the front runner after acting President Muskie dropped out, but he carried with him much of the baggage of he nineteen sixities. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota staged a significant challenge to Humphrey through an effective grassroots campaign. He promised to end the Vietnam War, which acting President Muskie had been unable to do, and he also indicated that he would take the country in a more leftward direction in order to develop a more just society.

George Wallace campaigned for the Democratic nomination as well, but met with a lot more negative reaction than he expected: many voters around the country, including in the Deep South, blamed his obstructonism for four years of Muskie and the results of that administration. Wallace withdrew after losing badly to Humphrey in Florida and Illinois, and ended up endorsing Goldwater.

With the help of Union support and the Muskie administration, Hubert Humphrey defeated George McGovern to win the Democratic nomination on the second ballot, but he came out of a bitter convention with the Democratic Party deeply divided. Even naming California Senator John Tunney, a youthful Democrat who critizied the on-going stalemate in Vietnam and who was favored by the Civil Rights lobby, as his running mate didn’t serve to heal the party.

Goldwater and Humphrey fought a tough and at times bitter campaign. Goldwater tried to paint Humphrey as more of the same, while Humphrey sought to perpetuate the Goldwater of 1964 as a danger to the peace of the world. Goldwater stuck to themes of making the nation strong, and “freeing the average man from the burden of overgrown, fat, bureaucratic government.” He promised to reform the tax code to allow people to keep more of their money, and he promised to end the rioting in the streets.

The Humphrey campaign called the latter a license for Federal agents to ride roughshod over the people's civil rights, and kept trying to invoke images of the Kent State massacre and the Attica Riots as indications of what life under the Republians would be like. Goldwater countered that life in America was already like that because of the Democrats three terms in the White House. He denounced Kent State as unfortunate, but the result “of rabblerousing by long-haired bums.” He fully endrosed his running mate’s law and order actions at Attica.

Given the outcome of the 1968 election, the Vice Presidential candidates came under increased scrutiny in 1972. Although there were some questions about Rockefeller's financial holdings, he still seemed to many voters a safer choice for &quot:winkytongue:resident-in-waiting" than Tunney.

Goldwater and Humphrey had one televised debate in mid-October 1972. Humphrey tried to draw-out Barry Goldwater's extremist side, while Goldwater pressed Humphrey on what - if anything - he would do that might be different from the "failed policies of Johnson and Muskie." Most observers gave Goldwater the edge in the debate because he had forced Humphrey onto the defensive and kept him there throughout.

On election day Goldwater received 55% of the popular vote to 44% for Humphrey. In the end, voters decided it was time for a change. They were tired of the seemingly endless rioting and the ineffectiveness of the past two presidents in dealing with it. Humphrey seemed too much like a continuation of the same, where Goldwater offered a real change. By 1972 (unlike 1964) liberalism had come-up short, and Goldwater’s “conscience, commitment and common sense” had a resounding appeal. They hoped Goldwater could restore order and rebuild the nation’s image as a strong and prosperous nation.

The Electoral College results were:
Goldwater 462
Humphrey 76

Humphrey carried only DC, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island

On January 20, 1973 Barry Goldwater was sworn in as the 38th* President of the United States and Nelson Rockefeller was sworn in as 40th Vice President of the United States.

* = in evaluating acting President Muskie’s time in office (4 years or one full term) the State Department concluded that his length of service, even though he was only an acting President, was sufficent for him to be officially recognized as the 37th President of the United States. President Goldwater endorsed this ruling, saying that it was the least the naiton owed Edmund Muskie for “his service under difficult circumstances.” The Secretary of State who made this offical (at Goldwater’s instruction) was Richard Nixon.
 
Goldwater in 72: Supreme Court nominations

Supreme Court Appointments 1969 - 1981
Dates indicate terms of service on the court

Muskie Administration (1969 - 1973)

Nicholas Katzenbach Chief Justice of the United States (1969 - present)

Frank Minis Johnson (1970 - 1999)

Patricia R. Harris (1972 - 1985)
(First female Associate Justice; Second African-American Associate Justice)

Richard S. Arnold (1972 - 2004)


Goldwater Administration (1973 - 1981)

Richard M. Nixon (1975 - 1994)
 
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