Challenge "Reagan Democrats" stay Democratic

Scoop Jackson wins the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976. He goes on to beat Ford in November 1976. The New Deal coalition doesn't splinter along social/cultural/foreign policy lines.

Reagan still elected? Hmmmm, I would say the economy in the late 1970s still tanks. Regan wins in 1980 (in a much closer result) on pocketbook issues.
 
Was Scoop a social or cultural conservative? IIRC he was a New Dealer in economic policy and was definitely the founder of neoconservatism. The NDC had splintered in the early 1970s due to Nixon's effective strategic maneuvering.
 
From the man who firmly held the social and cultural NDC threads: "We'll have to concede the unions and South and replace them with kids and minorities."
 
Was Scoop a social or cultural conservative? IIRC he was a New Dealer in economic policy and was definitely the founder of neoconservatism. The NDC had splintered in the early 1970s due to Nixon's effective strategic maneuvering.

He was a cultural liberal- one of the strongest supporters of civil rights laws, and helped write the National Environmental Policy Act; just that he was about as hawkish as they came- he died from a heart attack apparently brought about by apopletic rage at the shooting down of KAL 007 that he barely controlled while giving a speech.
 
Eh, I would have thought you would be happy to call them Nixon Democrats. Surely that's what they were originally.

IMO Reagan Democrats is a revisionist or PR term.
 
Was Scoop a social or cultural conservative? IIRC he was a New Dealer in economic policy and was definitely the founder of neoconservatism. The NDC had splintered in the early 1970s due to Nixon's effective strategic maneuvering.

Depends on how you define a social or cultural conservative (Or when you define him/her) As others have pointed out he was a supporter of Civil Rights and Environmental issues in the 60s and 70s. However, he opposed quotas and busing (He proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw busing, the amendment also had language to ensure equal education despite financial inequality). He also talked about Environmental issues in terms of making life better for Humanity and the poor, and that it should not stunt technological devlopment. In 1972, in response to a question on Meet the Press, he said that Homosexuals needed medical treatment. He had very good relations with the Unions on policy grounds, not just because he saw them as political ground troops the way some politicans do nowadays. My gut instinct is that he clearly came down on the conservative side of the "Law and Order" issue of the time.

In the early 1970s he was seen as a Social/Cultural Liberal, nowadays, he would be defined differently.
 
Challenge "Reagan Democrats" stay Democratic

Look at OTL. A lot of those "Reagan Democrats" voted Democratic in '92, '96, and '08 (and arguably in '00 too). Maybe a better way of asking the question would be "make swing voters swing Democratic more consistently after 1975" ? And that's not difficult: just keep the Democrats from embracing the loony New Left so openly in the '70s and '80s. Or, make the Republicans less talented at exploiting that connection and making a certain segment of voters think "Democrat = America-hating anti-Christian baby-eaters." Perhaps Karl Rove is never spontaneously generated from the dungheap from which he emerged?
 
Why not just have Ford reelected in '76? That way Working Class Whites, will come to associate the horrible economic conditions of the Seventies with the Republicans who have ruled for the last twelve years. We still need someone to be able to balance the White Working Class vote with that of the Minority vote. The only people who could really do that would be Teddy or maybe a Rust Belt Politician like Phil Hart, John Glenn, Birch Bayh or Hugh Carey.
 
The problem is that the WWC and minorities are also seeking a cultural/social conservative to lead them. Do any of those people fit in that category? Definitely not Teddy or Carey. As early as 1966 IOTL, Bobby (Carey's mentor, mediator with the Church and leading Northern SoCon) said "Carey has problems with his district because the parochial school kids are so conservative."
 
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