Deleted member 109224
Let's say that Ed Brooke is the Running-mate on the 1968 Republican Ticket. The nominee could be Reagan or it could be Nixon, though I think it's more likely with Reagan since he'd want to balance his conservatism.
While impossible to disentangle the electoral implications of this from the discussion, my big question is what would be the cultural implications of an African-American as the running mate on a Presidential ticket? One could argue that for a long time the operating cultural assumption was 'if you get diverse faces in powerful spaces, it'll improve things for everybody else' and that the period from 2009-2017 caused a bit of reflecting on that strategy (NOTE: I apologize to the moderators if that's too close to current politics for outside of chat) and that there might be an earlier questioning of such a tactic and greater focus on community self-development (which ironically might actually play well into the ideological agenda of the Reagan-Goldwater types). If Reagan loses there might be nasty infighting (GOP moderates blaming the conservatives, conservatives saying they were too moderate and/or should have played harder for the racist vote) or a discussion of how America 'wasn't ready' for someone like Brooke to be on the ticket.
I strongly doubt Reagan would suddenly sweep the black vote against the man who got Civil Rights in the 1948 Democratic Platform, but he'd perhaps be able to win back some of the middle class republican-leaners that Goldwater lost. The class divide within African-American communities being a political gap could lead to interesting cultural knock-ons. Perhaps discussions of colorism might pop up as well.
For what it's worth, America would have just seen an Irish Catholic President elected in 1960, a self-described half-Jewish Republican nominee in 1964, and a Black man as VP nominee (or VP) in 1968.
I wonder if Reagan would put Third Circuit Judge William H Hastie in a Supreme Court seat? He was considered fairly conservative on issues other than Civil Rights, which caused Earl Warren to oppose him historically. He assumed Senior Status from the Appellate bench in 1971 OTL (a kind of quasi-retirement) and died in 1976 while playing golf, but it'd be a big symbolic win for Reagan to have him on for a couple of years - two black Justices of differing ideological stripes.
@David T in a thread that a Reagan-Brooke ticket could have been in the cards in 1968.
While impossible to disentangle the electoral implications of this from the discussion, my big question is what would be the cultural implications of an African-American as the running mate on a Presidential ticket? One could argue that for a long time the operating cultural assumption was 'if you get diverse faces in powerful spaces, it'll improve things for everybody else' and that the period from 2009-2017 caused a bit of reflecting on that strategy (NOTE: I apologize to the moderators if that's too close to current politics for outside of chat) and that there might be an earlier questioning of such a tactic and greater focus on community self-development (which ironically might actually play well into the ideological agenda of the Reagan-Goldwater types). If Reagan loses there might be nasty infighting (GOP moderates blaming the conservatives, conservatives saying they were too moderate and/or should have played harder for the racist vote) or a discussion of how America 'wasn't ready' for someone like Brooke to be on the ticket.
I strongly doubt Reagan would suddenly sweep the black vote against the man who got Civil Rights in the 1948 Democratic Platform, but he'd perhaps be able to win back some of the middle class republican-leaners that Goldwater lost. The class divide within African-American communities being a political gap could lead to interesting cultural knock-ons. Perhaps discussions of colorism might pop up as well.
For what it's worth, America would have just seen an Irish Catholic President elected in 1960, a self-described half-Jewish Republican nominee in 1964, and a Black man as VP nominee (or VP) in 1968.
I wonder if Reagan would put Third Circuit Judge William H Hastie in a Supreme Court seat? He was considered fairly conservative on issues other than Civil Rights, which caused Earl Warren to oppose him historically. He assumed Senior Status from the Appellate bench in 1971 OTL (a kind of quasi-retirement) and died in 1976 while playing golf, but it'd be a big symbolic win for Reagan to have him on for a couple of years - two black Justices of differing ideological stripes.
@David T in a thread that a Reagan-Brooke ticket could have been in the cards in 1968.
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