DBWI: Frank Church doesn't win in 1976

As we all know, Frank Church, the Senator from Idaho, managed to win the Democratic primaries in 1976 against a stacked list of competitors in a massive upset. He then went on to win the 1976 election against Gerald Ford, in a convincing victory.

But let's say that Church fizzles out, some other Democrat takes the nomination, Jerry Brown or a southern Democrat maybe.

What happens to the 1976 election? Would the Democrats still win?
 
I think that Mo Udall is your best bet, with a long shot candidate being future VP and at the time first term Senator Gary Hart. Udall was second behind Church the whole way, and Hart was a young exciting up-and-comer. We know both of them had foreign policy chops, from Udall's time as Church Sec. of State and Hart's time as VP, so I think either would have handled Iran better than Church, and probably could've won in '80.
 
I think Church hanging on for a second term would have handled Iran better than Reagan did, if only because he was one of the last Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter) to question CIA excesses and the way we've screwed over the Third World with them, so he'd be more sympathetic to the revolutionaries instead of letting things get out of hand in the Gulf like OTL Praying Mantis. Still, the Hostage Crisis wasn't why Church lost, it was the stagflation issue. I think this was one case where, yes, we needed to tackle inflation before unemployment, and Reagan at least got that much right, even if he made up for it with a needlessly confrontational foreign policy.
 
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