It's common for historians to criticize Hubert Humphrey's failed 1968 campaign: he refused to take a strong stand on the war, declined to campaign with either Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy after the bitter Democratic Convention, and failed to reveal that Nixon had interfered in the Vietnam peace talks.

But Humphrey's defenders rightly point out that Humphrey managed to narrowly edge out Nixon in the popular vote. Winning the election despite losing the popular vote fueled Nixon's paranoia and had a major impact on his actions while in office. Many writers attribute this to Sirhan Sirhan's attempted assassination of LBJ on June 5, 1968. After the attempt Johnson enjoyed a popularity boost that helped Humphrey on election day. While LBJ was always Sirhan's original target, he had also considered shooting RFK. Had he done so, Humphrey wouldn't have benefited from LBJ's improved popularity and Nixon might've won the popular vote.

The POD is that Sirhan tries to kill RFK instead. The attempt fails like in OTL, but Nixon defeats Humphrey in both the electoral and popular vote. Does this change anything? If so, how?
 
The GOP and democrats would have survived past the 80s for the second and 1990s for the first. A politically stronger nixon isn't able to be taken down for watergate. You get Ford or Connally in '76 instead of RFK. The scandals over CIA/FBI spying means we wouldn't have had a democratic implosion or go through 4 presidents 1974-1981.
 
I dont know if "less paranoid" is really applicable. A less paranoid Nixon is still Nixon.

I mean he might be a little less heavy handed but he wouldn't be Good ol' uncle Richie.
 
Top