OOC: So we're basically looking at:
1948: Dewey
1952: Dewey*
1956: Warren
1960: Johnson
1964: Johnson**
1968: ??? (Kennedy?)
1972: ???
1976: Goldwater
1980: Mondale
1984: Mondale (?)
1988: Anderson
1992: Kerrey
1996: Kerrey
* Resigned
**Assassinated
Is that right?
OOC: Yeah, this, pretty much. We still need to figure out who won in '72, though(probably not JFK, though). Maybe Nelson Rockefeller, or William Scranton from Pennsylvania? Both were moderate Republicans, though Goldwater, although still on the right, was probably somewhat less hardline than in '64 IOTL, though.
Hm, between Guatemala and Iran, the 50's weren't a good time for CIA backed attempted coups. Probably why the CIA stopped doing coups, and instead funded democratic candidates who favored the US.
IC: Took until '62 for us to finally learn that lesson. BTW, though, if you remember, the current director of the CIA back in '77(forget his name), suggested that we try putting the mullahs in power in Iran should the Communists come close to winning the civil war here. Thankfully, to his credit, President Goldwater refused.....for all his faults(His biggest screw-up? He was too unwilling to deal with the economic bubble.), he was at least honorable.....it also explains why he refused to sell out to the Religious Right in '80.
And speaking of the religious right, what might have happened if somebody like, say, Ronald Reagan, or Texas governor George H.W. Bush, had run and won in 1980? Would that have boosted them by some degree(Harry Turtledove seems to think so), or would they have fallen apart? And, with that, would the recognition of same-sex marriage have been delayed? IOTL, it became a national reality in Jan. 2009, and Hawa'ii and California were the first states to recognize it in 1992.....with Oregon and Washington following in 1995, and Vermont and Massachusetts in '97, and the rest is [OTL] history from there. But how might things have been different?