[DBWI] What If No Eagleton Fiasco in 1976

So who would Jimmy Carter choose as his running mate in 1976? Walter Mondale was out because Carter wanted to disassociate himself as much as possible from the disastrous 1972 McGovern-Mondale ticket, which had carried only the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. Muskie, Stevenson, Cranston, and Scoop Jackson all had their strengths and weaknesses, but in the end Carter decided on Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri. He was a Catholic who might help Carter with Catholics who still associated Evangelicals like Carter with anti-Catholicism. He was from a fairly big and closely contested Midwest/Border state. And he was pro-labor and generally liberal without being an extremist. Moreover, Mondale, asked by Carter for advice, remarked that he himself in 1972 had been tempted to decline McGovern's offer of the vice-presidential nomination and to recommend Eagleton instead.

Unfortunately, Carter's vetting of Eagleton was inadequate. (This was really inexcusable after Spiro Agnew, but Eagleton was so clearly not the corrupt kind that Carter did not worry much about him.) He simply asked him "any skeletons in the closet?" and Eagleton replied No. It was only shortly after the convention that Eagleton's having undergone electroshock therapy was discovered. Carter compounded the damage by initially saying he was "1000 percent" behind Eagleton. Shortly thereafter, Carter did yield to the inevitable and replaced Eagleton with Sargent Shriver--but the damage had been done. His large lead in the polls had melted away.

Still, Carter did make a close fight of it in November, and the shift of a few votes in Ohio and Wisconsin and Mississippi would have carried the Electoral College for the Democratic ticket. Without the Eagleton fiasco, I believe that we would have avoided the disaster of Gerald Ford's only full term in office, which gave us eight years of President Ted Kennedy...
 
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