"Dreaming of Something Different"- RFK Survives

Standard X: can you please stop using all the font and formatting tags? It's seriously hard to read.

And what was Smathers record on civil rights in comparison to Yarborough? I thought Senator Smathers on average was slightly more progressive than most southern politicians.

Smathers:

Wiki said:
Like other Southern Democrats, Smathers voted in favor of his white segregationist constituency and denounced the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education rulings as a "clear abuse of judicial power." In 1956, Smathers signed the infamous Southern Manifesto condemning the Supreme Court decision to desegregate the public school system. According to his obituary prepared by the Associated Press, Smathers once agreed to pay the bail of the jailed civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, but only if King agreed to leave the state of Florida.

In the Senate, Smathers voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and tried to water-down other equal rights measures that President Lyndon Baines Johnson put through Congress. He opposed Johnson's elevation of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court.

So yeah, hard to pick for VP given RFK's support of civil rights.


Yarborough:

Another thing, if Ralph Yarborough was such the logical choice as some say then why was he never considered Humphrey or his campaign staff as a possible VP choice?

Because Humphrey couldn't piss off LBJ. LBJ was from the conservative Democratic school of Texas, Yarborough was of the prairie liberal school.

Also Yarborough didn't back Humphrey until both RFK and McCarthy were eliminated, that mattered more in the '60s.

Thirdly Humphrey was already viewed as liberal, he didn't particularly want to pick another liberal. Although RFK too was perceived as liberal, it meant something different given his appeal to the working class (incidentally because of that RFK would probably carry Ohio, rendering your somewhat silly electoral college scenario moot—of course Democrats in Congress would almost always pick the Democratic candidate for President, which renders your scenario moot in another way).
 
I think would one be assuming a bit too much here, one is assuming that all those states that were won by Nixon of a margin of between 1.5% to 3% would automatically be won by RFK if he were the Democratic presidential candidate.

Pretty much. If you suppose that RFK would have been a better candidate than HHH - and most people would assume that, with good reason - then he's going to pick most of those states up.

You don't seem to be paying much attention to the actual numbers. For instance, Maine was won by HHH by over 12%. It's absurd to suggest that Nixon could overturn that and the result would be a tie. If Nixon does that, he is on course for a win.

Assuming that RFK can take a little of Wallace's support, and can sustain a very small swing against Nixon's OTL result, he is going to win in at least two of the three big swing states of the election, which renders any tie scenario void. All of these states - Ohio, California, Illinois - had percentage wins for Nixon which very closely matched the national popular vote. So you can reasonably extrapolate from that; if RFK had won the popular vote, then he would by on course, baring something totally freakish, to win in those.

Basically, RFK wins big or he doesn't win. A tie is very, very unlikely in this election.

Also, why on earth would Wallace take more votes away from RFK than he did HHH in the north? By any reasonable assumption it's either going to be broadly the same number going for Wallace or better for RFK.

You should have told Bill Clinton that back in 92 LOL!

Uh, when Clinton picked Gore, he was deliberately bucking all conventional wisdom; picking Gore wasn't about balance so much as doubly underscoring the New Democrat theme. This was a conscious breaking away from the VP logic which was still in force at this time, and apart from the 1992 exception, has continued to this day.
 
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I think Yarborough would be an excellent choice for Bobby's VP...It keeps Texas in the Democratic Column but also pisses off LBJ, by picking another Senator from Texas...Im not to sure if there was any rivarly between Yarborough and Johnson, but I think it would be hella interesting if it were.
 
I think Yarborough would be an excellent choice for Bobby's VP...It keeps Texas in the Democratic Column but also pisses off LBJ, by picking another Senator from Texas...Im not to sure if there was any rivarly between Yarborough and Johnson, but I think it would be hella interesting if it were.

They didn't hate each other, but there was indeed a big time rivalry/feud. Sort of: Texas ain't big enough for both of them.

That said they did work together (Civil Rights & Great Society) but fondness? Nope.
 
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