Standard X: can you please stop using all the font and formatting tags? It's seriously hard to read.
Smathers:
So yeah, hard to pick for VP given RFK's support of civil rights.
Yarborough:
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).
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).