George Smathers as JFK's VP

Anchises

Banned
When thinking about interesting PODs for the 60s, having a different Kennedy VP is a big one.

Completely changing Vietnam, the development of Civil Rights and the election in 1964, gives one an ample supply of available butterflies.

Smathers as Kennedy's VP is imho possible, he was a Southern Democrat and could have fullfilled a similiar function on the campaign trail.

Assuming that JFK is still assassinated:

How would Smather's act as President?

I assume, that neither Great Society nor significant Civil Rights progress is going to happen. And in Vietnam we will see an earlier escalation, possibly even an invasion of the North.
 
Any body that signed the Southern Manifesto is not going to be on the ticket, LBJ did not and Smathers did.
Smathers also had a reputation as being a lightweight.
 
I honestly do not know why the belief that JFK would have chosen Smathers as his running mate (either in 1960 or if it seemed necessary to drop LBJ from the ticket in 1964) is so widespread here. Maybe it stems from the fact that JFK and Smathers were friends. But presidential candidates have lots of friends whom they know it would be foolish to put on the national ticket. And in any event, according to an interview Smathers gave decades later, the JFK-Smathers friendship was strained by Smathers' decision to run as a favorite son presidential candidate from Florida in 1960. https://books.google.com/books?id=CeldDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 (That candidacy made it substantially less likely that JFK would win on the first ballot.)

Putting someone who had signed the Southern Manifesto on the national ticket would be incredibly risky in close northern and border states like Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, where the African American vote could make the difference. LBJ was the ideal running mate because he had southern support yet had not signed the Manifesto--indeed the southerners didn't want him to sign it because they knew that would destroy his chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. LBJ even got the support of some black political leaders like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., something Smathers could never have gotten.
 
Putting someone who had signed the Southern Manifesto on the national ticket would be incredibly risky in close northern and border states like Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, where the African American vote could make the difference. LBJ was the ideal running mate because he had southern support yet had not signed the Manifesto--indeed the southerners didn't want him to sign it because they knew that would destroy his chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. LBJ even got the support of some black political leaders like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., something Smathers could never have gotten.
This ^^^

JFK definetly won over black voters which helped him push over the edge in Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania
after MLK pledged his support following Bobby Kennedy’s arrangement to get him out of jail. I can’t see MLK supporting JFK or even agreeing to the arrangement if Smathers was Kennedy’s running mate.
 

Anchises

Banned
Okay, good to know.

I see I am not aware enough about 60s political landscape.

Who are other potential running mates ? Preferably ones who are more right-wing than LBJ.
 
Okay, good to know.

I see I am not aware enough about 60s political landscape.

Who are other potential running mates ? Preferably ones who are more right-wing than LBJ.

I think LBJ was about as far to the right as you could go without alienating labor and African Americans too much. If LBJ declined and another southerner was wanted, my guess is that it would be Albert Gore, Sr., senator from Tennessee, who had not signed the Southern manifesto and had voted for the (admittedly watered-down) civil rights bill of 1957.

More likely, though, without LBJ available, JFK would go for Stuart Symington--the kind of moderate liberal who was everyone's second choice.
 
Kennedy/Symington probably also results in Nixon eking out a win -- I just don't see Symington pulling in southern votes (esp. Texas) like LBJ did, especially since he refused to speak before segregated audiences (which Kennedy and LBJ were willing to do).

(Cf. https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ts-katarn-edition.421710/page-6#post-15249449 )

Let us assume that Kennedy-Symington loses Texas and (much more dubiously) North and South Carolina. Those were the only southern states Nixon lost by close margins (and NC, where he lost by more than four points, wasn't that close). That still wouldn't be enough electoral votes for Nixon to win; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960 The race would go into the House, where JFK would have the advantage.

Nixon lost the election in the North (and Missouri), not in the South. That's where most of the major states he lost by three points or less were: IL, NJ, MI, MC, PA.
 

Anchises

Banned
Let us assume that Kennedy-Symington loses Texas and (much more dubiously) North and South Carolina. Those were the only southern states Nixon lost by close margins (and NC, where he lost by more than four points, wasn't that close). That still wouldn't be enough electoral votes for Nixon to win; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960 The race would go into the House, where JFK would have the advantage.

Nixon lost the election in the North (and Missouri), not in the South. That's where most of the major states he lost by three points or less were: IL, NJ, MI, MC, PA.

Would a Smathers VP really cost JFK that much in the North ? Generally the VP seems to have a really small impact on voters and in JFK's case no one could have expected that his VP would be so important. The man was young and as far as the public was concerned healthy.

Wouldn't Smathers be seen as ultimately inconsequential by black and liberal voters?
 
Would a Smathers VP really cost JFK that much in the North ? Generally the VP seems to have a really small impact on voters and in JFK's case no one could have expected that his VP would be so important. The man was young and as far as the public was concerned healthy.

Wouldn't Smathers be seen as ultimately inconsequential by black and liberal voters?

I think you have to remember that JFK was already viewed with suspicion by some liberals, who would have preferred Stevenson or Humphrey and who (this is related to their suspicions of JFK's father [1]) remembered JFK's failure to vote on the censure of Joe McCarthy [2], and by some African Americans (who remembered his vote for the jury trial amendment which weakened the 1957 Civil Rights Act). Taking Smathers, who was to the right of LBJ--and who had defeated Claude Pepper in 1950 in a race comparable in its red-baiting to Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas--would exacerbate these suspicions. (Remember that Nixon seemed more pro-civil-rights than JFK, and that even Martin Luther King, Sr. had favored Nixon until his son's arrest. Even after the phone call, Nixon got a respectable 32 percent of the African American vote--not quite as good as Eisenhower's 39 percent in 1956 but much better than any Republican presidential candidate would in future elections. https://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/ In 1960 the Democrats definitely could not take the African American vote for granted.)

Anyway, even if most of the liberals and African Americans who voted for JFK-LBJ would vote for JFK-Smathers, "most" isn't enough. JFK carried Illinois by 0.19 percent, Missouri by 0.52 percent, and New Jersey by 0.8 percent. If Nixon carried those three states he would have won (not even to mention Michigan and Pennsylvania, which JFK carried by a bit over 2 percent, and which had large black populations--or Minnesota, where JFK won by 1.43 percent, and where some Humphrey liberals were still not happy about JFK's defeating their hero). Very small defections would give those states to Nixon--who would thereby win the Electoral College. And the choice of Smathers would hurt JFK with Stevenson-loving Californians (in the end JFK narrowly lost California anyway but of course he could not know in advance that he would do so, or that he would not need California.)

There is also the obvious fact that seems to be ignored here that LBJ, Symington, Scoop Jackson, Humphrey and the other people mentioned for the vice-presidency were all men of stature, men who could be taken seriously as president--as could Henry Cabot Lodge on the Republican side. One reason that Smathers was never seriously mentioned is that he was an obvious lightweight who could not be taken seriously as president. That might not have changed many votes, but in as close a race as 1960 not that many votes had to be changed. Nixon's claim that JFK was a frivolous immature playboy--in contrast to the more "mature" Nixon--would only be strengthened by choosing someone solely because he was a personal friend.

And above all, what in the world would JFK gain to counter all these downsides? Florida was still a relatively small southern state in those days, with only ten electoral votes--and it is by no means clear that Smathers would be enough to erase Nixon's 3.03 point lead there. In the Deep South, Nixon was not really competitive except in SC; the only real race was between JFK Democrats and unpledged-electors Democrats (the unpledged electors ultimately voted for Harry Byrd). For the Upper South, someone like Gore would be a safer choice.

Smathers was a pal, no doubt. But Bebe Rebozo, another Floridian, was Nixon's pal (actually it was Smathers who got them acquainted!) and I doubt that Nixon ever considered him as a running mate.

[1] "It's not the Pope who worries me, it's the Pop."--Harry Truman

[2] Yes, he was in the hospital for a back operation but he could have paired if he wanted to.
 
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Smathers was an interesting guy. He was a segregationist, but he also supported voting rights, voting for the Voting Rights Act and consistently voting for legislation that would ban poll taxes. A President Smathers likely means no Civil Rights Act, but you'll probably get a Voting Rights Act.
 
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