Paul V McNutt
Banned
Reagan on the ticket in 1980 didn't let Carter carry any of those states even with a moderate Republican splitting the vote.
In 1980, there was a recession and a hostage crisis.
Reagan on the ticket in 1980 didn't let Carter carry any of those states even with a moderate Republican splitting the vote.
That's just empty rhetoric. Humphrey's actions show he wasn't willing to do anything meaningful to stop busing as in 1972 he voted against the Griffin Amendment (which would have stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction over busing cases.)
http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting-record//lccr_voting_record_92nd_congress.pdf
Humphrey may say he is against forced busing, but his judicial appointees will still order it, and he will oppose anything that would actually stop it like the Griffin Amendment or a constitutional amendment. And remember OTL the Griffin Amendment very nearly passed. ITTL if the Republicans do even just a little better than they did in the OTL midterms then it probably will pass, which will force Humphrey to veto it. The upshot of this is that Reagan and Wallace will both absolutely clobber Humphrey on this issue. And as a reminder of public opinion regarding desegregation busing, a Gallup poll in November 1971, found 18% of the public supporting forced busing, and a whopping 76% opposing it. This issue will absolutely kill Humphrey in the Mid-West and South.
People worried about "big government" in those areas (all over the nation really) would have voted for Reagan anyway. The big bad federal government wasn't something most Americans saw as a problem in 1972. The idea of "big government" coming to hurt you is something that became popular during the Reagan era 1980s. Which was post-Vietnam, post-Pentagon Papers, post-Watergate, post-Church committee. Watergate played a HUGE role in the American public losing faith in their elected leaders. You have to not look at this "President Humphrey" thing in 2015 glasses and look at it with early 1970s glasses. There was not as much anti-government sentiment in 1972 as there was in 1980 or now in 2015. I don't think attacking "big government" would help Reagan much in 1972. Especially if you have Humphrey on the other side telling senior citizens (people who voted for FDR multiple times) that Reagan would take away their social security checks and their Medicare.Very unlikely. Wallace is too much of a big government advocate to have any appeal to most northern and western conservatives.
They would vote for Humphrey, remember which region of the country receives the most in government welfare aide? It was (and still is) the south. Southern politicians (still controlled by the Democrats) would have stuck with Humphrey over Reagan because Reagan would have cut social programs (like he did in OTL in the 80s) while Humphrey would have avoided cuts and proposed increased funding to those welfare programs the south benefited the most from. Nixon in OTL was not as much of a budget slasher as Reagan would have campaigned as in 1972.We were talking though about how the southern Congressional delegations would vote once the election was thrown into the House. How the south would initially vote is irrelevant to that.
Ronald Reagan IS NOT Richard Nixon. People looked at Nixon differently than they did at Reagan. Nixon was seen as more moderate and less ideological than Reagan. Conservative Democrats in states like Texas could support somebody like Nixon who wouldn't do anything to drastic when came to their state's receiving federal funds. They wouldn't have been able to say the same thing about a possible Reagan presidency if he won in 1972. Many of those southern Democratic congressman and senators knew what they would get with Humphrey, many of them had worked with Humphrey since his days in the senate.And yet in 1968, the south immediately voted for Nixon in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. (Also Oklahoma and Kentucky if you consider them southern states.) Furthermore, in Texas more southerners voted for Nixon than Wallace. Thus many southern states were perfectly willing to vote Republican despite the fact that doing so would frustrate Wallace's scheme. And do you really think any of those states are less likely to vote for Reagan than Nixon? (Especially since the south just saw in 1968 that Wallace's strategy did nothing but get Hubert Humphrey elected. Why would they make the same mistake twice?)
As Lord caedus has already stated, Humphrey opposed busing as far back as the mid 60s. Your basing your argument on the Griffin amendment, a vote that SENATOR Humphrey made. As we all know things (and positions) change once a person becomes president. A President Humphrey would have argued that busing isn't needed. He would have said what is needed is better schools in every neighborhood. Humphrey could have used the bully pulpit to call for more funding to America's public schools.
But when it comes right down to it Humphrey opposed busing as a means to integrate schools. Even when he was running for president in 1972 in the OTL.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AAIBAJ&sjid=TWEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7152,962189&hl=en
As president Humphrey could have (and likely would have) used all four years of his first term to show that he opposed busing and push for increased funding to public schools. The Democratically controlled congress (at the request of the Humphrey administration) would have likely let legislation involving the busing issue stall and die in congressional committees. A President Humphrey could have lobbied groups like the NAACP not to force the busing issue until after the 1972 election. He could have made concessions to the African-American community by appointing the first black U.S. Attorney General (possibly somebody like Robert L. Carter). He could have nominated somebody like Patricia Roberts Harris as the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and through executive order turn "Black History Week" into "Black History Month". He could have encouraged and helped more blacks get elected to political offices around the country in the run up to the 1972 election. So he could have as president avoided the busing issue all together.
In reality busing was an issue that Nixon in OTL kept alive during his first term through the 1972 election to divide the Democrats. People like Humphrey and other Democrats knew that, but there was little they could do about it since they didn't control the White House. Hell, Massachusetts voters literally threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at Ted Kennedy over the busing issue, but he still won re-election with 69% of the vote in 1976.
People worried about "big government" in those areas (all over the nation really) would have voted for Reagan anyway.
The big bad federal government wasn't something most Americans saw as a problem in 1972. The idea of "big government" coming to hurt you is something that became popular during the Reagan era 1980s. Which was post-Vietnam, post-Pentagon Papers, post-Watergate, post-Church committee. Watergate played a HUGE role in the American public losing faith in their elected leaders. You have to not look at this "President Humphrey" thing in 2015 glasses and look at it with early 1970s glasses. There was not as much anti-government sentiment in 1972 as there was in 1980 or now in 2015. I don't think attacking "big government" would help Reagan much in 1972. Especially if you have Humphrey on the other side telling senior citizens (people who voted for FDR multiple times) that Reagan would take away their social security checks and their Medicare.
They would vote for Humphrey, remember which region of the country receives the most in government welfare aide? It was (and still is) the south. Southern politicians (still controlled by the Democrats) would have stuck with Humphrey over Reagan because Reagan would have cut social programs (like he did in OTL in the 80s) while Humphrey would have avoided cuts and proposed increased funding to those welfare programs the south benefited the most from. Nixon in OTL was not as much of a budget slasher as Reagan would have campaigned as in 1972.
Ronald Reagan IS NOT Richard Nixon. People looked at Nixon differently than they did at Reagan. Nixon was seen as more moderate and less ideological than Reagan. Conservative Democrats in states like Texas could support somebody like Nixon who wouldn't do anything to drastic when came to their state's receiving federal funds. The wouldn't have been able to say the same thing about a possible Reagan presidency if he won in 1972. Many of those southern Democratic congressman and senators knew what they would get with Humphrey, may of them had worked with Humphrey since his days in the senate.
Plus as the sitting president, Humphrey could have been able to raise a lot of money to help keep these southern Democrats in office. And not all southern Democrats by this point were staunch segregationist like Wallace was. By 1972 people like Jimmy Carter (Georgia), Reubin Askew (Florida), Dale Bumpers (Arkansas), Edwin Edwards (Louisiana), John C. West (South Carolina) and Dolph Briscoe (Texas) were all governors of southern states and they opposed segregation and most of them appointed African-Americans for the first time to various state offices. These newly elected "New South" Democrats likely would have backed and campaigned for President Humphrey in 1972 as well. Democrats were just much stronger in the south in 1972 than they are today.
So your argument is that Humphrey as president will act exactly the opposite as he did as a Senator in 1972? I really don't think Hubert Humphrey was that unprincipled or flighty. He didn't support the Griffin Amendment OTL, and there is no reason to think he will support it if he is President. And if Humphrey acts against the Griffin Amendment that will utterly destroy his claims of being anti-busing.
Increasing funding of the public schools will not prevent the busing issue.
There was no pro-busing legislation in Congress OTL, so there is nothing to stall that would facilitate busing. And OTL Congress wasn't able to stop the Griffin Amendment from coming up for a vote despite both the Democrat (Mansfield) and Republican (Scott) senate leaders opposing it. If they couldn't prevent a vote on Griffin OTL, they are very unlikely to be able to prevent it ITTL. (Especially since the Republicans will probably do better in the 1970 mid-terms then they did OTL, which means the Senate in 1972 will probably be more conservative than OTL.)
It's not about groups like the NAACP not pushing for busing because Humphrey asked them not to. It's would've been more about the civil rights and equal rights groups like the NAACP trying to keep a guy like Humphrey in the White House and keeping a guy like Ronald Reagan out of the White House. Black leaders of that time would have known they would have a better working relationship with Humphrey as president than they would have with another Barry Goldwater type (in this case Reagan) as president. Then if George Wallace runs as an Independent, black leaders would certainly do whatever they could to help Humphrey get re-elected. They would've known with Wallace in the race that could hurt Humphrey and make Reagan win the presidency with less than 50% of the vote. There would have been massive voter registration efforts in predominate black communities across the country. The Humphrey campaign would have went to those communities talking about his support of civil rights, his record of supporting civil rights before it was popular, and warning them that if Reagan were to become president, he'd rollback all the civil rights achievements of the last decade. Groups like the NAACP would have seen Humphrey as more of an ally than they would have seen Reagan or Wallace as an ally. They wouldn't want to be combative and push busing (which again likely wouldn't have been an issue anyway) in 1972 if it might've cost Humphrey the White House. Plus not even all African-Americans supported busing. Many black voters also opposed busing. There was still a lot of work to do on civil rights in 1972 and black groups and leaders knew Humphrey was more likely to be on their sides than Governor Reagan would be as president.And why exactly will the NAACP hold off on pushing busing just because Humphrey asks them to do so? None of those groups are going to prioritize the political career of Hubert Humphrey over pursuing policies they think are necessary. And as a practical matter there is no good reason for them to delay on forcing the busing issue. They have a liberal dominated Supreme Court, and a president that is very sympathetic to civil rights issues in the White House. That is the exact time for them to press their agenda.
Appointing a black Attorney General does nothing to prevent busing. (It's not as though the DOJ was driving the busing suits OTL.)
And certainly enacting Black History Month and encouraging more African-Americans to run for office does nothing to prevent busing.
Again it likely wouldn't have been an issue in 1972 if HHH was president. It was the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that pushed the Swann case and other busing cases to the Supreme Court IOTL. If Humphrey is president like ITTL, there is no guarantee that it goes that far. And even if they still would push for integration through busing, that's not going to hurt Humphrey because he opposed it.Desegregation busing wasn't enacted because of executive or legislative action. It come about as a result of private law suits. Humphrey can't prevent those law suits from being filed, and as such he can't stop busing from becoming a major issue.
Because a President Humphrey could have (and likely would have) worked on things like expanding fairer employment, housing and educational opportunities to African-Americans. Much more so than Nixon did in OTL. The NAACP knew (just like everybody else) that the POTUS sets the agenda. I highly doubt groups like the NAACP would have been like "we agree with President Humphrey 90% of the time and have had great working relationship with him throughout his years in the senate and as V-P. But this busing issue is just sooo important to us, that we'll oppose him all the way to the Supreme Court and risk losing him as an ally after the 1972 election, all because busing is the only issue we care about." Come on, a group like the NAACP would not be that short sighted that they'd risk losing an ally like Humphrey just because of the busing issue. The NAACP was (and still is) more concerned with things like equal employment, educational, and housing opportunities. Humphrey would have said (and did say) that to fix the problem of unequal educational opportunities you have to have better schools for all children, not move some children to other schools. Give blacks a real opportunity to make more money, help them move up the socioeconomic ladder, so that they can (through the increased tax revenue they'd create) have better funded schools in their communities.And how will controlling the White House enable Democrats to keep busing from becoming a major issue. The only thing you mentioned that might possibly do that is convincing the NAACP not to press the issue, and the Democrats don't need the White House to attempt that. (The argument that busing will hurt the Democrats at the polls applies just as much if the Democrats are out of power as if they hold the White House. That argument obviously didn't sway the NAACP OTL, so there is no reason to think it would work in a Humphrey presidency timeline.
Well it didn't. In 1970 the year the Swann case went to the Supreme Court Democrat Phil Hart was re-elected in Michigan and Carl Levin defeated Robert Griffin in 1978. Also in 1970 Adlai Stevenson III won in Illinois. That same year Democrat John Gilligan won the governor's race in Ohio and Milton Shapp won in Pennsylvania. In 1974, Democrat John Glenn won in Ohio and Stevenson won again in Illinois. So Democrats were more than capable of winning elections in the Midwest during the busing era. Considering Humphrey opposed integration busing, he would have campaigned in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Philadelphia telling Democratic voters that he opposed integration busing and had a record of doing so. You know who would have also opposed busing in states like Michigan Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania...black parents of bused students who were being bullied and harassed at their new schools. Humphrey opposed busing and it's as simple as that. Reagan and the Republicans would not have been able to even paint him as a busing supporter.And Massachusetts was Democrat enough in 1972, that the Democrats could still win there despite the busing issue. The same is not true in Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Those are battleground states at this time, and the busing issue will kill Humphrey in all three states.
And there weren't enough of them (northern conservatives) in 1972 to help Ronald Reagan win the presidency that year either. Especially if the Rockefeller Republicans in the north vote or Humphrey over Reagan. In OTL in 1980 Reagan won Michigan with 49% of the vote, Ohio with 51% of the vote, Illinois with 49% of the vote, and Pennsylvania with 49% of the vote. So even under the best of circumstances for a challenger like Ronald Reagan (a horrible economy, high inflation, and a ongoing hostage crisis under an incumbent president). He still didn't blow away Jimmy Carter in those Midwest states in 1980. I see no reason to think he would do that to a President Humphrey in 1972 with the economy not as bad and no hostage crisis to run against. 1972 was just too early for a conservative like Reagan to win, even with somebody like George Wallace in the race taking some votes away from Humphrey.That's exactly the point. Northern conservatives aren't going to vote for Wallace.
It's not about Reagan losing anti-government voters to Wallace. That's not what I said. I said he would get those voters in 1972. There is just not enough of them in 1972 for him to win. Reagan would have lost much needed white segregationist Jesse Helms/Strom Thurmond supporters in the south to Wallace. Meaning those southern electoral votes would have went to Wallace making it harder for Reagan to win. I think Reagan knowing this weakness would have tried to balance the ticket by picking a southerner to be his running mate. That's why I had him choosing Tennessee Senator Howard Baker to be his running mate. Baker was not too conservative, but also not as liberal as Percy or Schweiker. I agree I don't think Reagan picking a liberal Republican would hurt him in 1972, I also don't think it would have helped him much either. That's why I think he'd try to balance the ticket by picking a non-offensive southerner like Howard Baker.I'm not saying that Reagan would run on an anti-government platform, I'm saying he won't lose conservative voters to Wallace over his veep pick. Yes, anti-government sentiment was less in the early 1970s, but that also means the consequences of picking a moderate veep will be much less as well. Basically anyone that is ideological enough to be upset about Reagan selecting Percy, is going to have to be a small government conservative. (Blue collar Reagan Democrat type voters in the north will be fine with a Percy or Schweiker pick.) Thus the only people that would be ideological enough to be upset about a moderate veep will be the people that do oppose big government and thus they will not be willing to support Wallace.
Humphrey didn't win a southern state other than Texas in 1968 and it was still a close election). So yeah I know he'd be unpopular as president in the south by 1972. That's why in my scenario I had Humphrey winning only Texas again in the south and gave Reagan Florida, Virginia and boarder state Kentucky. Many of those southern Democrats had been in their seats for decades and their voters knew because of their tenure they had a lot more power than the average congressman and senator. Many of these southern Democrats were chairmen of powerful and influential congressional committees. They had the ability and history of "bringing home the bacon" to their home districts and states. In 1974 southerners like Herman Talmadge, Russell Long, Fritz Hollings, and James Allen all won with over 65% of the vote (Long ran unopposed). Margins of victory in the south that high in 1974 were not all because of Watergate. And in the House just looking at the margin of victory for southern Democrats in 1974, many of them had huge margins of victory and many of them ran unopposed.I think you are underestimating just how unpopular Humphrey is likely to be in the south by 1972. Any southern Democrat who votes for Humphrey in 1972 is going to have a really tough time in 1974. And its not like Reagan can't offer the south goodies as well. (Reagan will want to increase military spending, and that will bring billions of extra dollars into the south.)
Humphrey's campaign, Larry O'Brien, Leonard Woodcock, George Meany, and Richard Daley would have portrayed him as the second coming of Barry Goldwater. Reagan's own rhetoric would have done that as well.By this point Reagan has been Governor of California for 6 years. He has an extensive record, and it is not the record of a radical.
This is not 2015 we're talking about here. In 1972 Humphrey would have won Texas, you just have too many Dolph Briscoe and Lloyd Bentsen types down there supporting the Democrats. They've been voting Democratic for decades and that's just not going to change just because Ronald Reagan comes along wearing his cowboy hat. They voted for Humphrey in 68, Kennedy in 60, and FDR in the 40s and 30s. The rest of the deep south would have went to Wallace. Reagan would have won most of the west and Humphrey would have won most of the northeast. The race would have mostly been fought in the boarder states and the Midwest. With Humphrey having the edge in the Midwest with labor support.If the Democrats ran a southerner they could perform reasonably well in the south in presidential races in the 1960s and 1970s. They are not doing that here. Unless Humphrey dumps Muskie from the ticket (unlikely) this is going to be a ticket of two Northern liberals. And Humphrey isn't some Doughface northerner that will play well in the south either. I can't see Humphrey winning even a single electoral vote from the south, and that makes it very difficult for him to win the election.
You're just refusing to listen. HUMPHREY OPPOSED BUSING!!! You are putting way too much stock in that Griffin amendment vote that he made as a senator. You have to look at Humphrey's record on busing throughout his career, not just one single vote. HHH opposed busing in 1964, 1968, and in 1972.
So the busing issue would not have been a problem for him with blue collar northern Democrats, because like them Humphrey opposed busing and had a record of opposing busing for years. He as president ITTL would not have even have had to vote on the Griffin amendment because he'd be president and not a senator.
Busing wouldn't even have been an issue in 1972. It wasn't really an major issue in the 1972 election IOTL. McGovern certaily didn't lose that election over busing and Nixon didn't win it because of busing. As I said, Ted Kennedy supported integration through busing and yes blue collar Massachusetts Democrats were angry at him over it. They threw food at him in anger over busing. But yet Kennedy won re-election in 1976 with 69% of the vote.
You're just putting way too much weight on the busing issue's effect on the 1972 campaign. Walter Mondale supported busing (unlike Humphrey) and Mondale in OTL was re-elected to his senate seat in 1972. The issue didn't seem to hurt Mondale in 1972 during the Nixon landslide or Kennedy in 1976. I don't see why it would cost Humphrey the presidency in 1972. Especially considering despite the Griffin amendment vote (which a President Humphrey would not have to vote on), Humphrey opposed busing in the 60s and in the 70s. You can talk about the Griffin amendment until the cows come home. It doesn't change the fact that Hubert Humphrey had an established record on opposing integrating schools through busing. So IF busing was even an issue for a President Humphrey by the 72 election, he could campaign on a record of opposing it.
It's not about groups like the NAACP not pushing for busing because Humphrey asked them not to. It's would've been more about the civil rights and equal rights groups like the NAACP trying to keep a guy like Humphrey in the White House and keeping a guy like Ronald Reagan out of the White House. Black leaders of that time would have known they would have a better working relationship with Humphrey as president than they would have with another Barry Goldwater type (in this case Reagan) as president. Then if George Wallace runs as an Independent, black leaders would certainly do whatever they could to help Humphrey get re-elected. They would've known with Wallace in the race that could hurt Humphrey and make Reagan win the presidency with less than 50% of the vote. There would have been massive voter registration efforts in predominate black communities across the country. The Humphrey campaign would have went to those communities talking about his support of civil rights, his record of supporting civil rights before it was popular, and warning them that if Reagan were to become president, he'd rollback all the civil rights achievements of the last decade. Groups like the NAACP would have seen Humphrey as more of an ally than they would have seen Reagan or Wallace as an ally. They wouldn't want to be combative and push busing (which again likely wouldn't have been an issue anyway) in 1972 if it might've cost Humphrey the White House. Plus not even all African-Americans supported busing. Many black voters also opposed busing. There was still a lot of work to do on civil rights in 1972 and black groups and leaders knew Humphrey was more likely to be on their sides than Governor Reagan would be as president.
Again it likely wouldn't have been an issue in 1972 if HHH was president. It was the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that pushed the Swann case and other busing cases to the Supreme Court IOTL. If Humphrey is president like ITTL, there is no guarantee that it goes that far. And even if they still would push for integration through busing, that's not going to hurt Humphrey because he opposed it.
Come on, a group like the NAACP would not be that short sighted that they'd risk losing an ally like Humphrey just because of the busing issue. The NAACP was (and still is) more concerned with things like equal employment, educational, and housing opportunities. Humphrey would have said (and did say) that to fix the problem of unequal educational opportunities you have to have better schools for all children, not move some children to other schools. Give blacks a real opportunity to make more money, help them move up the socioeconomic ladder, so that they can (through the increased tax revenue they'd create) have better funded schools in their communities.
Well it didn't. In 1970 the year the Swann case went to the Supreme Court Democrat Phil Hart was re-elected in Michigan and Carl Levin defeated Robert Griffin in 1978. Also in 1970 Adlai Stevenson III won in Illinois. That same year Democrat John Gilligan won the governor's race in Ohio and Milton Shapp won in Pennsylvania. In 1974, Democrat John Glenn won in Ohio and Stevenson won again in Illinois. So Democrats were more than capable of winning elections in the Midwest during the busing era. Considering Humphrey opposed integration busing, he would have campaigned in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Philadelphia telling Democratic voters that he opposed integration busing and had a record of doing so. You know who would have also opposed busing in states like Michigan Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania...black parents of bused students who were being bullied and harassed at their new schools. Humphrey opposed busing and it's as simple as that. Reagan and the Republicans would not have been able to even paint him as a busing supporter.
And there weren't enough of them (northern conservatives) in 1972 to help Ronald Reagan win the presidency that year either. Especially if the Rockefeller Republicans in the north vote or Humphrey over Reagan. In OTL in 1980 Reagan won Michigan with 49% of the vote, Ohio with 51% of the vote, Illinois with 49% of the vote, and Pennsylvania with 49% of the vote. So even under the best of circumstances for a challenger like Ronald Reagan (a horrible economy, high inflation, and a ongoing hostage crisis under an incumbent president). He still didn't blow away Jimmy Carter in those Midwest states in 1980. I see no reason to think he would do that to a President Humphrey in 1972 with the economy not as bad and no hostage crisis to run against. 1972 was just too early for a conservative like Reagan to win, even with somebody like George Wallace in the race taking some votes away from Humphrey.
It's not about Reagan losing anti-government voters to Wallace. That's not what I said. I said he would get those voters in 1972. There is just not enough of them in 1972 for him to win.
Reagan would have lost much needed white segregationist Jesse Helms/Strom Thurmond supporters in the south to Wallace. Meaning those southern electoral votes would have went to Wallace making it harder for Reagan to win. I think Reagan knowing this weakness would have tried to balance the ticket by picking a southerner to be his running mate. That's why I had him choosing Tennessee Senator Howard Baker to be his running mate. Baker was not too conservative, but also not as liberal as Percy or Schweiker. I agree I don't think Reagan picking a liberal Republican would hurt him in 1972, I also don't think it would have helped him much either. That's why I think he'd try to balance the ticket by picking a non-offensive southerner like Howard Baker.
Humphrey didn't win a southern state other than Texas in 1968 and it was still a close election).
So yeah I know he'd be unpopular as president in the south by 1972. That's why in my scenario I had Humphrey winning only Texas again in the south and gave Reagan Florida, Virginia and boarder state Kentucky.
Many of those southern Democrats had been in their seats for decades and their voters knew because of their tenure they had a lot more power than the average congressman and senator. Many of these southern Democrats were chairmen of powerful and influential congressional committees. They had the ability and history of "bringing home the bacon" to their home districts and states. In 1974 southerners like Herman Talmadge, Russell Long, Fritz Hollings, and James Allen all won with over 65% of the vote (Long ran unopposed). Margins of victory in the south that high in 1974 were not all because of Watergate. And in the House just looking at the margin of victory for southern Democrats in 1974, many of them had huge margins of victory and many of them ran unopposed.
Remember the Republican Party is "the party of Lincoln" and in 1972 many southern voters are only a couple of generations removed from post-Civil War reconstruction. There were plenty of southerners in 1972 who grew up with their grandparents cursing Lincoln's name and his party. The Democrats had been so strong in the south for so long, the Republican Party just didn't have the infrastructure in the south to defeat long time Democratic politicians. By the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s yeah. But not in the early 1970s. I doubt many southern Democrats would have been that worried about 1974 if Humphrey were to win in 1972. Many of them had opposed Humphrey, Johnson, Kennedy, and Truman on various civil rights issues for decades and they still won re-election every time, as Democrats.
Humphrey's campaign, Larry O'Brien, Leonard Woodcock, George Meany, and Richard Daley would have portrayed him as the second coming of Barry Goldwater. Reagan's own rhetoric would have done that as well.
This is not 2015 we're talking about here. In 1972 Humphrey would have won Texas, you just have too many Dolph Briscoe and Lloyd Bentsen types down there supporting the Democrats. They've been voting Democratic for decades and that's just not going to change just because Ronald Reagan comes along wearing his cowboy hat. They voted for Humphrey in 68, Kennedy in 60, and FDR in the 40s and 30s. The rest of the deep south would have went to Wallace. Reagan would have won most of the west and Humphrey would have won most of the northeast. The race would have mostly been fought in the boarder states and the Midwest. With Humphrey having the edge in the Midwest with labor support.
Alright, what was Humphrey's specific anti-busing plan in 1972? What would he have done to prevent busing? Just saying he is anti-busing is not enough, not when Reagan and Wallace are proposing specific anti-busing proposals, and especially not if Humphrey publically opposed (or even outright vetoed) the Griffin Amendment.
Why? Nixon didn't have to take a stand on it. Nixon was in China when the congress was voting on the Griffin amendment. When he got back he continued to oppose busing and proposed an increase to school funding in the inner cities. Something Humphrey also supported (increased school funding). If Humphrey were in China during this time period, he'd be too wrapped on with foreign policy to be taking bold stands on one single amendment being voted on in the senate that both party's leaders (Mansfield and Scott) opposed. I doubt the press following him on his China trip would even ask him about the Griffin amendment.Are you seriously suggesting that the President of the United States is not going to be expected to comment on a major piece of legislation pending in Congress during a presidential election year? Even if Humphrey doesn't have to vote on the Griffin Amendment he is going to have to take some sort of public stance on it, and if he comes down against it (which he will) then he is siding with forced busing.
A Majority Leader Scott would have lobbied against it and possibly even threaten Griffin with the possibility of losing his majority whip role in the new congress if Griffin were to be re-elected in 1972. Any majority the Republicans would have won after the 1970 midterms would have been a slim majority, considering they would have needed to win 8 Democratic held seats while not losing the ones they already had to get a 51-49 majority. That would have been difficult to do even with Humphrey as president. Just looking at the 1972 senate map there were 20 Republican held seats up for re-election in 1972. So with higher voter turnout during a presidential election year, even if HHH were to lose, the Republicans would have had difficulty holding on to their majority. IOTL even with the Nixon landslide, Democrats picked up seats in 1972. This TL's Humphrey vs. Reagan match up would not have been as much of a blowout. So the Democrats could have very well taken back the majority in the senate after the 1972 election. Griffin was certainly using the busing issue to help him win re-election. He campaigned hard on that issue throughout 1972, but yet even with Nixon defeating McGovern in Michigan 56%-42%. Griffin only defeating Frank Kelley 53%-47%. Nixon did better in Michigan than Griffin did and Nixon didn't take a stand on the Griffin amendment. It didn't appear to hurt Nixon in Michigan not having to take a stand on the Griffin amendment. It wouldn't have hurt Humphrey there either considering he (like Nixon) opposed busing.Plus there is a very good chance the Griffin Amendment gets enacted ITTL. OTL it failed in the Senate by a single vote. Thus if the Republicans do better in the 1970 mid-terms (which is likely given the out of party power usually does gain seats in mid-term elections) they are likely to get the extra votes needed to pass the Griffin Amendment. At that point Humphrey will have to veto the bill (which is for all intents and purposes a very public vote on it.)
Michigan is my home state. I know a lot about internal Michigan politics. Michigan has an open primary system, meaning we don't have to register with any political party to vote in party primary elections. Michigan voters have a long history of voting in primary elections voting for candidates from the opposite party. We have a history of trying to cause mischief for the other party during primary elections. Republicans vote in the Democrat primary when the Republican is the incumbent and Democrats vote in the Republican primary when the Democrat is the incumbent. We try to vote for the most unelectable candidate of opposing party to either make the primary process for the other party go even longer. Or to give the nomination to a candidate who is so unelectable, our party's nominee has an easier path to winning the general election.Again just look at the OTL Michigan Democratic primary results in 1972. Michigan is a very heavily unionized, northern state. It was custom made for Hubert Humphrey. And he got utterly demolished there in the primary. George Wallace didn't just win the primary, he won an outright majority of the votes. Busing was the reason. Humphrey's past record against busing didn't help him in the slightest. The same is going to be true for President Humphrey. No one is going to care that he says he is against busing, if his actually actions as President end up helping it.
So you're saying that with a pro-civil rights president in the White House, civil rights groups will suddenly become less assertive in pushing for what they want? That seems... unlikely. The entire point of getting someone elected is so he will push the policies you want. And the NAACP obviously really, really wanted busing, since they pushed it OTL despite the overwhelming public opposition to it.
And wouldn't the conventional wisdom be that Wallace in the race would hurt Reagan? (Especially since ITTL Wallace in the race cost Nixon the '68 election.) Besides which the busing cases will have been initiated long before it is known if Wallace is going to run in 1972 or that Reagan will be the Republican candidate.
And if nothing else the Swann case was filed before the POD, so it is definitely going to go forward. The NAACP can't abandon it without destroying their credibility. (Not to mention the risk of getting really adverse case law if the case goes to the 4th Circuit without the plantiffs having adequate legal representation.)
So if busing can't hurt Humphrey then how did George Wallace win 50.96% of the vote in the Michigan primary?
They pushed busing OTL at this time despite the real possibility that Humphrey would be the Democratic candidate in 1972 and despite knowing that pushing busing would strengthen Wallace and probably hurt the Democrat candidate (be it Humphrey, Muskie, or McGovern) in 1972. Yes, 1972 ended up being a blow out election where busing didn't matter, but at the time when the NAACP will be pushing Swann forward (1970) they would have no way of knowing that, so they were obviously willing to fight for busing despite the fact that it hurt the Democrats chances in 1972 and thus would put at risk their other goals.
As for Reagan not being able to paint Humphrey as pro-busing, that is incredibly easy to do once Humphrey makes his opposition to the Griffin Amendment known. That will be the major anti-busing initiative in the lead up to the 1972 election. How candidates come down on it is how they will be viewed by the public on busing. Past votes and empty rhetoric won't matter if Humphrey opposes Griffin. Again look to the Michigan primary. That shows you what Democrat voters in 1972 thought about Humphrey's attitude on busing, and they obviously did not believe he was sincere in opposing it because if they had believed that then there is no reason for Michigan voters to so overwhelmingly vote for George Wallace.
Busing and Vietnam are likely to do as much damage to Humphrey as the economy and the hostage crisis did to Carter. And with Wallace in the race, Reagan might be able to carry those states with as little as 40% of the vote in them. And anyway as I already explained Reagan can lose Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois and still win outright in the electoral college so long as he carries Texas.
It was close in the popular vote, but not in the electoral college. Humphrey got clobbered there.
So you think Reagan would do worse in the south than Nixon did in 1968? That seems very unlikely. Reagan is a better ideological fit for the south than Nixon was, and the south just saw in 1968 that voting for Wallace is a self-defeating move.
The Republicans are getting stronger in the south every day though. Heck OTL, in the 93rd Congress, the Republicans had an outright majority of the House delegations from Tennessee and Virginia, and were just one seat short of a majority in the Alabama and Mississippi delegations, and the GOP is probably doing even better in the south ITTL due to Humphrey's unpopularity.
Besides which southern Democrats don't just have to worry about the Republicans, they also have to worry about primary challenges if they vote to reelect Humphrey.
Your last sentence is the key point. Those southern Democrats opposed Democrat presidents on civil rights issue. That's how they were able to stay in power. But any Democrat congressmen that votes for Humphrey over Reagan in a deadlocked election scenario, is effectively voting for civil rights. Just look at all the things you said Humphrey will do for civil rights, you are asking these southern Democrats to ratify every one of those policies, as well as guaranteeing another 4 years of such policies. That's taking a huge risk and there's no real upside for the southern Democrats to do so.
People tried to portray Reagan as an extremist in both his '66 and '70 gubernatorial runs. It didn't work. Reagan is just too personable and media savvy to be turned into Goldwater.
How in tarnation does Humphrey carry Texas in 1972 without LBJ's active support? He just barely carried it in 1968 with LBJ's full support and LBJ is much to sick by 1972 to get Humphrey across the finish line this time. Texas is obviously willing to vote Republican statewide since it has now twice elected John Tower to the senate. And Lloyd Bentsen's victory over Ralph Yarborough shows the state is no longer willing to elect liberals to statewide office. Humphrey is basically Yarborough with no actual connection to the state, so it is very unlikely he can carry Texas in 1972.