Humphrey opposed Johnson on Vietnam

WI in 1966 or 67 Humphrey were persuaded that US policy was wrong.

Any chance he would have influenced Johnson to chang things?

If not can he go public and stay VP until Jan 69.

If he had would Johnson have withdrawn from seeking the nomination.

Any other person JOhnson might have sought the nomination for
 
WOW!! LBJ would have kicked HHH ass. LBJ might have stayed in the race. The thing is that I wonder is opposite of what I just said. Was LBJ more of a bully who would have backed down if HHH challenged him? And my answer, yes LBJ was a bully. No he would not have backed down. He would have destroyed Humphrey. I think most presidents would have not tolerated any change of opinion from their VP. That is the price a VEEP pays for being a VEEP.
 
Not happening, period. It would go against HHH's personality, which was to be extremely loyal to the party and not have a spine on intraparty matters. If he somehow did, he'd be virtually quarantined in the Naval Observatory and politically dead.
 
Not happening, period. It would go against HHH's personality, which was to be extremely loyal to the party

Humphrey was loyal as a deputy senate leader and VP to LBJ, but I'm convinced that if he isn't chosen for the ticket in '64, and stays in the senate, then he ends up being just about the first non-'sunshine patriot' to go against the war.

I doubt he runs in '68, not unless he fills McGovern's role as a leading senate supporter of RFK and Kennedy dies.

'72 is when an original-anti-war Senator Humphrey would have come into his own.

and not have a spine on intraparty matters.

You realise he helped split the Democratic party during the very year he first ran for senate, right?

Civil Rights is a longer internal struggle for Democrats than any other issue that existed.
 
Humphrey was loyal as a deputy senate leader and VP to LBJ, but I'm convinced that if he isn't chosen for the ticket in '64, and stays in the senate, then he ends up being just about the first non-'sunshine patriot' to go against the war.

I doubt he runs in '68, not unless he fills McGovern's role as a leading senate supporter of RFK and Kennedy dies.

'72 is when an original-anti-war Senator Humphrey would have come into his own.



You realise he helped split the Democratic party during the very year he first ran for senate, right?

Civil Rights is a longer internal struggle for Democrats than any other issue that existed.

From what I've read, Humphrey's hawkishness was also based on his own personal conviction. In a 1967 address to the ADA he said "from Munich till today..." which hardly sounds like a faintheart mouthing lines he didn't really believe. IIRC he never recanted his Vietnam stance from those years, even in the 1970s.

If Humphrey doesn't run in '68 then Scoop Jackson runs. Someone has to run as the LBJ proxy simply because there's no way Johnson lets Kennedy skate to the nomination. Whether Jackson runs in the primaries himself or uses the proxy strategy employed by HHH IOTL is certainly debatable.
 
I wouldn't say HHH was spineless, but he certainly was a Cold Warrior. He's the personification of a post-war liberal. Humphrey was the leading supporter of civil rights within the Democratic Party, a major proponent of big government solutions to poverty, an economic Keynesian, and most defining of this era, a staunch opponent of the Soviet Union and Communism. So Humphrey's eventual criticism of Vietnam took a long time to come around due to deep-rooted ideological concerns. That was the case with many Democrats and Wilsonian liberals who saw Communism as an oppressive evil which the United States had a responsibility to stop.
 
The C-Span series is fantastic IMHO

Looking at the last two episodes it occured to me that Goldwater and Humphrey were probably two of the most decent men to never become President and they were defated by two of the least decent men to serve.
 
From what I've read, Humphrey's hawkishness was also based on his own personal conviction. In a 1967 address to the ADA he said "from Munich till today..." which hardly sounds like a faintheart mouthing lines he didn't really believe. IIRC he never recanted his Vietnam stance from those years, even in the 1970s.

I'm speculating about him remaining as Senator Humphrey after 1964, not VP Humphrey. As VP he was wedded to his administration's Vietnam War... Sort of like Bobby was wedded to his brother's Vietnam policy (though luckily he was able to get away with "that was all before the escalation" as a defence.)

I'd go as far as to say Humphrey's support for Vietnam would track that of the man who replaced him in his seat, Fritz Mondale. That is, he'd be in favour of the war at first, he wouldn't be as sceptical as the likes of Morse and Fullbright, but he'd join the rush for the exit once it became obvious that the administration was lying about 'the light at the end of the tunnel'.

I can't see him being a deadender, even if his progressive friend Paul Douglas demonstrated it was possible for a liberal to be a deadender on Vietnam.

HHH wanted to be president, and if he had never served as VP in a war administration he'd quickly come to the conclusion that he had to get out in front of the issue as a cleanskin. Hence my belief that a never-served-as-VP Humphrey is the only New Politics presidential candidate who could possibly win in 1972.

Though I gather you don't believe RFK was ever anti-war, in which case I don't think we'll be able to agree on the definition of anti-war-Democrat after Tet (I do agree with the contention that Bobby Kennedy wasn't a very good New Politics candidate.)

If Humphrey doesn't run in '68 then Scoop Jackson runs. Someone has to run as the LBJ proxy simply because there's no way Johnson lets Kennedy skate to the nomination. Whether Jackson runs in the primaries himself or uses the proxy strategy employed by HHH IOTL is certainly debatable.

If VP Humphrey doesn't run then surely LBJ will push for John Connally.

I don't know enough about Jackson to know whether he thought he had the political capital to run against an upstart Kennedy campaign and/or Connally and/or the threat of LBJ deciding to break his promise to resign by jumping into the convention. We're talking about political calculations that go beyond whatever ideological motives these guys had. I actually take it for granted that a HHH who'd stayed in the senate wouldn't run in '68, seeing as how there is an incumbent Johnson VP likely to seek the nomination and there's Kennedy as well.


This ideological laundry sort of also applies to the Kennedys...
 
HHH: Dunno.

RFK: I say were he to become POTUS in '68, it would be like Obama on Iraq. (Certainly the rhetoric fits that mold)

Connally: How would he get Northern and labor support? Too conservative for them IMO. Jackson's better because he has impeccable labor and hawk cred.
 
Connally: How would he get Northern and labor support? Too conservative for them IMO. Jackson's better because he has impeccable labor and hawk cred.

I stand by Connally being LBJ's preferred successor in the event of a truly open contest. It helps that the Texas governor actually did make moves in OTL to influence the '68 convention process, with regional support, something Jackson didn't attempt until '76, without regional support.

Anyway, surely the NorthEastern and MidWestern bosses would just rally around your guy Bobby in the event of no incumbent POTUS or VP seeking the nomination at Chicago--Jackson looking good on paper doesn't change the fact he doesn't have a major profile at this point. The last nominee without a national profile at convention time was Stevenson '52 (which goes to help Connally should RFK not make it to this ATL Chicago either).

Not that I think it's likely that a VP Humphrey declines to run--I was only ever speculating about him in a scenario where someone else is Johnson's vice president.
 
I stand by Connally being LBJ's preferred successor in the event of a truly open contest.

That is like George Bush setting up Rick Perry to be his successor in 2008. Assuming they liked each other of course. :p

The man is basically Lyndon Johnson, except slightly more Conservative and with a little more Charisma. I simply don't see the headliner going down well. The people see a Texan heading the Democratic ticket saying we need to fight the Vietnam War harder, when there is already an incumbent Democratic Texan President having sent in (500,000) men to Vietnam who is vastly unpopular. It just seems to have too many negatives for the General Election itself, and I would hope that Johnson would be able to see that, or at the very least recognize it as being there.

Not to mention you will have types like Eugene McCarthy who (grudgingly) endorsed Humphrey towards the end of the race. No way in hell that is going to happen with someone like Connally heading the ticket.​
 
First, we need to know if HHH is still VP. But it's hard to see HHH declining in '64- he wanted to be POTUS and in 1964, running as LBJ's successor come '68 was hardly seen as a liability. In his LBJ biography, Randall Woods notes that no Southerner was even considered: Gene McCarthy, Bob McNamara, HHH and RFK were the names bandied about. McNamara was still a registered Republican adamantly opposed to a VP nomination. LBJ himself noted that labor and liberals "would revolt if I crammed Bob down their throats."

Let's say HHH has a Damascene conversion sometime in 1967. It doesn't hurt him with the bosses, since Daley himself was quietly a very firm dove. LBJ might be seething but assuming everything proceeds similarly to OTL (unless he drops out at SOTU time instead of 3/31) there's not much he can do.

What does this do to the campaign dynamic? Kennedy can easily outflank HHH on the war, but most likely the conversation shifts to their differences on domestic policy and who's more electable.
 
I keep coming up with the name Pat Brown as the most likely non-Humphery Veep for LBJ in 1964, and seeing that the Democratic convention is a month after Goldwater gets the nod at San Francisco for GOP nominee I see Johnson being very amenable to recruiting the last office holder to have beaten Richard Nixon, what with the underlying message that sends to the Western Right. The Catholic angel also helps.

Although I said above that I don't see HHH running against this Vice President Brown (or whomever) after Johnson quits I guess there's no reason his ambition couldn't get the better of him.

Hmmm, surely McCarthy wouldn't run if he thought his senior senator was just aching to jump into New Hampshire as the leader of the doves. So, instead of Clean Gene, RFK faces a more professional opponent, one able to square the circle between organised labor, the machines and the more respectable anti-war Democrats? That alone might make RFK realise that his own tilt at the nomination is itself merely an act of symbolism, that he's just running to set himself up for '72/'76 ahead of the older Humphery, nothing's going to stop VP Brown (or whomever) winning in Chicago.


Yabbut my caveat was that, in the event of no HHH running in 1968 then LBJ is going to want a surrogate as his candidate at the convention, not that said surrogate could win the nomination (though, come to think of it, if Humphery has stayed in the senate and become the leader of the doves--the Sunshine Patriots--then he's dead to Johnson politically and can't become his surrogate, regardless of all the other water he may have carried for the administration on the hill. So there's still an outside chance of HHH being nominee in this scenario.)
 
I keep coming up with the name Pat Brown as the most likely non-Humphery Veep for LBJ in 1964, and seeing that the Democratic convention is a month after Goldwater gets the nod at San Francisco for GOP nominee I see Johnson being very amenable to recruiting the last office holder to have beaten Richard Nixon, what with the underlying message that sends to the Western Right. The Catholic angel also helps.

Although I said above that I don't see HHH running against this Vice President Brown (or whomever) after Johnson quits I guess there's no reason his ambition couldn't get the better of him.

Hmmm, surely McCarthy wouldn't run if he thought his senior senator was just aching to jump into New Hampshire as the leader of the doves. So, instead of Clean Gene, RFK faces a more professional opponent, one able to square the circle between organised labor, the machines and the more respectable anti-war Democrats? That alone might make RFK realise that his own tilt at the nomination is itself merely an act of symbolism, that he's just running to set himself up for '72/'76 ahead of the older Humphery, nothing's going to stop VP Brown (or whomever) winning in Chicago.



Yabbut my caveat was that, in the event of no HHH running in 1968 then LBJ is going to want a surrogate as his candidate at the convention, not that said surrogate could win the nomination (though, come to think of it, if Humphery has stayed in the senate and become the leader of the doves--the Sunshine Patriots--then he's dead to Johnson politically and can't become his surrogate, regardless of all the other water he may have carried for the administration on the hill. So there's still an outside chance of HHH being nominee in this scenario.)

If Brown runs and alt-HHH is the dove leader then RFK won't run. He said IOTL that his concerns were the war and the cities, and since ITTL Brown won't have the Watts riots on his hands he'll have cred on the cities. HHH has dove cred. Doubt RFK runs in '72 because the pendulum will swing GOP, more likely '76 or even '80 depending on how vulnerable the GOP incumbent (Reagan if he's still Gov ITTL) is. Brown easily wins the nomination, and unlike HHH Brown is a fighter- as he proved in his '62 campaign against Nixon.
 
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