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Robert Heinlein attributed his defeat for the Democratic nomination for the California 59th Assembly District seat in 1938 at least in part to the similarity of his name to that of Konrad Henlein, head of the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party. (The primary was held on August 30, as the Sudeten crisis was nearing its climax, so Henlein's name was frequently mentioned in the American press.)

So let's take as our POD that the the Sudeten German Party has a leader named Konrad Braun or Konrad Schmidt instead of Konrad Henlein. Does Robert Heinlein go on to the State Assembly in Sacramento and to a successful political career? Here's why I doubt it, but can't totally rule it out:

(1) The most obvious cause of Heinlein's defeat was the California system of cross-filing, under which someone could enter the primaries of more than one party at once. If that "someone" was a well-known and popular officeholder, very often he (much less frequently, she) emerged from the primaries with the nominations of both major parties and therefore no serious challenge (or sometimes no challenge at all) in the general election. Heinlein actually had no *Democratic* opponents at all in the Democratic primary. He did however face opposition in that primary from "the longtime Republican incumbent in the Assembly seat, Charles W. Lyon, a fifty-year-old lawyer who had first been elected to the legislature in 1914." http://www.panshin.com/critics/Perry/perryA.htm

As it turned out, Lyon won both primaries. He defeated Heinlein by about 52%-48% in the Democratic primary. In the Republican primary, Lyon won with 5,695 votes to 3,891 votes for Murray Chotiner and 858 for two other Republicans. (Heinlein did not cross-file; he later claimed to oppose the cross-filing system on principle and referred to it disparagingly in *Take Back Your Government!* and in the story "A Bathroom of Her Own.") Chotiner, who was endorsed by the *Los Angeles Times* (then a very conservative newspaper which considered Lyon too liberal, even though EPIC had targetted him as especially unacceptable) was "a public-relations man who was later to become Richard Nixon's right-hand man in his campaign against Jerry Voorhis in 1946 and an advisor throughout Nixon's career." http://www.panshin.com/critics/Perry/perrynotes.html Since there were no minor party candidates, Lyon by winning both major party primaries was guaranteed the seat.

So let's suppose that the Henlein-Heinlein confusion was indeed responsible for Lyon's narrow victory in the Democratic primary. (There were actually other possible causes, such as Lyon's announcement just before the primary "that if re-elected, he would introduce a bill to provide a break on real-estate taxes and one to help finance old-age pensions" But for now I'll assume the name confusion alone was sufficient to make the difference.) If there is no such confusion, and Heinlein wins the Democratic primary, is he likely to defeat Lyon in the general election?

I doubt it. Lyon seems to have been pretty popular. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1914, was re-elected in 1916, then successfuly ran for the state Senate in 1918, and served there until he was defeated for re-election in 1930. In 1932--not a good year for Republicans--he was again elected to the Assembly, where he would serve until 1946 (when he unsuccessfuly ran for Lieutenant Governor). (He had been Chairman of the Rules Committee in the Assembly when the Republicans formed a ruling coalition with conservative Democrats; later, when the Republicans gained outright control of the Assembly, he was elected Speaker. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Lyon) In 1950 he again ran successfully for the Assembly, and was re-elected in 1952. He represented what at the time was still basically a conservative district (Hollywood Hills), and could no doubt paint Heinlein as a "radical" because of the latter's background as a supporter of Upton Sinclair and EPIC. Indeed, "Although it has been speculated that Heinlein lost because he would not endorse the 'Ham and Eggs' pension plan that had a very large popular following at the time, it is at least equally probable that traditional Democrats were more interested in regaining control of their party apparatus and rejecting Sinclair Democrats. It was the twilight of the EPIC movement; even Epic News finally ceased publication at about the time Heinlein was defeated." http://archive.today/1EkZX The Chotiner conservatives would probably vote for Lyon as a lesser evil than Heinlein, and combined with anti-EPIC Democrats would probably defeat him. (Lyon's political career "ended in scandal when, in 1954, he was convicted in connection with a liquor license bribery scheme in Southern California. Lyon was convicted of grand theft and conspiracy to commit grand theft." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Lyon But AFAIK there were no scandals to be used against him in 1938.)

I can't be absolutely certain about this; after all, 1938 was a good year for liberal Democrats in California (with Culbert Olson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culbert_Olson elected Governor) unlike the rest of the nation. But all in all, I would say that Lyon would still be favored. So my conclusion is No, having the head of the Sudeten German Party named Braun or Schmidt would probably not be enough to get Robert Heinlein elected.

(2) There is another possibility, though: What if Chotiner had won the Republican primary? (I'll admit I'm not sure of the POD for this; having the two other Republicans stay out could make the race closer but could not by itself defeat Lyon.) In that event, Lyon could not run as a Democrat, either, even if he had still outpolled Heinlein in the Democratic primary. (This was another twist of the cross-filing system--cross-filing candidates could only claim another party's nomination *if they won their own*.) So the Democratic Central Committee would choose the Democratic candidate against Chotiner, and would probably choose Heinlein. In November, there might be sufficient resentment of Chotiner by moderate anti-*LA Times* Republicans to let Heinlein win. "Parallel-universe authors can imagine a world in which Heinlein trounces Chotiner so resoundingly that he gives up all involvement in politics, and Voorhis then does the same to Nixon in 1946." http://www.panshin.com/critics/Perry/perrynotes.html Personally, I think this slightly overestimates the importance of Chotiner to Nixon's early political victories. 1946 and 1950 were strongly Republican years in California, and liberal Democrats like Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas were especially vulnerable. The fact that Nixon's victories in both races were landslides (57 and 59 percent) makes it difficult for me to believe that he would have lost without Chotiner on his side. (And using red-baiting was not exactly an original idea, or one that Republicans not advised by Chotiner neglected...)
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