the kennedys would have owned the 60s.jfk dumps lbj and bobby runs with him as vp,then is elected two terms as
president with martin luther king as vp.what happens in vietnam and does the civil rights issue get solved sooner?
Oh, ye gods...another Kennedy cultist with stars in the eyes. Spare us.
Let's get a few things in order, kid: I was there when he was president; clearly you weren't. He was a man; no more and no less. What he did have that most other presidents didn't or won't was a mystique generated by his own cultists and self-appointed PR machine. He didn't even begin to approach greatness within three or four time zones, particularly in not quite three full years of office. (I will concede that quite likely he got Marilyn Monroe to spread her legs at least once, but while that might qualify for immortality in the locker room, it sure as hell doesn't get you Mt. Rushmore except as a tourist.)
There would have been a bill due for the Bay of Pigs sooner or later had he survived; that much is sure. Kennedy was a cold warrior, so you can pretty much bet that involvement in Viet Nam would have climbed: perhaps not at the same precipitous rate as it did with Lyndon Johnson but climb it would nonetheless. By the late '60s, chance are the chants would have been "Hey, hey, JFK--how many boys did you kill today?" And all the glamor and glitz count for squat when your sons are coming home in body bags.
Further: this isn't Argentina, kid. Bobby won't run with him for VP; neither the party nor the nation would stand for that. He'd still need Johnson to arm-twist and carry water for whatever his version of a civil rights bill might be (much as I dislike Lyndon Johnson, I will have to give him his due as far as a civil rights bill goes: in that, the wheeler/dealer/snake oil salesman was truly subordinated to a worthwhile cause). Humphrey or Symington couldn't begin to do that for him in the Senate especially with more recalcitrant southerners.
Sooner or later, no matter how flashy a new act is, it becomes yesterday's news. And the same would have held for Kennedy. By 1968, the time would have been right for Richard Nixon to step up and ask voters if they hadn't had enough with jet-setting, glitz, and display--all the while kids are dying in some hellhole in southeast Asia--and if it isn't time to restore more mainstream values to the White House? Chances are in a base display of ingratitude, Johnson gets sent packing without much consideration for the top job, with likely Humphrey being anointed the successor as in OTL. But this time around, there's no mythos around Kennedy; rather, just the aftermath of eight years that have left voters with something of a hangover.
Richard Nixon becomes the 36th president comfortably, and Kennedy spins out his life elsewhere, more likely in the company of Hollywood rather than Hyannis Port. Chances are he (Kennedy) sees opportunity for fresh young tail that wouldn't mind doing it with a former president, and Jackie's abilities to serve his purposes have come and gone. The totally disapproving Rose nothwithstanding, the Kennedys divorce in the early '70s. His next appearance after the divorce with some toothsome, curvy blonde on his arm comes at Harry Truman's funeral in 1972 (he and Jackie attended Ike's funeral in '69).
Today, Kennedy is remembered as a feel-good, more-style-than-substance president that left a lot of stuff for his immediate GOP successors, starting with Richard Nixon, to clean up.
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