TIED FOR TIME
1961-1964: Richard M. Nixon☨ / C. Sinclair Weeks (Republican)[1]
1960: John F. Kennedy / Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic)
1964-1965: C. Sinclair Weeks / Vacancy (Republican)
1965-1972: C. Sinclair Weeks† / Gerald R. Ford (Republican)
1964: W. Stuart Symington, Jr. / Anthony J. Celebrezze (Democratic), Oren Harris / George C. Wallace, Jr. ('Rebel' Democrats)
1968: James Roosevelt II / Frank E. "Ted" Moss (Democratic)[2]
1972-1972: Gerald R. Ford☨ / Vacancy (Republican)[3]
1972-1973: J. Percy Priest / Vacancy (Democratic)[4]
1973-1977: Francis L. Rizzo / Daniel K. Moore (Democratic)[6]
1972: Barry M. Goldwater / Charles E. Goodell, Various [5]
1977-1985: Russell W. Peterson / W. Pat Jennings (Republican)[7]
1976: Francis L. Rizzo / Preston E. Smith (Democratic)
1980: Paul G. Hatfield / James C. Corman (Democratic)
1985-1989: Christopher S. Adams, Jr. / Cleveland K. "Cleve" Benedict (Republican)[8]
1984: Jeff Corey / J. Wayne Mixson (Democratic), Laurance S. Rockefeller, Jr. / Richard P. Feynman (Green Center)
1989-1997: W. Harry Davis / Richard Lynn Fry(Democratic)[9]
1988: Christopher S. Adams, Jr. / Cleveland K. "Cleve" Benedict (Republican)
1992: Harvey B. Milk / Pietro V. Domenici (Republican)
1997-2001: Nancy P. Hollister / James A. Gibbons (Republican)
1996: Richard Lynn Fry/ George Nigh (Democratic)
2001-2002: John W. "Jack" Carter / Neil E. Goldschmidt* (Democratic)[10]
2000: Nancy P. Hollister / James A. Gibbons (Republican)
2002-2002: John W. "Jack" Carter / Vacancy (Democratic)
2002-2005: John W. "Jack" Carter / Martin T. "Marty" Meehan (Democratic)
2005-2013: Wyatt B. Creech / Danny Jones (Republican)
2004: John W. "Jack" Carter / Martin T. "Marty" Meehan (Democratic)
2008: Caroline B. Kennedy / Raymond E. Mabus, Jr. (Democratic)
2013-2017: Richard Cordray / Angela McLean (Democratic)
2012: Danny Jones / Ann Wofford (Republican)
2017-: B. Phillip Newmark / Roger S. Goodell (Republican) [11]
2016: Richard Cordray / Angela McLean (Democratic)
[1] Our initial POD is somewhat vaguely in the 40s/50s - the first major knock-on is when Massachusetts aristocrat Sinclair Weeks doesn't retire as Secretary of Commerce so soon - come 1960, Nixon has a significantly closer relationship with him than Lodge - and with Weeks' astuter debate advice and fewer missteps - Nixon narrowly pulls out the victory. Nonetheless, his gradual progress on civil rights - and ability to get Khruschkev to back down, will all be forgotten. Campaigning in Richmond, Virginia one cold February afternoon, President Nixon is shot twice by the embittered radical Sarah Jane Kahn over some damn thing in the Congo. President Weeks is drafted with little time for anything else - and he goes on to crush a squabbling, bitterly divided Democratic Party that still hasn't found it's way out of the wilderness.
[2] Former Senator, Secretary of Commerce, Vice President, and now President Sinclair Weeks is the firm hand on the tiller the Republican Party needs. To this day the Boston Brahmin is a Republican idol. Alongside Senator Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) he finally brought desegregation to the Deep South, presided over infrastructure and a burgeoning space program behind the scenes - and moved the chips all in on Vietnam. Him against the feckless, dynastic, playboy Governor of California? He clobbered him without breaking a sweat. When Weeks finally passed away at seventy-nine near the end of his second term, he left behind ethics reform, a steady economy, and an America that had finally moved beyond segregation.
[3] If Nixon and Weeks are the Father and Son (well, really Son and Father) - Gerald Rudolph Ford is the Holy Ghost. The charismatic young congressman had been chosen in 1964 to solidify the Midwest, and after nearly eight years in the Vice Presidency was one of the most prepared Presidents when he finally got thee big job. Ford had already been the presumptive nominee when Weeks passed away - he spent the months before the election looking glamorous, athletic, and above all - presidential. Ford's photo-op casually tackling Prime Minister Trudeau in a game of football became iconic - and sank Trudeau's career. Likewise, as Ford withdrew from Vietnam - he pivoted to Europe, where Pelše's Soviet Union was stumbling towards civil war. That October, as the U.S. brokered a ceasefire and interim leader Mazurov loosened the grip on Poland and Czechoslovakia - Gerald Ford could proclaim, as he did in stirring terms "There is no Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe." Just days later, as he was welcomed to a cheering New Orleans crowd by Governor McKeithen - the President of the United States was shot in the back of the head. Ford died instantly. The sniper got away - leading to a terrifying multi-day manhunt that ended with three more policemen dead before Mark Essex was captured alive.
For all that Republicans cherish Ike and Dick and Sinclair - they miss Gerald Ford. They miss the man who more than anyone was Middle America - who stood for strength abroad and prosperity at home. The Eagle Scout from a broken home, the WWII vet who'd graduated in the top quarter of his class at Yale Law - the man who lived the American dream.
[4] And after Ford's death came a constitutional crisis - the first ever 'double vacancy' as a grieving nation learned that the new President wasn't that little-known Arizonan Senator (who was, after all, only a running mate), but instead a Congressional titan - Speaker of the House Priest. And if ever a man was so clearly designed to be a caretaker President - it was the soulful Tennessean. Priest had tried to stay as far away from name-calling, from partisanship, as was possible in the rough-and-tumble of the House, and as he briefly assumed the Presidency, Priest made it crystal-clear that this was no victory of party. Instead he oversaw the final days of the now tumultuous election, and in the lame-duck Congress passed a bill to allow for the appointment of Vice-Presidents - a change long overdue.
[5] And if Priest had been blindsided, Goldwater was entirely stunned. The long-serving Senator had been chosen as a loyal friend of the President, a fellow conservative, and a Senator worthy of respect. And now at the age of 63 Barry Goldwater was the Republican Party's last hope to retain the Presidency. A still-grieving Goldwater marched from campaign stop to campaign stop giving muted, intellectual speeches, while for once the Democrats seemed to have seized (if in a gaffe prone way) - on the rage, the anger that the nation was struggling to express. The nation still mourning Ford voted down Senator Goldwater in a landslide - and he became immortalized as one of the great lost opportunities of American politics - a man too smart, too mild, to ever be President. The total opposite of his opponent.
[6] Five losses in a row was enough - Democratic voters had concluded, and so they'd replaced the undemocratic conventions of old that had selected Kennedy and Symington and Roosevelt with - primaries that no one understood. Almost no one. The brand new Governor of Pennsylvania - straight from cracking heads in the streets of Philadelphia - he had some idea of what the people wanted. They wanted someone who was 'Firm but fair' - someone who had promoted black officers yes, but also slashed crime and taught those Black Panthers not to mess around. So Clark and Metcalf and Salinger - the Three Stooges clowned around, splitting the liberal vote and wailing about those terrible rising incarceration rates - while Rizzo swept primary after primary. And then there was the Democratic Convention, where Rizzo cried "My party, my army!" to a roaring crowd - and then backtracked and picked southern moderate Dan Moore for VP.
This is bit that American history, all the hagiography, likes to forget - after twenty years of Republicans, constantly pushing and prodding for change from the White House - Rizzo was leading President Ford by three percent even after all the diplomacy, the charisma, was leading him in the polls the day Ford set foot in New Orleans.
And Mark Essex was a black man.
While Goldwater sleepwalked from campaign stop to campaign stop in mourning and gave speeches about States' Rights and economic prosperity - Rizzo said that had he been in New Orleans the police never would have been caught with their god-damn pants down - that he felt people's pain - that he would hold the line against big business and big government and above all, this wave, this onslaught of crime. So of course he won - a miserable Goldwater skulked out to concede early on election night an in the end - he'd only kept Arizona, North Dakota, and liberal Vermont.
[7] Yet, Rizzo wasn't even a catastrophe. Bad on civil rights yes - the black vote which had stayed with Democrats through Symington and Roosevelt Jr. seemed finally sick of him - but he certainly wasn't overthrown in some apocalyptic struggle. Rizzo just got pinned down finally - not a fresh Governor, not a new face, just someone who couldn't really balance budgets and couldn't really handle unions. Someone who neither social liberals nor conservatives were terribly fond of anymore. And of course, he had to dip his toe into foreign affairs again - into the cauldron that was overthrowing a democratic regime just because it had elected a socialist. Bachir Hadj Ali - and for that matter the rest of Algeria, were not terribly grateful.
So when a smiling dark horse strode out of Delaware - Russell Peterson with his environmentalism and his public service and his "A New Day for America" buttons - when he offered a vision of his own - Rizzo crumbled.
Peterson's term would however - start to drag on. Andropov was starting to gain back ground where the Soviet Union had been, not all environmental problems were solved as neatly as getting rid of leaded fuel, and the economy and budget were still - teetering. Peterson gave more lip-service to disappointed conservatives, pointed out how liberal Hatfield and Corman were - and narrowly scraped by to re-election, and a second uninspiring term.
[8] Peterson's administration had finally plodded to something like an end - and the Republicans looked set to lose handily. Then along came a white knight - a smart, polished, bonafide hero of the air-war over Algeria. Ret. Gen. (USAF) Christopher J. Adams - newly minted Senator from Texas, hawk, and willing to right U.S. foreign policy. A new Ike. And against him would come an opponent out of 50s central casting, literally - former actor Jeff Corey, with a blacklist in his past and a decent Congressional career to his name. "Jeff Corey was a literal Communist" Republicans shouted - but more to the point, for all of JC's charisma, he was 70, vaguely craggy, and an unrepentant liberal when the wishy-washy President had managed to make that astoundingly unpopular. Corey and Adams were both out of the usual, and in the end - so was the third option, fabulously wealthy environmental activist Laurance Rockefeller. Rockefeller badly wanted to carry the President's torch forward - was willing to put boatloads of money into it, and was also a painfully young 40. He nearly got away with it in a tight three-cornered race, and although Rockefeller walked away with Connecticut and Montana - Adams went home with the electoral college.
[9] In hindsight, picking Chris as a second Ike was a boneheaded mistake. Why was Ike Ike? Not because of his epaulets, but because he'd been a moderate, willing to work with Congress, with a relatively untroubled domestic scene. Adams on the other hand faced rising inequality, environmental issues that had now been accepted on both sides of the aisle, - and frosty relations with China that simply would not improve. Adams could land the first man on the moon - but he couldn't get anything done on Earth. And besides, he faced the Minnesota political paragon of the 20th century. A former Mayor of Minneapolis, Harry Davis fought polio, poverty, and oppression for the color of his skin - to become the first black Senator from Minnesota, an avid boxer and a charming politician. Davis knocked out Adams, at the very least - and what's more he finally knocked down the Republican coalition. Black voters and poor, rural whites were two groups that were now more Democratic than ever before - solidified by Davis' VP pick of the endearing, nearly socialist Representative Richard Fry of Missouri. "Rick and Harry" made an effective team - triangulating on emissions caps, fighting for healthcare and infrastructure across the country. Let the Republicans get caught up in their tax-cuts and their yuppie aspirations - Democrats knew what they cared about. With a sinking economy and crisis in Taiwan - Fry only, barely, dropped the Torch.
[10] Jack Carter picked it up again, slightly dented - Nancy Hollister and the Republicans had actually won the popular vote the second time around too. If it hadn't been for that nasty whiff of scandal around her conservative VP picked for balance - why, who knows how the first female presidency might have gone down? As it was, the soft-spoken Nevadan Senator promised the American people that he would never, ever lie to them. His VP on the other hand - had no such qualms. The successful recovery, rise of A.I. and new trade deals - all went forgotten as the Presidency finally became a circus - Goldschmidt's indiscretions breaking the dam on all the misdeeds politicians had done over the years. A swamped, out of his element Jack Carter lost re-election - despite winning the popular vote this time.
[11] It was the dull, flip-flopping North Carolina Senator that swept into power almost by accident - amidst Creech's fumblings and stumblings he flew to Taiwan to say 'up yours' to the firmly capitalist regime now in China (all while chopping up Davis' safety net himself) - and although he won re-election - the dull Governor of Ohio swung back to the other extreme on both foreign and fiscal policy. And then so did the sleek Connecticut businessman. A politics that was increasingly unanchored by social issues - was not necessarily better.
