Nixon/Lodge 68

What if Nixon chose his running mate from 1960 for 1968? The most important part of this is probably that we’d see President Lodge, considering he wouldn’t resign like Agnew did. I also can’t foresee the election changing much. Nixon would still probably win handily.
 
Lodge was in his 70s by the Watergate era, and might have decided not to run in 1976. The Republican nomination would have been Reagan's for the taking.
 
Agreed. Somebody who was considered was Frmr Mass Governor John Volpe.

"Former" governor? Volpe was the incumbent governor in 1968. He was originally elected in 1960, but defeated in 1962. He regained the office in 1964, bucking that year's Democrat landslide. In 1966, he was re-elected - to a four-year term, as Massachusetts changed its law. He resigned in 1969 to become Secretary of Transportation in the Nixon administration.

Volpe would be an interesting alternative to Agnew. He would not have to resign for any reason that I know of, so he would succeed Nixon if Watergate played out as OTL.

He had no Congressional voting record, but IIRC he was regarded as a liberal.
 
Anyone besides Agnew would convince him to do anything at least less OBVIOUS than watergate so remove this

Would he have consulted the Vice-President? If it's somebody he doesn't have a strong working relationship with (Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were both under consideration, apparently) I could see them being just as surprised as the public.
 
Anyone besides Agnew would convince him to do anything at least less OBVIOUS than watergate so remove this

Agnew was hardly anything more than a spokesperson for the White House as VP, he wasn't consulted on major decisions. I doubt a different VP would be able to convince Nixon to take an alternative path that avoids Watergate. And if this different VP were to disagree with Nixon one too many times, it's always possible that Nixon would dump him in favor of a more loyal Republican.
 
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