No Deep Throat, Political Implications

Lets say in this AU theat Deep Throat never comes forward about Watergate. Lets say that Nixon who always suspected Felt of not being totally in the fold leans on him a Felt does not ever leak information. Woodward and Bernstein continue to investigate, but without a source they are not able to shake the truth of Watergate out. Richard Nixon and friends are thus able to hold the line against the media and congressional probes. Nixon finishes his term and retires back to California. Now without Watergate their are amny AU possibilities, I wanna talk about just the political ramifications of that. Specifically:

1976 Election
Jimmy Carter was largely elected due to popular anger with the GOP and Watergate. Moreover, Ford's pardon of Nixon cost him many votes amongst white professionals. Without Watergate the GOP would have gone into the 76 election in a strong position. But who would they have run. Ford never really wanted the job and it is unlikely he could have won in a primary. Bush Sr. and Bob Dole were around but would they have been too young? What about the Gipper would he be stronger or weaker? Would Jimmy Carter have even been nominated?

The Conservatives Dont Take Over the GOP

Nixon was a moderate. In his White House he alienated Conservatives intentionally so they would resign. When Nixon resigned the moderate wing of the GOP was dealt a blow. This was a blow which they never recovered from and allowed the Conservative Base to rally under the Gipper and take over the party between 1974-1980. Without Watergate the GOP Moderates would likely have been able to fend off the Conservative. If that happened no Conservative take over in 1980.

Altered Lives of Some Really Important People short List

Karl Rove-He was the CR chair under Nixon, Watergate is what sent him to Texas and into support of Bush Jr. If Rove stayed in Washington Texas might not have turned so Red.

Dick (Shotgun) Cheney- Another Key player at the time. Without Watergate would he make a play for a leadership role in the still Moderate GOP?

Bill Clinton-With a re-jiggering of the Timeline Bill would he have run earlier like in 1988 as he was considering?

Jimmy Carter-would he have ever even been elected, if not no Billy Beer! :eek:

Bob Dole- Ran as Fords VP in 1976, but if Ford never ran then Dole would not have been picked, and his career might have tanked. Unless he ran in an attempt to capture the GOP moderate role.

American Media in General- Without the sucess of Woody and Bernie would the media have evolved into the "Investigative" "Vetting" animals that they are today?>


Thoughts
 
1976 Election
Jimmy Carter was largely elected due to popular anger with the GOP and Watergate. Moreover, Ford's pardon of Nixon cost him many votes amongst white professionals. Without Watergate the GOP would have gone into the 76 election in a strong position. But who would they have run. Ford never really wanted the job and it is unlikely he could have won in a primary. Bush Sr. and Bob Dole were around but would they have been too young? What about the Gipper would he be stronger or weaker? Would Jimmy Carter have even been nominated?

Well, for starters, the 1974 class of Congressional Democrats doesn't come into being. If anyone wants to take a quick google, you'll recognize a whole lot of fairly important faces in that crowd.


Will Ford even be selected for Vice-President? Nixon's preferred choice was Texas Governor (and former Democrat) John Connally but Congress vetoed that explicitly because of Watergate. No Watergate = Connally?

Connally, of course, did want to be President and is as conservative (more or less) as Ronald Reagan. Reagan and Connally battling for the conservative vote (if Reagan runs) leaves the moderate Republicans well up for grabs—it won't be Dole or Ford, but perhaps Howard Baker or George Bush.


On the Democratic side Jimmy Carter still has a chance given how good his campaign team was, but without Watergate there's a far greater chance that Mo' Udall can consolidate the liberal wing or that Scoop Jackson can consolidate the conservative wing. Equally some other Democrat might take a run at it.


Can the Republicans win the general election? Setting aside that given the outside-of-US-control-events of the late '70s they really wouldn't want to, Ford's campaign team was one of the best—IOTL making up a 30 point deficit and arguably an election held a few days later would have seen Ford beat Carter.

So it depends on the Democrats. Nixon has screwed them pretty badly both with his Southern Strategy and his culture war, so I'd say it depends on the respective nominees.


The Conservatives Dont Take Over the GOP

Nixon was a moderate. In his White House he alienated Conservatives intentionally so they would resign. When Nixon resigned the moderate wing of the GOP was dealt a blow. This was a blow which they never recovered from and allowed the Conservative Base to rally under the Gipper and take over the party between 1974-1980. Without Watergate the GOP Moderates would likely have been able to fend off the Conservative. If that happened no Conservative take over in 1980.

Dead wrong, sorry. The conservatives had already taken over the GOP. They went with Nixon in '68 because they didn't think Reagan could win not because they were moderate.

Connally, Reagan, Kemp, etc…—the future of the Republican Party is pretty much as it was IOTL.

Now to be sure Nixon had a very good chance at keeping the moderates strong if he worked for it, but he choose the Southern Strategy, culture war, and so forth instead. Electorally the right move, but it also wipes out the liberal Republican citizen wing.

Heck conservatives thought Gerald Ford—the most conservative president since Herbert Hoover or Calvin Coolidge—too liberal, and the man was a solid midwest kind of conservative that, along with the liberal/citizen republicans were already being sidelined. Even Bob Dole, who was brought on as VP to appease the base, was in only a few years viewed as not conservative enough (mostly because he wanted to balance the budget and supported—shock—food stamps).

Nixon could have changed the outcome, but he would have had to work at it starting back in '68.
 
What crushed Nixon wasn't Washington Post and Deep Throat/Felt but the congressional hearings regarding Watergate. And the hearings were totally independent of insider information.

For example - the final nail in Nixons coffin were the tape recordings from the Oval office which proved his involvement. And that such recordings even existed were uncovered at the congressional hearings, not by Felt.

So a silent Deep Throat wouldn't be enough for this story. A bunch of less sloppy plumbers in the Watergate complex and therefore no Watergate at all could however be a good POD.
 
Bill Clinton goes down as a semi-good President who tried his best but failed his American people with the election of George Bush and the war on terrorism.

... OH wrong Deep Throat.
 
It's amazing to me that ten years on, after all the shit that's happened in between, people are still talking about Monica frickin' Lewinsky.

Anydangway, I may be completely off-base here but I seem to remember reading that before Watergate brought down Nixon there were some people thinking of getting the Constitution re-amended so term limits could be abolished. Nixon in '76?
 
Anydangway, I may be completely off-base here but I seem to remember reading that before Watergate brought down Nixon there were some people thinking of getting the Constitution re-amended so term limits could be abolished. Nixon in '76?

Not really. the only presidential election ammendment floated at the time was the Bayh-Celler ammendment. And that was to change the mechanism of the election, not how many terms the president could serve (it would have made presidential elections dependent on winning 40%+ of the vote, with a runnoff if no candidate did that). And even then, previous precedent would suggest that Nixon might be grandfathered out of any such ammendment as the incumbent (for example, Truman would have been able to run again despite violating the 22nd ammendment).
 
No Deep Throat just slows down the invesigation. As mentioned above, the Congressional Hearings still would have happened. Impeachment is still likely and even perhaps conviction & removal from office sometime in 1975.
 
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