President McCarthy?

If Eugene McCarthy had won the Democratic nomination in 1968, could he have subsequently won the presidential election? If yes, then what?
 
75% of the delegates are controlled by a handful of bosses who were implacably opposed to McCarthy and all he stood for. PIP is Dick Daley.
 
RB is right, Clean Gene doesn't stand a chance, though I would add that should he somehow become nominee and then somehow face a less-than-unified Republican campaign of an alt nominee Romney or Rockefeller then there is the very slight possibility of McCarthy winning an electoral college plurality in a threeway race against George Wallace and the liberal Republican--only to have the final result decided by the House. But even that is a bit ASBish. In reality George McGovern is really the best shot at a dovish nominee in OT '68, and that's unlikely. (I actually do agree with the idea that RFK isn't an electoral dove, not compared to how those two other senators planned on running as dove candidates should they have won the nomination. This doesn't mean I think a President RFK extends the war like Nixon did in OTL.)

Now, the absolute best chance for a New Politics dove to win the nomination in a slightly alternate 1968 is... drumroll... A Senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey who had never served as Lyndon Johnson's vice president. Maybe he even wins the White House?

Such a creature is also a very good chance to stop Nixon from winning a landslide reelection victory in 1972.

(Hands up everyone who is disoriented by my ignoring Saint Hunter S's definitive scholarly portrait of the 'Hube' and positing him as filling the shoes of the lovable Saint George Mc?)
 
The best he could do is run third (fourth?) party, when a handful of electoral votes (like, from one state). If no candidate gets an absolute majority, he can try to position himself as a kingmaker, trading his EVs for concessions.
(PS: Not like it'll matter: if the Democrats lose in the College, fine, they'll take it to the House and win.)
(PSS: I could even see Gene (along with probably Wallace) in this scenario give the votes to Nixon, just to piss LBJ and HHH off)
 
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