Mitchell J. Freedman (How Bobby Kennedy Wins The 1968 Election) said:
The largely unspoken fear, buried deep inside the consciousness of everyone surrounding Robert Kennedy, was that some nut was “out there” waiting to kill him. This unspoken fear was in the air before June 4, 1968 and was likely to intensify as Kennedy closed in on the nomination and the choice of a vice presidential running mate was being considered. Therefore, one would expect the kingmakers or those with “influence,” such as Mayor Daley, Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers union, and other political insiders, to be adamant that Kennedy not choose a “nobody” governor the way Nixon did with the largely unknown Maryland governor, Spiro T. Agnew.
It was therefore probable that the choice would be a Southern Senator who was not up for re-election in 1968, and was willing to run on a national, presidential and vice presidential “ticket.” This immediately narrowed the field to Senator George Smathers of Florida and Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas. Kennedy might also have considered a Midwestern Senator, such as Indiana’s Senator Vance Hartke, also a close Kennedy friend, with Indiana being a State that “thought South” on racial and other cultural issues. But Harkte was an elitist sort of personality compared to Smathers and Yarborough and would not likely have sufficient “coattails” to help Kennedy win in Indiana, let alone any other State.
There is a strong possibility that many leading Kennedy campaign managers would have counseled Kennedy to concentrate on the West, Mid-west and Northeast—and forget the South altogether. After all, Kennedy’s campaign had largely written off the South during the nomination process through June 4, 1968. However, Kennedy would have been the first to recognize he had to run a national campaign to defeat Nixon and keep Wallace from winning a plurality that would more likely send the nation into a political crisis that would remind people of 1860 more than any other presidential year. Therefore, Kennedy would have wanted to win the Electoral College votes of at least one of the two largest populated Southern States, which were (and remain) Texas and Florida, even if Kennedy failed to receive at least 50% of the popular vote against Nixon and Wallace.
Knowing what we know about Robert Kennedy’s experience in planning a successful political campaign, and with seasoned veteran advisers such as Larry O’Brien, Kenny O’Donnell, Joe Dolan, and Mayor Richard Daley—who each knew the importance of placating union leaders and members—Yarborough becomes the most likely choice by a process of elimination. Yarborough was a prairie liberal, more inclined to a “down-home” tone and phrasing that was beginning to be viewed as “conservative” in both urban and suburban environments. Yarborough was also a fearless and principled person who spoke with genuine feeling to white and black working class people. To understand Ralph Yarborough, who is largely forgotten today, one may think of Vermont’s independent politician, Bernie Sanders, with a Southern accent—but even that analogy may not really explain Yarborough’s appeal at that particular time.
A Kennedy-Yarborough ticket would likely have had a diverse and powerful punch that would put both Wallace and Nixon on the defensive, which would be the best way for Democrats to have won a campaign in an environment where more than half of registered Americans were still voting in national elections, where union voters constituted over 40% of the total national voters, and where farmers in rural mid-western States were very much caught up in Kennedy nostalgia, as Kennedy himself saw in rural Nebraska and Kansas where Kennedy traveled in the spring of 1968.
Does Robert Kennedy win in a “landslide,” meaning with 55% or more of the total “popular” vote? No. If Kennedy wins, which is likely, he wins with just over 50% of the vote. But, that popular vote victory also translates into a solid Electoral College win for Kennedy, based upon the demographic breakdown of States at that time. This would, among the factors, include a Kennedy victory over Nixon in Nixon’s home state of California (Nixon barely won against a lackluster Humphrey effort), and the Kennedy-Yarborough ticket winning Texas.
