US '76: Who leads ABC movement?

Who would be a plausible Dem nominee other than Carter? Bonus points if not Ted Kennedy, double bonus if George Wallace is the nominee.
 
Morris Udall is certainly possible, though improbable. No sitting U.S. Representative has been nominated for President since 1880 (Garfield), after all. He's also from Arizona, which has a less-than-favorable record when it comes to electing Presidents.

Jerry Brown could take the nomination if he enters earlier, but he's pretty young and if elected, would be the youngest POTUS in American history. Nice crossover appeal to Republicans, though (with his flat tax proposals and fiscal conservatism).

Henry M. Jackson is IMHO, the most likely non-Carter nominee. Hawkish (to make up for the less-than-stellar dove candidacy of McGovern), an old school, New Deal Democrat (guarantees support of the white working class), environmental and ERA credentials (to reach out to the Democratic-voting New Left).

George Wallace is highly unlikely. He's going to have to rebuild bridges with the African-American community ASAP if he wants to even have a slight chance at taking the nomination. If Ford is the nominee, he probably becomes the first Republican since Hoover to win a majority of the African-American vote.

Frank Church is a possibility. Pro-gun, anti-war, generally liberal. George McGovern with an image that's hard to tar and feather, essentially.

Lloyd Bentsen is going to scare off liberal voters.

Robert Byrd ditto the Wallace and Bentsen comments.

Sargent Shriver may be a Kennedy-relative, but he's got next to no experience in elected office. And he was the Veep nominee in '72. That's not a very good track record.

Fred Harris is going to scare off moderate to conservative voters.

Birch Bayh is a possibility in the same way that Church and Jackson are.

Hubert Humphrey is a possibility in a deadlocked convention. If he makes more than a half-hearted attempt to win the nomination, he might be able to clinch it.

So, in my opinion, your best bets are either Jackson, Bayh, or Humphrey.
 
Hubert Humphrey is a possibility in a deadlocked convention. If he makes more than a half-hearted attempt to win the nomination, he might be able to clinch it.

First, I'd like to say - thank you very much, sir. This is just a cool idea - HHH in 1976. What would he have done in his late presidency? If his health continues to fail, whoever he chooses as vice president becomes president following his death. However, this cannot be Walter Mondale - the law prohibits two candidates from the state from running on the same ticket, remember.

Next, about George Wallace being the nominee.

George Wallace is highly unlikely. He's going to have to rebuild bridges with the African-American community ASAP if he wants to even have a slight chance at taking the nomination. If Ford is the nominee, he probably becomes the first Republican since Hoover to win a majority of the African-American vote.

I completely agree. I think, as far as civil rights and segregation goes, he is going to have to start rebuilding those bridges in 1973 at the earliest. This brings me to my first POD for a George Wallace '76 scenario.

George Wallace is wounded worse by Arthur Bremer than he was IOTL. This causes him a longer period of time away from politics and in bed. He thinks much, and something happens where he changes his position on civil rights and becomes a born-again Christian in late 1972. Thus, Governor Wallace creates many programs that gives more rights to African Americans in Alabama, and by 1976, he has a vast record of the last four years of helping the civil rights movement. This helps him among African Americans, though this does not give him complete trust among all of them.

Wallace wins a few more primaries than he did in '76 IOTL, and finishes third at the Democratic National Convention. However, the two main candidates - Scoop Jackson and Birch Bayh (for butterflies sake, Carter dooesn't do nearly as well as he did IOTL) - are deadlocked and far from the majority, almost tied in the delegate count. It takes many counts to nominate a candidate, and by around the fifth ballot, delegates are looking for a compromise candidate. Wallace steps up at the podium and points out his experience and record to help all Americans and all that, and he woos the delegates enough to barely nominate him.

I don't know - it's a stretch, but I don't see how that might not have happened, but then again, I haven't really given too much thought and research to this idea so far.
 
Dude: that actually happened IOTL with regards to Wallace. Humphrey's a no-go because he's dying. Someone told me that Scoop's not nationally viable, and he sounds like an earlier version of Joe Lieberman. Uber-hawk, domestic liberal.

Agreed: Humphrey wouldn't run because he knew he was dying.

Scoop Jackson seems to be a common alternate-president in "No Watergate" or "ABC" scenarios, but I just don't see it. The guy did miserably in both '72 and '76 and he was about as popular with Democratic activists (re: primary voters) as Joe Lieberman is today. I really don't see Scoop getting anywhere close to the nomination at any point post-Vietnam.

The problem with the ABC movement is that no heavyweight Democrats really ran that year; the field was fragmented, and Carter was able to win by getting some early wins (better, more prescient organizing) and utilizing his strength in the South.

Mo Udall probably is the most plausible candidate, actually, simply because he came very close to Carter in several early primaries and had he beaten him in Wisconsin, for example, he might have reluctantly gotten the backing of most anti-Carter Dems.
 
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