What If President Lodge ?

I agree that Vietnam is still a flop with Lodge as president in '64. With the Republican right wing led by his VP Goldwater wins the nomination and the Republican party stays on a future course to the right that is unstoppable because of Lodge's failures. I think that Goldwater would make the same mistakes that he made in the OTL and become known as a warmonger. Maybe he gets upset by Rockefeller and thereby causing a split in the party and a third party candidacy for an angry Goldwater.
With Goldwater running as a third party under the American party he taps George Wallace as his VP choice. With this lining up to split the right wing from the Republicans and possibly the south from the Democrats we could have a wild 1968 campaign.
On the Democrats side I think it would be interesting to have JFK make a comeback as a sort of moderate alternative to the peace niks for the Democratic left wing.
We end up with a Rockefeller, Kennedy and Goldwater three way race. Now we might have something for intereswting here!!
FEEDBACK!!
 
As to the question of who'd be the Democratic nominee in 64, I'm seeing either Symington, Humphrey, or Brown as the likely choice -- if Lodge runs as a social liberal, they may well go with Symington...

Smathers would be more of a contrast.

Aggressive civil rights pledge: all he said was that he'd appoint a black to Cabinet, even though there weren't any prominent black Republicans to appoint. It was a gaffe.

Wasn't T.R.M. Howard a Republican?
 
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So President Lodge wins in '64 against a ticket of LBJ and Humphrey. His VP is Goldwater which serves to unify the GOP for now. Lodge makes sloppy attempts in civil rights and moves toward Medicare without his own party support. He also manages to screw up Vietnam as LBJ would have in otl.
So he declines to run in 1968
The democrats go with JFK the republican give it to Rockefeller and Goldwater picks Wallace and runs a third party challenge.
What happens in this election ?
 
So President Lodge wins in '64 against a ticket of LBJ and Humphrey. His VP is Goldwater which serves to unify the GOP for now. Lodge makes sloppy attempts in civil rights and moves toward Medicare without his own party support. He also manages to screw up Vietnam as LBJ would have in otl.
So he declines to run in 1968
The democrats go with JFK the republican give it to Rockefeller and Goldwater picks Wallace and runs a third party challenge.
What happens in this election ?

Three letters...ASB.
 
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