What if Spiro Agnew never resigned and thus as President after Nixon's resignation?

To make this possible changes against either are never found out or he never commits them in the first place. Would he have been successful with him winning the 1976 election. What would today look like with a Agnew seventies?
 
I don't think he'd have gotten the nomination in 1976. Nixon considered Agnew to be a somewhat crude oaf; he was on the ticket only because he somehow enhanced polling results (perhaps attributable to his rather blunt responses to those making demands at the time of the Baltimore riots in 1967) and perhaps he would help pull in a border state like Maryland (which he didn't: Humphrey carried Maryland in 1968). Primaries notwithstanding, the party elders would have figured out some sort of a stop-Agnew strategy, forcing him out as a candidate. Difficult to say whom he would have had as his VP: it's not inconceivable that he might have had Rockefeller, similar to Ford, given a long-standing relationship there. Perhaps Rockefeller might have been a candidate, despite being 68 at the time.

Assuming Rockefeller is nominated, you'd have two candidates of approximately the same left-to-right position on the political spectrum, albeit with different approaches, assuming Carter is nominated as IOTL. Probably the election is every bit as close as the one we knew between Ford and Carter. Guessing Rockefeller might have squeaked by, meaning he'd better have had a solid VP (Howard Baker?) since IOTL Rockefeller died in 1979.

So to get back to your original question: Agnew might have exacerbated the divisions of the Nixon years until muzzled by the party chieftains. I could see Hugh Scott, Barry Goldwater and others demanding and getting a meeting at the White House, and laying down the law; i.e., sub rosa, the GOP elders in the Senate are calling the shots for the duration of the term; Agnew is no more than a caretaker--and one who would do well to keep his mouth shut; Agnew will get zero support from the party for a candidacy in '76.
 
. . . I could see Hugh Scott, Barry Goldwater and others demanding and getting a meeting at the White House, and laying down the law; i.e., sub rosa, the GOP elders in the Senate are calling the shots for the duration of the term; Agnew is no more than a caretaker . . .
And Spiro looks at them, and looks at them. I don’t think he goes along with this at all.

* as much as I might like to see my country move in a more parliamentary direction!
 
If he ends up as president because his illegal actions weren't found out, that could break the presidency. If they are discovered, and impeachment brought against a second president in a matter of a few years, it gets interesting, especially if the charges are sustained.
 

Deleted member 9338

His illegal actions were know before Watergate, or at least hints, we may lose Agnew well before '76
 
Top