WI: Anyone But Spiro Agnew

An ATL Nixon shrewd enough to bring Everett Dirksen's son-in-law out of the Senate,where he could be a dangerous foe,as he was IOTL,into the Vice-Presidency where he can't really do much of anything except look good is an ATL Nixon shrewd enough to beat Ho Chi Minh,the antiwar movement,and the media into the ground.If he even needs to send the (un-butterflied?) Plumbers into the Watergate,and if they even get caught there,the outcry ITTL compared to OTL is as Re-Create '68 is to 1968.

Not that Nixon doesn't engineer all sorts of skullduggery,breaking laws as though they were pinatas;he just doesn't get called to account.Most high government officials don't.

Please explain, I do not understand.
 
Hatfield was on Thurmond's list as "completely unacceptable". He was a prominent dove and later co-sponsored the McGovern-Hatfield proposal to end Vietnam. Hatfield on the ticket would cause a surge for George Wallace and lose Nixon any southern state he had a chance in.

I understand that. But if there was no tangible conservative threat to Nixon within the Republican Party (as Reagan was), than Thurmond would have less influence within Nixon's inner circle. Thurmond was needed to hold onto the South at the convention. He still probably would have supported Nixon in the general election, even if Hatfield was his running-mate.
 
According to Rumsfeld's auto, Nixon was talking about Volpe, Hatfield, and Charles Percy. Apparently, then-one term Rep. George H.W. Bush of Texas was also considered. Also, the guys that were mentioned above.
 
According to Rumsfeld's auto, Nixon was talking about Volpe, Hatfield, and Charles Percy. Apparently, then-one term Rep. George H.W. Bush of Texas was also considered. Also, the guys that were mentioned above.

Hmm... what about Rumsfeld himself? Young, charismatic, conservative, from a swing state...
 
My guess is still Gerald Ford or maybe Howard Baker. Most of the northern moderates Republicans like Hatfield and Percy were unacceptable to Thurmond, whom Nixon had relied on to keep Reagan from pulling enough southern delegates to deny Nixon a 1st-ballot nomination and help stop Wallace in South Carolina and the other part sof the South.
 
As I remember, and remember I was 14 and a political junkie at the time, there were a number of possibilities discussed. There was a report that Nixon offered the VP spot to California LT Governor Robert Finch. Another possibility was George Romney, Mitt’s father, who in fact got a number of votes for VP even after Nixon named Agnew. A couple of other names I remember were Senator Percy of Illinois, Governor Rhodes of Ohio and Senator Brooke of Massachusetts. The last would have been interesting as the first minority candidate.

Folks, remember the constitution. Both the president and VP can not be from the same state, or one must forfeit the votes from that state. If they are from Montana or Vermont, that may be an acceptable risk, but not California. So Finch and Reagan are not possibilities unless Nixon himself wants to change states of residency. And the 30-day rule (Dunn v. Blumenstein, 1972) did not yet exist, each state had its own residency requirements, sometimes extending into years.
 
Bush is one I forgot, but he is interesting given that he did, of course, become VP and President in the OTL. Though I wonder how likely Bush would have been to have any real chance, I wonder how it would have effected his political career.
 
Folks, remember the constitution. Both the president and VP can not be from the same state, or one must forfeit the votes from that state. If they are from Montana or Vermont, that may be an acceptable risk, but not California. So Finch and Reagan are not possibilities unless Nixon himself wants to change states of residency. And the 30-day rule (Dunn v. Blumenstein, 1972) did not yet exist, each state had its own residency requirements, sometimes extending into years.

Nixon was residing in New York at the time. Therefore, Finch (and for that matter, Reagan) could have theoretically joined the ticket.
 
Folks, remember the constitution. Both the president and VP can not be from the same state, or one must forfeit the votes from that state. If they are from Montana or Vermont, that may be an acceptable risk, but not California. So Finch and Reagan are not possibilities unless Nixon himself wants to change states of residency. And the 30-day rule (Dunn v. Blumenstein, 1972) did not yet exist, each state had its own residency requirements, sometimes extending into years.

During the 1968 election Nixon was a resident of New York.
 
He bought his San Clemente house after the election was over. If Reagan was vice president or in the remote possibility that Finch was. vice president he would stayed in New York. Maybe he would have bought his California beach house in 1973.
 
He bought his San Clemente house after the election was over. If Reagan was vice president or in the remote possibility that Finch was. vice president he would stayed in New York. Maybe he would have bought his California beach house in 1973.

He also had his Key Buscayne Florida property. He could have claimed that florida was his principal residence. Changing residency is easy look at Cheney "moving" back to Wyoming when George III choose him for VP.
 
It really does seem like that "Can't be from the same state" thing is an archaic guideline you can get out of on the smallest technicality, doesn't it?
 
I understand that. But if there was no tangible conservative threat to Nixon within the Republican Party (as Reagan was), than Thurmond would have less influence within Nixon's inner circle. Thurmond was needed to hold onto the South at the convention. He still probably would have supported Nixon in the general election, even if Hatfield was his running-mate.

Thurmond would have, but not the rest of the South (which hadn't followed Thurmond's lead in switching parties yet). Hatfield would have driven conservatives to Wallace in the general no matter who Strom Thurmond voted for, and Nixon would have been aware of that.
 
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