WI: George Wallace chose Orval Faubus

What if George Wallace, the segregationist Governor of Alabama, chose Orval Faubus, the segregationist Governor of Arkansas, as his running mate when he ran for President in 1968? Would Wallace carry more states or even throw the election into the House? Would Nixon still employ his "Southern Strategy"?
 
Wallace was trying to move past his hardline segregationist stance while still using Dog Whistles and Code Words and having Faubus on the ticket negates that.
Gen. LeMay was chosen by Wallace because he was untainted by segregation and he did have a good record of integrating the USAF.
Another possibility for Wallace was former KY Governor and former Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler who integrated baseball with Jackie Robinson.
 
Faubus was a weak politician. He'd pretty much hit his limits as governor of Arkansas & had dim prospects for the next election. He was not a hardline segregationist, but seized on the subject to polarize white voters around his reelection. The segregation flap in Arkansas was largely a setup designed to do just that. It got him a solid base out of the white vote statewide, but its not going to carry him past his otherwise mediocre political skills. The press wont be kind to him, he's not going to show to great advantage on TV & any dynamic opponent will make him look bad in debates.
 
The two strongest options that considered being Wallace's VP were

1. Ezra Taft Benson. Dwight D Eisenhower's Agriculture Secretary and a member of the Mormon Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
He would later become President of the Quorum and after that President of the Church.
2. Happy Chandler. Governor of Kentucky 1935-1939; 1955-1959, Senator from Kentucky 1939-1945, and MLB Commissioner 1945-1951.

Benson was up for it, but the Church blocked him. An alliance of Mormons, Farmers, Hardhats, and Southern Populists/Reactionaries would be... interesting? Wallace could probably make a play for Utah and Idaho.

Chandler considered it but opted against. Chandler was liberal on racial issues and the MLB desegregated under him, which was part of why Wallace wanted him. Chandler helped in the swing states (TN, FL, NC, and VA) and Wallace figured that all the bircher cooks were already behind him so he could probably get away with picking a somewhat liberal running mate who could talk to less reactionary people. Chandler himself said that he and Wallace were unable to come to an agreement on racial matters.

John Wayne, Colonel Sanders, and J Edgar Hoover were also considered.



Wallace's aides came to favor Happy Chandler, the former baseball commissioner and governor of Kentucky. It was hoped that Chandler could help put Wallace over the top in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida, where he was narrowly behind Nixon, and solidify support in Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina, where Wallace was leading. Wallace was cautious: Chandler had supported the hiring of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers, and was now more of a mainstream liberal Democratic politician. Wallace was persuaded by early September; as one of Wallace's aides put it, "We have all the nuts in the country, we could get some decent people– you working one side of the street and he working the other side." When the "done deal" was leaked to the press, Wallace's supporters objected; Wallace's Kentucky campaign chair resigned, and influential donor Nelson Bunker Hunt demanded that Chandler be dropped from the ticket. Wallace retracted the invitation. Hunt's first choice for the second slot was Eisenhower Cabinet member Ezra Taft Benson. Benson was barred by several Mormon leaders from joining a Wallace ticket; Benson's membership in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would have caused an image problem for the church had he joined the Wallace ticket.
 
Faubus would add nothing to the Wallace ticket--a ticket with two southern segregationists would only harm Wallace's chances to portray himself as something more than 1948 Strom Thurmond redux. And by 1968 Faubus probably wasn't even that popular in Arkansas, judging by his loss in the 1970 Democratic primary for governor.
 
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