WI Humphrey Wins WI 1960 Primary

What if Hubert Humphrey won the 1960 primary in Wisconsin, say by the same margin he lost IOTL? If your answer is "he still doesn't win the nomination", does his one victory have any impact on the rest of the race?
 
^^I think the Dem VP slot is pretty much reserved for a Southerner (assuming a non-southern nominee). AIUI, that pretty much narrows the choices down to either Johnson, Symington, or Smathers.

If it were up to Humphrey -- and he may need not win the nod for that to be the case -- I'd think he'd go with LBJ...
 
^^I think the Dem VP slot is pretty much reserved for a Southerner (assuming a non-southern nominee). AIUI, that pretty much narrows the choices down to either Johnson, Symington, or Smathers.

If it were up to Humphrey -- and he may need not win the nod for that to be the case -- I'd think he'd go with LBJ...

This is especially the case with HHH, whose record with Civil Rights made him very unpopular in the South. It was his platform speech at the 48 Democratic convention which drove the Dixiecrats out of the party for that election cycle. Humphrey's image had modrated, somewhat, in the years since, but not much.
Personally, I think LBJ would be the most likely VP candidate. Johnson and Humphrey had an established relationship in the Senate (in fact, they were good friends of sort. Johnson had taken Humphrey under his wing when HHH first reached the Senate, and broke the social isolation which many of the Democratic leaders were imposing on the Minnesotan) Also, if anyone is going to shore up Southern support for Humphrey, its LBJ. Unlike JFK, LBJ actually liked Humphrey and is going to be working harder for him in the South.
So, lets assume that the Democrats field Humphrey/Johnson in 1960. I think a Humphrey victory is stil possible over Nixon. Humphrey, likely, does better in the Midwest than Kennedy; Wisconsin and Iowa would be more likely to go for the Democratic ticket (Wisconsin, at this point, was a state that was emerging from two decades of Republican dominance. However, Humphrey was a known quantity in the state, and was widely known as "Wisconsin's Third Senator." Despite his OTL loss in the Wisconsin primary, I have a feeling that Humphrey would be more palapable to independents in Wisconsin during the general election). This should offset any losses in the South (and Southern delgates may be more likely to go for Byrd than Nixon in any case).

What of the make up and drive of a Humphrey administration? First of all, LBJ is going to be a much more powerful Vice-President under Humphrey than under JFK. Secondly, HHH is going to focus much more on the domestic policy of the nation than Kennedy who was much more interested in foreign policy. HHH is also going to be closer aligned with the Civil Rights movement, although I'm unsure how much quicker a civil rights bill will be able to move through the Congress, considering the makeup of that body at the time.
 
Good stuff Dan -- of course, Hubert still has to win the nomination, and all the OP gives him is Wisconsin.

The real question now becomes -- how do the rest of the primaries, and the subsequent convention, play out?

Well, after Wisconsin in OTL, the next big primary was West Virginia. Kennedy's momentum was greatly boosted by Wisconsin, and the thought was that he would need to win a heavily Protestant state in order to prove that he was a viable candidate throughout the nation (JFK's victory in Wisconsin, rightly or wrongly, and there is still a good deal of discussion about that, was credited to the state's largish Catholic population)
In the ATL, Kennedy is going into West Virginia without that momentum boost. He may still win, but, even if he does, it won't prove as decisive as in OTL. We might see it spread to the convention. Although my gut feeling is that, after the ATL Wisconsin, Humphrey gains the momentum and sweeps most of the rest of the primaries.
Primarily, the Kennedy brand will be tarnished. The Kennedy family threw everything they had into Wisconsin, to the point that HHH ruefully joked that he felt like he was going against a corporation during that contest, because there was only one of him, and a dozen Kennedies in state at any given time. If HHH pulls a victory out despite this, he'd be able to adopt a "Comeback Kid" attitude.
 

Thande

Donor
If HHH was the Democratic nominee I would expect a stronger Dixiecrat move, maybe standing a full candidate as in 1948 (and 1968 later on in OTL) rather than just unpledged electors. The most probable outcomes are either (1) Nixon wins outright, or (2) hung electoral college and the ensuing clusterfuck.
 
If HHH was the Democratic nominee I would expect a stronger Dixiecrat move, maybe standing a full candidate as in 1948 (and 1968 later on in OTL) rather than just unpledged electors. The most probable outcomes are either (1) Nixon wins outright, or (2) hung electoral college and the ensuing clusterfuck.

Well, the House and Senate were Democratic -- course, there's still the question of whether Southern Democratic members would prefer Humphrey or Nixon...
 
If HHH was the Democratic nominee I would expect a stronger Dixiecrat move, maybe standing a full candidate as in 1948 (and 1968 later on in OTL) rather than just unpledged electors. The most probable outcomes are either (1) Nixon wins outright, or (2) hung electoral college and the ensuing clusterfuck.

I disagree, a strong Dixiecrat movement is going to be offset by Humphrey victories in Wisconsin, Iowa, or other places in the Midwest. its still a close election, but HHH has a very strong chance of winning it. This is even more the case if he chooses LBJ as his running mate, who is going to minimize any defection from Southern Democrats.
Besides, look at the electoral map. The most likely states for the Dixiecrats to carry in the case of an HHH nomination would be Virginia, Tennessee and Kuntucky; states that went for Nixon OTL. HHH actually has more to gain from a Dixiecraft rebellion than Nixon.
 
Assuming he wins, and governs as a liberal, I could see it having the same effect ITTL as President Henry Wallace did in For All Time. Barry Goldwater has a good shot at the Presidency in 1964.
 
There won't be a Dixiecrat movement if Humphrey wins, because he and LBJ were close partners in the Senate. The Southerners in the Senate hated Humphrey in his early years there, and Johnson was key in slowly building a relationship between the Southerners and Humphrey.

LBJ will grumble inwardly and take the same VP spot that he took for Kennedy. And with Richard Russell siding with LBJ as usual, there will be no revolt of the Dixiecrats.
 
Assuming he wins, and governs as a liberal, I could see it having the same effect ITTL as President Henry Wallace did in For All Time. Barry Goldwater has a good shot at the Presidency in 1964.

Barry Goldwater was never going to win in 1964. I'm reminded of the story of a Republican delegate exclaiming, after Goldwater's famous nomination speech, "Oh god, he's going to run as Barry Goldwater." Goldwater was many things, an honest individual who stood up for what he believed in, and was a generally good person. One thing he was not, however, was electable. This is still the height of the Liberal Concensus, which really didn't begin to break down until the late 60s (and didn't finally pass until Nixon was booted from office), and Goldwater is going to appear as an out-of-the-mainsteam radical who matter who he is running against in 1964. He might do better, yes, but there is no way he is going to win during that time.
As for Humphrey being anywhere near a Henry Wallace figure in FAT; well, the chances of that are about as likely as Goldwaters chances. The reason Chet chose a Wallace presidency was because he was an ideologically driven man, who was also highly incompitent on the national state. Humphrey is none of these things (Goldwater, oddly enough ....) He was a successful Senator and, in OTL, Vice-President who was certainly a New Deal Liberal, but not a radical by any means of the imagination (no matter what some Southrons might have thought at certain times). He was, at heart, a good Upper Midwestern Progressive, who came out of the tradition of the LaFollettes, Olson and Frazier.
In a timeline with a President HHH (assuming he lives to '64. Oswald is still running around), I'd actually expect the Republicans to play it a bit more safe and nominate Rocky.
 
Honestly, I'm not even sure Humphrey gets the nomination in 1960 if he wins Wisconsin, so speculation about 1964 seems a bit premature. You have to remember that what gave Kennedy the momentum after Wisconsin was the fact that he seemed to have beaten Humphrey in his own backyard. Humphrey was, after all, called "the third senator from Wisconsin." If Triple H does manage a win in Wisconsin somehow I feel like it won't be touted as much by the press as Kennedy's win. Then there's the fact that Humphrey's (dis)organization is smaller and underfunded, a problem that is likely to continue even with the wind at his back. So even if he loses Wisconsin, I can see Kennedy winning West Virginia with smaller margins. Not sure what this means going into the convention as I can't see a few more delegates really swinging it to a different candidate, but maybe with even a slight breeze at his back Humphrey picks up some support there and prolongs the ballotting. Whoever wins the nomination, though, will probably lose to Nixon in November.
 
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