IOTL, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy went against his brother's advice and picked a southerner, Lyndon B. Johnson, to be his running mate. However, Bobby Kennedy wanted his brother to pick a labor-friendly liberal, namely Walter Reuther. What if Kennedy listened to his brother's advice and picked Reuther to be his running mate?
WI: JFK picks Walter Reuther to be his running mate
- Thread starter Bomster
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Bobby wanted either Sen. Symington of Missouri or Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington for the second spot, JFK needed to address the "Youth and Experience" question and pick someone from the South who didn't sign the "Southern Manifesto".
LBJ filled both of those requirements and also as the Senate Majority Leader he and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (D-TX) called the Congress in a special session that was supposed to help LBJ after the convention.
JFK knew that if he didn't do something to placate them they could have embarrassed him before the Fall Campaign started so that is another reason that LBJ was asked to be the Vice President nominee.
It is still questioned to this day whether or not JFK made the offer with expectations that LBJ would have turned it down but it would have allowed him to have some consolation that he was asked.
It was assumed that it was Lady Bird Johnson who along with Speaker Sam who convinced LBJ to take the second spot.
LBJ filled both of those requirements and also as the Senate Majority Leader he and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (D-TX) called the Congress in a special session that was supposed to help LBJ after the convention.
JFK knew that if he didn't do something to placate them they could have embarrassed him before the Fall Campaign started so that is another reason that LBJ was asked to be the Vice President nominee.
It is still questioned to this day whether or not JFK made the offer with expectations that LBJ would have turned it down but it would have allowed him to have some consolation that he was asked.
It was assumed that it was Lady Bird Johnson who along with Speaker Sam who convinced LBJ to take the second spot.
J. Edgar Hoover and the Republicans try to paint Walter Reuther as a Communist, although Reuther worked to expel Communists from organized labor. Reuther helps Kennedy in the Midwest, but the ticket does worse in the South without Johnson.
Should the ticket be elected, it begs the question as to whether Vice President Reuther would have been assassinated instead of Kennedy (given how Reuther survived multiple assassination attempts in OTL.)
Should the ticket be elected, it begs the question as to whether Vice President Reuther would have been assassinated instead of Kennedy (given how Reuther survived multiple assassination attempts in OTL.)
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I assume that LBJ has something to do with Kennedy deciding to visit Dallas at the specific time that he did in 1963?
Well, there's always the "for want of a nail". But Kennedy went to Dallas half as a campaign trip for 1964, half to heal the party rift between the Yarborough and Connally factions of the Texas Democratic party.
Terrible. Reuther has a bunch of weaknesses, with none of the strengths of LBJ. He brings absolutely nothing to the table that you can't get by picking someone else. If you want a liberal hope, pick Hubert Humphrey, who also isn't a literal union leader. If you want experience in government, pick anyone but Reuther. Like yes, Stuart Symington. Move half a percent of the votes from Kennedy to Nixon and Nixon wins. At the end of the day, it boils down to the question "What does Reuther bring to the ticket that no one else does?". The answer to that is nothing. LBJ brings experience and rock-solid Southern loyalty. Humphrey is the darling of the liberals (but they would probably vote Kennedy anyways.), Symington is from Missouri, a key swing state, won by less than 10,000 votes in 1960, and Scoop, like with LBJ brings experience, and he also gels way more with Kennedy than LBJ does.
Yes. Given how close Connally and LBJ were and how personal the rift was to him, I think you can make the case without LBJ that trip may not happen. But Kennedy will have to go to Texas at some point in his re-election campaign. Presumably Oswald would be waiting.
This would be a disaster. The Democrats' association with "big labor" was a liability in the South and even in much of the North (the fact that a heavily Democratic Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act should indicate that organized labor was hardly universally popular even among Democrats) and Reuther, despite his anticommunism, was considered left-wing even by some people in the labor movement. ("Don't call him Reuther," [Steelworkers Union leaderDavid J. ] McDonald told his aides. "Refer to him as that no good red-headed socialist bastard Reuther." https://books.google.com/books?id=ghy45fyXYyoC&pg=PA336&lpg=PA336 McDonald was one of the few union leaders not to object to JFK's choice of LBJ as running mate.) A former Socialist Party member who had worked in a Soviet factory in the 1930's is not going to help the Democrats with the median voter. You can immediately count on the Democrats losing Texas and the Carolinas and Louisiana (where as it was the state Democratic committee came close to endorsing a slate of pro-Harry Byrd electors instead of JFK, even with Johnson on the ticket) and Missouri and New Mexico (where there were still a lot of conservative pro-LBJ Democrats in "Little Texas") and Nevada (another state with a lot of conservative Democrats). Even in northern states which JFK narrowly carried, like Illinois, I think he would be a net liability. Yes, his civil rights position could make him popular with African American voters, but they overwhelmingly backed JFK anyway. JFK's Catholicism was already enough of a handicap in downstate Illinois, and Reuther would be a further burden there.
The idea is so politically senseless that I would question that Bobby seriously expected his brother to go along with it. The only source for Bobby's having pressed for Reuther that I can find is the photogrpaher Hank Walker. https://webcache.googleusercontent..../time.com/3491219/+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us I would simply have to question Walker's account. Yes, Bobby liked Reuther--he found him a refreshing contrast to corrupt labor leaders like Hoffa and Beck--and disliked LBJ. But if he wanted to stop LBJ, there were a lot more plausible candidates than Reuther--Scoop Jackson (who could appeal to labor without being seen as left-wing), Stuart Symington (a border-state moderate liberal who was everyone's second choice for president), Albert Gore (if you want a non-LBJ southerner), Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman (to appeal to farmers) etc. Even Humphrey, though unpopular in the South, would be less controversial than Reuther. Bobby was sophisticated enough to know you could be a social democrat like Reuther and still anticommunist, and that even though Reuther was in fact an ally of the CPUSA in the 1930's, those days were long gone--but surely he was also sophisticated enough to realize that ordinary voters might not get these distinctions. If he really did press for Reuther as JFK's running mate, all I can say is that this was a crazy proposal JFK was most unlikely to approve.
BTW, according to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Bobby did not object to JFK's inital choice of LBJ because he thought it was merely a pro forma offer--LBJ would never accept! When LBJ astonished both brothers by accepting, Bobby tried to talk LBJ out of it, but in vain. Bobby said to James Rowe, " My God , this wouldn't have happened except that we were all too tired last night. Don't you think this is a terrible mistake? Don't you think Stuart Symington should be the candidate?" https://books.google.com/books?id=SLPqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT192 That sounds a lot more plausible to me than his saying that about Reuther. It is possible in the frantic late-night conversations between the brothers about what to do about LBJ's acceptance, Bobby did raise Reuther as a possibility, but I just can't see him as a serious prospect.
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I could have sworn that I had read an account through the New York Times where RFK had pushed for Reuther, but at the moment I can't find it in their archives. However it seems that as late as (July 13th) Bobby had moved on from Reuther to supporting Scoop Jackson.
Now while I don't agree with it I can see the argument being made in favor of Walter Reuther, at least after Hubert Humphrey effectively took himself out of contention by backing Stevenson. Based on the accounts I've read many already viewed the South as a lost cause for the Kennedy campaign, and of those considered as potential running-mates by the campaign none were going to assuage their concerns, the closest possibly being Albert Gore. African Americans were also still seen as a battleground voting bloc and both they and Northern Liberals remained largely lukewarm to Kennedy himself, so it may have seemed more important that July to appeal to those voters in an effort to at least energize if not commit them to the campaign; indeed, there was active concern that the choice of Johnson would actually alienate African Americans and depress turnout among the more Liberal Democratic voters.
However I believe that the argument fell apart when polls showed that Humphrey alone was liable to turn voters away from Kennedy in places (like Iowa), which obviously would have raised the question as to whether Reuther would be as if not more damaging to the ticket. That would in tandem explain RFK's move to supporting Scoop Jackson as his brother's running-mate later that week.
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marktaha
Banned
Ex - union leader for a long time Was trying.to visualise Gompers, Reuther, Lewis, or Winpisinger as candidates.Ronald Reagan.