WI LBJ in 1960?

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but what might we see, should LBJ win the Democratic nomination in 1960, rather than JFK? Medicare and Medicaid enacted earlier? Civil Rights earlier?

For that matter, who's his running mate? Is it a switch of OTL's ticket with JFK at the back, or does he pick HHH or Symington?
 
I see LBJ losing the election to Nixon.

There's the possibility of this, I suppose. Nixon can tar and feather Johnson as anti-Civil Rights and soft on communism (which would be strange enough, but Nixon did convince voters that World War II hero George McGovern was some sort of wimp, after all), and he might actually be able to pull that off.

One thing is for sure, though. A campaign between Johnson and Nixon would be dirty. These men are the masters of negative campaigning, and I would expect a match-up of the two would render nothing, absolutely nothing, off limits.
 
LBJ would not be nominated, his delegate ceiling was too low, and the Dems never nominated a Southerner post-CW (Wilson ran from NJ). What LBJ wanted was a LBJ-JFK ticket, but that would never fly. If it wasn't Johnson it would be Humphrey, who would likely lose to Nixon. LBJ would be able to self-finance, his wealth rivaled the Kennedys (in liquid terms).
 
Easy peasy.

JFK's health deteriorates in 1959, to the point that he is confined to a wheelchair/crutches (as he was at times when undergoing--or about to undergo--medical procedures, like when he was given the last rites in a London hotel in the late forties.) He doesn't fully recover before the primary season, and the newsmedia isn't willing to give him a free pass as per OTL with his Addington's. This is the first election covered by handheld sound-on-film cameras, you just can't do an FDR at this time.

And without the testing board of the primary elections JFK isn't going to risk going to the convention as a delegate-less candidate.

In this scenario you have to justify Humphrey or Symington being able to beat LBJ at the '60 convention. I don't see either having the moxy to pull off a first ballot victory, and that radically increases the chances of LBJ's strategy getting him the nom.

Johnson has at least as good a chance at beating Nixon in the general as Kennedy did. Perhaps even better.

Yes, he was a Southerner, he was an outsider, he was considered anti-liberal and ultra-sectional by many liberal Democrats.

But he was also an incredible talent. Hell, he was more telegenic than Nixon, something we forget because of JFK's intense charisma. And money isn't going to be a problem for his campaign--that's the factor that he might use to get the bosses to support him over HHH & Symington at the convention.

IMO his biggest challenge will be getting liberal support, and stomping out any talk of a third party candidate to his Left.

Johnson/Humphrey? Johnson/Harriman?
 
There's the possibility of this, I suppose. Nixon can tar and feather Johnson as anti-Civil Rights and soft on communism

Civil Rights is a real pain for Johnson at this time, though he is lucky in that he can say he is merely following Stevenson's do-nothing example from the previous two elections.

Plus, Civil Rights is very uncomfortable for Tricky, too.

I think accusing LBJ of being soft on the Reds is a fools errand, unless Nixon is trying to drive a wedge between the Dem nominee and the Stevensonions.

The New Freedom said:
One thing is for sure, though. A campaign between Johnson and Nixon would be dirty. These men are the masters of negative campaigning, and I would expect a match-up of the two would render nothing, absolutely nothing, off limits.

I don't see why it should be any worse than JFK v. Nixon (okay, that maybe isn't a very high bar to clear.)

Negative campaigning doesn't really come into its own until later, when it's obvious that the national media is the platform to win the presidency with, and that the parties are no longer the same old loose coalitions as they've traditionally been.

Nixon is still Nixon--and LBJ is still the same kind of Democratic Cold Warrior as the Kennedys were at this time. Remember, Nixon's later complaints were mostly about Kennedy exploiting his (Nixon's) inability to talk tough about Cuba (because the VP was involved in the secret Bay of Pigs planning, and had to skirt the issue in the debates.) And I think LBJ is smart enough to run with the 'missile gap' canard, just as he was smart enough to cast himself as the leading senator providing oversight to the Korean War effort during the Truman years.
 
When the Soviets place missiles in Cuba, Johnston pushes The Button. The End.

No!

You're supposed to aim those non sequiturs at AH President Nixon.

Just as you're supposed to write, "Africa Americans don't get to vote until the seventies," on all 'JFK Avoids Dallas' threads.

What are you, some kind of n00b?:p
 
When the Soviets place missiles in Cuba, Johnston pushes The Button. The End.

That all relies on Bay of Pigs and how that goes. If tried, it'll still fail (if you want the reasons, look at my past posts about the Nixon/Cuba scenario), but there could be certain deviations on it.

Similarly, while Johnson was way more hawkish than Kennedy, I'm not sure I'd call him a hawk :)eek:). And I highly doubt he'd started a nuclear war with Cuba.

Yes, along with JFK is impeached/dies of Addisons/joint US-Soviet moon shot. :p
The latter is not impossible nor implausible. Kennedy saw space as either something to beat the Soviets to show Western superiority, or to utilize Joint missions to secure global cooperation and peace. Little more. And Kennedy had proposed it a number of times. The greatest problem is getting over Congress, who had put in a provision to NASA's budget following all that that they'd slash funding if NASA cooperated with the USSR in a joint-moon shot. But it'd be an uphill battle.
 
More than Nixon IOTL? They (Ervin) were already POed enough with JFK's attempts to legislate by EO. On the ExComm: IIRC LBJ vacillated back and forth- depending on who was winning at that particular moment. Thirteen Days gives RFK's pleasant-as-usual opinion on this. ;) By pleasant I mean Nixon tapes pleasant.
 
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