What if Johnson did not make it into the White House, either as VP or President in 1960, and remained in the Senate?
LBJ continues on as a powerful, influential Senate Majority Leader until he thinks his health is giving out, circa late Sixties, early Seventies.
I've heard Stuart Symington, George Smathers and Henry Jackson as likelier candidates for the VP slot.
LBJ kept his power being a go between the Dixiecrats of the South and the liberals of the North. Has the Democratic party becomes more liberal on civil rights, what does LBJ do? In real life has President he went pro civil rights. Ruined the south to GOP dammination But does he do that has majority leader? If he does do that, does the south look for a new below the Mason Dixon line leader and can LBJ hold on to power with northern liberal allies? I believe he would loose power in a Democratic presidency that does not need southern votes.
Quick Question:
If LBJ was not the Vice Presidential candidate, that could jeopardize the Kennedy ticket's ability to lock up Texas. If JFK loses Texas. If it retained all the same states besides Texas, it'd be just 16 electoral votes ahead of the minimum needed to win (269), and there's the possibility that butterflies could change another state or two, throwing the election to Nixon, or possibly even no electoral majority. There's also the prospect of not discovering Hawaii was for Kennedy (it was originally called for Nixon but the recounts showed it had gone to Kennedy in reality), but whatever.
Could LBJ, off the ticket, manage to get Texas to vote for Kennedy and his VP? Or would it be destined for Nixon?
Without LBJ Nixon swings most of the South his way and is a very likely winner in November. Also, what 037771 said.
Even with a Southern VP?
Who else is there? Yarborough is seen as a sellout by his fellow Southerners, Sanford hadn't even won the governorship yet, Fulbright is a full-throated Dixiecrat.
Smathers. Symington.
Smathers also has a Dixiecrat reputation, Missouri isn't a Southern state by 1960.
Smathers, at least what I've read of him, comes off as much more of a Moderate than the Dixiecrats. He didn't foam at the mouth with bigotry, though he didn't do anything to stop segregation and inequality.