WI: Nixon financed Black Democrat

In actual history, the Nixon White House going into 1972 was fearful of Ted Kennedy as the nominee, Edmund Muskie being the nominee and George Wallace running once again as a third party. Ted Kennedy had the Kennedy mystique, which had screwed Nixon before wand almost screwed him with Bobby Kennedy and which he was still fearful of, even with Chappaquiddick. Nixon was afraid of Edmund Muskie because he was a strong candidate. And Nixon was afraid of George Wallace because he could woe away the South and working class whites, whom Nixon relied on strongly as part of his base.

There were many dirty tricks undertaken, and many dirty tricks planned, to make sure Nixon won and his enemies would not, and would be decimated and tarred with scandal if they came close. One of these dirty tricks that was discussed was financing an African American candidate to run as an independent and steal votes from the Democrats. Candidates discussed included Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond and Shirley Chisholm.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19961128&slug=2362127

This plan didn't end up going anywhere beyond discussion, but what if the Nixon White House had went ahead and committed to putting that plan into action?
 
I wrote a whole intro explaining why I think the plan would be ASB(even if Nixon did entertain the idea), but I got the "second log-in request" when I tried to post, and my whole post disappeared. I'll just summarize the intro by saying I think that kind of plan would be almost impossible to keep secret. As for the consequences if it did got forward...

African-Americans have been overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party since the mid-60s, and I don't know if that would change simply because a black person was running third-party. There are only really two reasons why blacks would switch to the third-party candidate in that scenario...

1. They like the idea of having a black president, and think that the third-party can win.

2. They think the third-party would be better for their interests than the Democrats. In other words, the thrid-party is more liberal.

re #1. Something that's often forgotten about the 2008 election cycle is that Obama originally trailed Hillary among blacks in the primaries, presumbaly because blacks figured he was an untested quantity, and were uncertain about his chances against the GOP. They came around to supporting him after his popularity took off with the public in general. I don't know if blacks in 1972 would have been any more "tribalist" in their loyalties than they were in 2008.

As for #2, if blacks generally voted according to liberal purity, they would have switched to the Green Party a long time ago. They haven't, and I assume that's because they know the Greens don't have a hope in hell of winning. I reckon they'd make the same judegment in 1972.

Also, and this somewhat relates to my lost intro, but I think if Nixon had put that plan into play, it woulda been exposed pretty quickly. We're not talking about the the barkeeper in Hicksville bribing the town drunk wth free drinks to run for office and siphon votes away from Mayor McCheese's opponent. A fifth-column candidacy in a presidential election would be a very complicated thing to run, and a lot of people(not least among the candidate's erstwhile Democratic allies) would be asking serious questions about what exactly is going on.
 
There's also the United Citizens possibility. The aforementioned party was a third party in SC when the Democrats were a white-dominated party. They ran minority candidates and even elected a few legislators. The party itself is still around.
 
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