WI: Nixon nominated Reagan to replace Agnew

What if Nixon nominated Reagan instead of Ford to replace Agnew? Would Reagan have been confirmed? Would he have pardoned Nixon? How would Reagan be seen in 1976?
 
He can't - both are from California. What'd be really sneaky is if he picked John Connally before he switched parties to be a "bipartisan president."
 
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He can't - both are from California. What'd be really sneaky is if he picked John Connally before he switched parties to be a "bipartisan president."

Not true. The only restriction is during the election, and it's on the electors not on the candidate. So the electors from California could only vote for Nixon or Reagan, not both.
 
So, why did Dick Chaney say he was from California?

He didn't. He registered to vote in Wyoming. It was to avoid this issue in a tight race. If Cheney had stayed a "resident" of Texas, those 38 electors would not have been able to vote for him as Vice President. Cheney would've ended up with 239 electoral votes, and Lieberman with 266, and the VP election would have been sent to the Senate (probably).
 
He can't - both are from California. What'd be really sneaky is if he picked John Connally before he switched parties to be a "bipartisan president."

Not true. The only restriction is during the election, and it's on the electors not on the candidate. So the electors from California could only vote for Nixon or Reagan, not both.

Incorrect. Nixon declared his home state in 1968 and 1972 as New York. In addition, the state restriction is a matter for the Electoral College, and Nixon has already won 1972, and cannot nor will he run in 1976, so the point is moot. But the point is already moot as Nixon's electoral home state was New York. So it is arguing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin when neither the angels nor the pin even exist.
 
Incorrect. Nixon declared his home state in 1968 and 1972 as New York. In addition, the state restriction is a matter for the Electoral College, and Nixon has already won 1972, and cannot nor will he run in 1976, so the point is moot. But the point is already moot as Nixon's electoral home state was New York. So it is arguing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin when neither the angels nor the pin even exist.

Not that Wikipedia's anything resembling a concrete source on this, but there's a note on the 1968 election page indicating that while Nixon was registered as being from New York in 1968, he re-established residency in California during his first term. If this is correct, he would, IIRC, technically be considered a resident of California for the 1972 election; however, past the election the point would, as you pointed out, be moot since the Electoral College has nothing to do with the appointment of a Vice President during a President's term.

Apologies if I'm mistaken on the residency point; I was a little over a decade away from breathing at that point, so I don't have any first hand knowledge to refer to here. I just happened to recall that note because it struck me as unusual that they recorded Nixon as having two different residencies for his two elections.
 
Not that Wikipedia's anything resembling a concrete source on this, but there's a note on the 1968 election page indicating that while Nixon was registered as being from New York in 1968, he re-established residency in California during his first term. If this is correct, he would, IIRC, technically be considered a resident of California for the 1972 election; however, past the election the point would, as you pointed out, be moot since the Electoral College has nothing to do with the appointment of a Vice President during a President's term.

Apologies if I'm mistaken on the residency point; I was a little over a decade away from breathing at that point, so I don't have any first hand knowledge to refer to here. I just happened to recall that note because it struck me as unusual that they recorded Nixon as having two different residencies for his two elections.

If you have residency in multiple states, you can (as Cheney did...as Nixon did) declare your residency as one of those states for the purposes of the election. I think there's some technicality about having "lived" there (as much as someone can be considered to "live" in a place when they're constantly traveling from home) for so many months, but that is about it. And frankly, on that note, the president's primary residency in being the president is Washington DC, at which point state residency becomes even more arbitrary as a qualification for the Electoral College which still happens to be there. Also important to note is that Nixon '68 really did come from New York and not California, by that point. He was an in-name-only partner at a law firm in New York City following the loss in California in 1962, lived in the city, and acted as a traveling representative on behalf of that law firm and other clients.
 
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Returning to the original question - Reagan was seen as a nutty Goldwaterite at this point. He would not have been confirmed. The entire point of Ford was that he was considered a harmless compromise.

Of course, had Nixon presented a string of unacceptable options, it might have mitigated Carl Albert's stance on not having a "Democratic coup" (Albert thought that since the American people had voted for the Republicans, that it was only fair to let Nixon appoint a replacement).
 
Returning to the original question - Reagan was seen as a nutty Goldwaterite at this point. He would not have been confirmed. . . .
Not so sure. By Oct. '73, he had been governor of California for close to seven years. And whatever his public statements, his policies were middle-of-the-road in a number of ways. Ronnie even pulled off a trick in which he raised taxes his first year and was then able to lower taxes in each subsequent year, and thereby was seen as a successful governor. Somehow he played the Democratic legislature on this one.
 
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