WI: Reagan picks Jesse Helms instead of Bush

What if Ronald Reagan had picked Jesse Helms to be his running mate in 1980 instead of George Bush?

He probably wouldn't have won: Jesse Helms was too extreme for even many on the right, north of the Mason-Dixon at least. But hoo boy, if, hypothetically, had this ticket won, and Reagan either died or had to resign.....Helms would have been a scary President. :eek::eek:
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Helms never wanted that kind of role. He was much happier to influence things from his stature in the Senate.

I don't get why Reagan would do this, either. He had the Helms wing of the party locked up, he needed Bush to deliver the old establishment types.
 
What if Ronald Reagan had picked Jesse Helms to be his running mate in 1980 instead of George Bush?

Why would he do that? Getting the support of the far right is certainly not going to be his problem in 1980. None of the other people Reagan considered--Bush, Ford, Rumsfeld, etc. were in that category. (Nor was Kemp, who was a conservative but tried to appeal to minorities.) Even Laxalt (who Reagan considered because he was a friend but rejected because the choice didn't make geographic or political sense) was not in that category. And Helms was not really a close personal friend of Reagan's in the way that Laxalt was.

Reagan always recognized the need to reach out to moderate Republicans (without sacrificing his own conservative principles): see Geoffrey Kabaservice's account of how he did it in California in 1966: https://books.google.com/books?id=Tlr7zOjQjOMC&pg=PA189 Choosing Helms would be such an affront to moderate and even moderate-conservative voters that it would make no sense.
 
I agree with the "it makes no sense" crowd, but I think the short answer is not only that Carter wins re-election, but that John B. Anderson finishes second in the popular vote with a strong plurality of Republican votes.
 
Why would he do that?

Indeed. One might as well ask "WI Obama had chosen Charlie Rangel as his running mate in 2008?"

Or Kennedy had chosen John Pastore in 1960 - why not two northeastern Catholic liberals?

Prior to 1948, Presidential candidates did not just choose their running mates. Even FDR had to fight to get Truman in 1944 and Wallace in 1940.

So one might ask "WI the Democrats in 1912 had chosen Tom Watson of Georgia as Wilson's running mate?" (Watson was a hard-core race-baiter and Jew-baiter. The Ku Klux Klan would have been even more delighted than they were with just Wilson. Watson was also a former noted Populist who would have reinforced Wilson's "progressive" appeal.)

Or "WI the Republicans in 1860 had chosen Cassius Clay of Kentucky as Lincoln's running mate?" (Clay was a fiery Abolitionist, and in fact Clay was a respectable second on the first VP ballot.)
 
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