WI: RFK accepts “Dump Johnson” candidacy in late 1967?

Bomster

Banned
I read that Allard Lowenstein had offered Robert Kennedy to be the Democratic Party’s “Dump Johnson” anti-war candidate in Oct.-Nov. of 1967. However in our TL Bobby declined the request and the anti-war candidate would instead be Eugene McCarthy, until Bobby joined the race later on. How would the election have been changed with RFK being a candidate earlier than in our TL?
 
He may have been better received than he was IOTL. The Netflix docuseries "Bobby Kennedy for President" shows pretty clearly that a lot of people thought he was just an opportunist, getting in McCarthy's way when it proved to be convenient. Other than that, i'm not too sure how much would've actually changed. I imagine McCarthy would've stayed out of the race, or at least not done as well as he did. I'm not sure what LBJ would've done, whether he'd have dropped out sooner or stayed in longer to stick it to RFK; depends on how New Hampshire goes with Kennedy in the mix. Since a big part of McCarthy's support came from college kids, and he managed to take 42% of the vote, I could see RFK doing even better and maybe even winning the NH primary. The biggest question is, if RFK is the immediate front-runner with only minimal competition, and still gets shot, who replaces him? Still Hubert Humphrey?
 

Bomster

Banned
He may have been better received than he was IOTL. The Netflix docuseries "Bobby Kennedy for President" shows pretty clearly that a lot of people thought he was just an opportunist, getting in McCarthy's way when it proved to be convenient. Other than that, i'm not too sure how much would've actually changed. I imagine McCarthy would've stayed out of the race, or at least not done as well as he did. I'm not sure what LBJ would've done, whether he'd have dropped out sooner or stayed in longer to stick it to RFK; depends on how New Hampshire goes with Kennedy in the mix. Since a big part of McCarthy's support came from college kids, and he managed to take 42% of the vote, I could see RFK doing even better and maybe even winning the NH primary. The biggest question is, if RFK is the immediate front-runner with only minimal competition, and still gets shot, who replaces him? Still Hubert Humphrey?
Huh, I watched that documentary too.
Twas fantastic. But anyway onto the subject. I’m split on whether or not LBJ would have stayed in the race. He left in our TL just from winning only a small margin in the NH primary. I agree that’s RFK would have mostly like beat him in that primary. LBJ might just accept defeat or, with his seething hatred of Kennedy, stay in the race. I’m not sure. I feel like it isn’t too much of a stretch to butterfly the assassination away or to have the bullet miss. After that it’s the convention and I feel that RFK has a real shot at becoming the candidate. However LBJ has the party in the bag, so it’s going to be very difficult.
 
As Kennedy repeated time and again, had he gone into the race earlier than he did, it would have been perceived in the media and sections of the public that he was playing out a personal fight against Johnson rather than campaigning with substance. And he was probably right. People are never happy. OTL 1968: "Kennedy should have gotten into the race before! He's exploiting McCarthy!", alternate 1967: "Why is Bobby Kennedy in this race? He's just fighting a personal vendetta against Johnson and used New York to do it!", alternate 1972: "Why didn't Kennedy run in 1968? Nixon's got the country on track./He could have stopped Nixon./I would have voted for him in 1968 but not now." or whatever it is, could have, or would have been.
 
Huh, I watched that documentary too.
Twas fantastic. But anyway onto the subject. I’m split on whether or not LBJ would have stayed in the race. He left in our TL just from winning only a small margin in the NH primary. I agree that’s RFK would have mostly like beat him in that primary. LBJ might just accept defeat or, with his seething hatred of Kennedy, stay in the race. I’m not sure. I feel like it isn’t too much of a stretch to butterfly the assassination away or to have the bullet miss. After that it’s the convention and I feel that RFK has a real shot at becoming the candidate. However LBJ has the party in the bag, so it’s going to be very difficult.

The race would be easier in a way with Johnson still in it, because it would be Kennedy and McCarthy against Johnson as alternative options for the path of the party, which is the race Kennedy thought he was going to be running. Without Johnson, it was Kennedy against (in many ways) McCarthy. On the issue of LBJ having the party in the bag, I don't know how true that would be of even this alternate 1968 convention. The party dynamic was and would certainly be in this reality a "cluster fuck" (to use the scientific term). So many elements are in play, so many conflicting thoughts in individuals and factions who are in conflict with others in the party on the larger scale, that its really anyone's race until one of many possibilities solidify as the reality. Johnson may be president and the big boss man with all the connections he has and hit men to pressure people in the party he needs for the nomination. At the same time, he's tanking in popularity, the country feels like it is gone absolutely insane and at best like the hope got shot in Dallas and the early years of LBJ in office were a brief state of denial, and Johnson embodies four more years of a deep uncertainty at what is going to happen. Johnson's Vietnam is like that scene in the Godfather: with Vietnam, the violence, the riots and all of it, even the old man's political connections run for cover. Not to say he didn't have many, many Democrats in power supporting him and hammering down on the need for Americans in Vietnam. But at the end of the day, for those party elites, it really is about covering their own backside and self interest. And if Johnson looks dead, I think they'd smell blood and abandon him for other options if they had them. The man in office will know who his friends were. He will be appointing the positions, supporting those friends, asking for their input, campaigning for them, and using his power to influence their position and weight in the party. An ex-president is useless. And it is a huge gamble, because they may be right in who they back or they could be wrong. All this will come into play. In summary, cluster fuck.
 
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Seems to me like it's a sure-fire recipe for the Democrats to split--badly. Nixon (or whomever the GOP nominates in this timeline) will all but win in a walk. I could see Johnson doing some major tub-thumping in the south, trying to cut off Wallace at the knees while ensuring he has something of a power base. At the same time he's going to have to walk a knife edge so as not to appear too hawkish and thus perhaps steal a number of northern states where Kennedy would run well. The GOP candidate would probably (IMO) carry those that Nixon won IOTL, so the Republicans should have the White House going forward. And the Dem split may spill over into the congressional elections, with some districts fielding a candidate aligning with the regular (= Johnson) Dems, and another aligning with the Kennedy Dems. Might tilt the House toward (doubt it would completely tilt the House, though) the GOP.
 
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