WI: RFK survives in Los Angeles, RFK vs. Nixon 1968?

RFK vs. Nixon?

  • RFK Presidency

    Votes: 32 53.3%
  • Nixon Presidency

    Votes: 28 46.7%

  • Total voters
    60
What would have happened if RFK managed to survive/wasn't assassinated in Los Angeles and faced off against Nixon (assuming he also won the nomination)?

Do you think Nixon would have beaten RFK?
 
I think Nixon still would've won. He would do better in the South and would most likely win Texas (Humphrey won it and I doubt LBJ would pull any strings for RFK) and I don't see RFK doing that much better than HHH in the north to pull off the win. After he loses, Bobby probably pulls a Nixon and runs 8 years after losing (in 1976) and wins (and wins by a bigger margin than Carter did OTL).
 
Well, first of all I think that Humphrey would still have won the nomination even if RFK had lived. The point is that while RFK and McCarthy were knocking each other out in the primaries (it is sometimes forgotten, btw, that the very day RFK won the CA primary, McCarthy beat him in NJ...) Humphrey was quietly accumulating delegates in the thirty-six states that didn't have primaries. To quote an old post of mine at
http://www.alternatehistory.com/for...-wins-california-primary.318881/#post-9289057

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The following is from *Time* of June 7, 1968, the week before the California primary (and RFK's death) and shortly after McCarthy's victory in Oregon:

"[Despite Oregon] few powers in the party yet view him [McCarthy] as a serious possibility for the nomination. By slowing Kennedy he increased Humphrey's already strong polling power in the tug of war for convention delegates. The Vice President was adding to his long lead even before Oregon's votes were counted. In Florida, a slate of delegates pledged to Senator George Smathers as a favorite son, but favorable to Humphrey, captured 55 of the state's 63 convention votes. Members of Pennsylvania's 130-vote delegation met for the first time and, ignoring pleas from Kennedy backers to remain uncommitted, gave Humphrey about 100 of their votes. In Missouri, Kennedy and McCarthy forces defeated a move to give Humphrey all 60 votes under a unit rule, but the Vice President was the heavy favorite at the state convention. Delegates in many states now regarded as strong for Humphrey will be under no compulsion to remain loyal until the national convention, but for the time being, Humphrey's advantage seems unassailable."

In the June 14 issue, after RFK's death, *Time* stated: "Even before last week, Humphrey's forces had quietly marshaled sufficient delegate strength to put him within clear marching distance of a convention victory."

***

But let's assume that somehow RFK wins the nomination. I think in the general election he would lose at least one state Humphrey won in OTL: Texas--which Humphrey narrowly carried thanks to LBJ's support. Would he win enough extra northern and western states to make up for it? I doubt it. Some McCarthy voters will be as bitter about him as they were about Humphrey in OTL, and he will lose some moderate-to-conservative Democrats who went for Humphrey in OTL. In IL, for example, while he might do better than Humphrey in the Chicago area, he might do even worse than Humphrey downstate.
 
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RFK I feel has been given a better chance in the eyes of those viewing the situation after his death than what he actually had OTL. I think even had RFK managed to secure the nomination (far from certain) that Nixon would have won.
 
Believe it or not, many Robert Kennedy supporters actually went over to George Wallace after the assassination.

Really? That's surprising. Doesn't seem like they had much in common by 1968. (The 1950s Wallace was a lot more like RFK but after losing an election he decided to become a race baiter.)
 
Believe it or not, many Robert Kennedy supporters actually went over to George Wallace after the assassination.

Contra: "The Kennedy supporters nationally went 82. 4% to Humphrey, 13.9% to Nixon, and 3.7% to Wallace." https://www.google.com/search?hl=en.......0...1c.1.64.serp..5.0.0.Lsha5n0P7fU#spf=1 (Abraham H. Miller, *The 1968 Election in Illinois: A Descriptive and Theoretical Analysis,* Institute of Governmental Affairs, University of California, 1971)
 
LBJ was absolutely paranoid about being seen as the "accident" book-ended between the Kennedys.

He would have done everything he could to sabotage an RFK campaign in 68.
 
So if Nixon wins in '68, he's no doubt re-elected and Watergate goes off as expected. However, assuming RFK is still around in 1976, would he manage to take the nomination? He probably beats Ford if he does, so what are his chances of being re-elected in 1980 against Reagan?

Probably depends on how he handled Iran and stagflation - best case is that he manages to avert the Ayatollah altogether, but if he can keep the hostage crisis from happening, that should be good enough. Also if he can find a way to reverse stagflation or at least slow it down, assuming he's more debate savvy than Carter was, he should win in 1980 and downplay, if not avert, the Reagan policies.
 
Assuming a Nixon presidency automatically yields Watergate is shaky at best: you may want to reconsider that premise. A surviving Robert Kennedy could possibly alter whom the Dems choose in 1972, meaning the paranoia Nixon felt with respect to McGovern and those opposing the war in Viet Nam might not exist. But back to the original premise.

Given the bad blood between Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy, I doubt Johnson would have done much more than give lip service support to the Dems in 1968. Long story short, he'd come as close to sitting it out as one as partisan as he could manage. That will mean TX goes to Nixon, and the election is not as close as it was IOTL. I could see Kennedy and McGovern semi-collaborating as an alternative to McCarthy, with the goal being a challenge to Nixon in 1968: perhaps a Kennedy-McGovern ticket.

Were that to happen, 1972 wouldn't be the walkover it was IOTL. I could see a few major states shifting to the Dems (Kennedy might be able to deliver NY, for example), but on the whole, the advantage is to the incumbent barring something highly unusual. A relatively close election means that Nixon's strategists would be too busy handling the day-to-day tactics to worry about cloak-and-dagger stuff like Watergate--and probably would have dismissed it with "we don't have time for that crap" or something similar.

Now, without Watergate, Nixon's second term plays out less turbulently than IOTL. To be sure, Agnew resigns but that's an entirely separate issue: his corruption in MD was going to surface sooner or later. When he's gone, I could see Ford getting the nod since John Connally was trusted by neither side having changed parties. But would Ford get the nomination in 1976? I don't think that given the support of outgoing president Nixon, he would have been denied: let's put it that way. Reagan may not like it but he knows how to pick his battles.

That leaves the question of 1976. I have to wonder if without Watergate it would be quite the poisoned chalice that we knew it to be. Still, I can't think of anything offhand that would deflect the looming economic problems, or the equally looming upheaval in Iran. You could bet, though, that Kennedy's loss in 1972 would pretty much have ended his career, and that of brother Ted by extension: if the Dems didn't give Adlai Stevenson a third shot in 1960, they weren't likely to do it for Kennedy in 1976. But Carter instead? I'll step aside here and let someone else pick this up.
 

Wallet

Banned
LBJ was absolutely paranoid about being seen as the "accident" book-ended between the Kennedys.

He would have done everything he could to sabotage an RFK campaign in 68.
Yeah. He supported HHH with all his might. But he still prefers Kennedy over Nixon.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Really? That's surprising. Doesn't seem like they had much in common by 1968. (The 1950s Wallace was a lot more like RFK but after losing an election he decided to become a race baiter.)
the same was true of Eugene McCarthy primary voters; quite a few went over to wallace. people were voting for him and switched to Wallace because they were both anti-establishment candidates

it's kinda like the bernie supporter who voted gary johnson in the general despite them being on the polar opposite of the ideological spectrum
 
the same was true of Eugene McCarthy primary voters; quite a few went over to wallace. people were voting for him and switched to Wallace because they were both anti-establishment candidates

it's kinda like the bernie supporter who voted gary johnson in the general despite them being on the polar opposite of the ideological spectrum

I wouldn't call them opposites. Bernie and Sessions would be polar opposites. Bernie and Johnson are similar on social issues and foreign policy, and both oppose corporate welfare.
 
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