WI The Kennedys survived...but the Democrats didn't?

This is my first time, so please be gentle. :) The basic POD is this: Lee Harvey Oswald's gun malfunctions, causing a jam when he tries to assassinate JFK. He quickly fixes the problem, but Kennedy is now too far ahead to get a clear shot. Oswald instead falls back to plan B: He assassinates Vice President Lyndon B Johnson instead.

(EDIT: Somehow forgot to specify: with Johnson dead, JFK chooses his brother/attorney general Robert Kennedy as his VP.)

This causes a few cracks in the time line: As Vice President, Robert Kennedy has secret service protection when running for President in 1968, and therefore he survives the assassination attempt (or maybe it doesn't even occur.)

But after the Kennedys, there is never another Democrat elected to office (at least until 2008). The elections go as follows: (President-Vice President)

1964: JFK - RFK
1968: RFK - Edmund Muskie
1972: RFK - Edmund Muskie
1976: Gerald Ford - Bob Dole
1980: Gerald Ford - Bob Dole
1984: Ronald Reagan - George HW Bush
1988: Ronald Reagan - George HW Bush
1992: George HW Bush - Pat Buchanan
1996: George HW Bush - Pat Buchanan
2000: Pat Buchanan - Dick Cheney
2004: Pat Buchanan - Dick Cheney
2008: Dick Cheney - John McCain

So...the challenge here: What does the world look like now, in 2008? What major events went differently? And why the heck hasn't a democrat won in 32 years?
 
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Perhaps near the end of his term RFK gets America into a small scale nuclear war. Perhaps several of our allies in europe get completely destroyed and a few of our cities here in America. America survives to but it is enough to discredit the democrat Party for generations. The Republicans move America back to its isolationist bent as they try to rebuild the American Cities destroyed by the Bombs.

In early 2008 tensions are rising again between the Soviet Union and the United States as the US begins come out of its isolationism. Vice President Cheney faces a difficult challenge from young Illisnois Governor Barrack Obama who is calling for America to be the Sword of Justice in the World. Cheney wins, but the clear signal is that the days of Republican domiance are nearly over.
 
Actually, according to Wikipedia (always accurate!) Reagan's doctors say he didn't start showing signs until 1992...and, regardless, wasn't diagnosed until 1994. In either case, he would've been out of office by then. And even if he was starting to get a little fuzzy as early as 1988, he would also be the guy who got us out of the cold war (IOTL, at least), so I think he could definitely win. I'm less convinced about Dick Cheney in 2008...or even being Pat Buchanan's Vice President...but that's the fun in creating an explanation within the new timeline!
 
This is my first time, so please be gentle. :) The basic POD is this: Lee Harvey Oswald's gun malfunctions, causing a jam when he tries to assassinate JFK. He quickly fixes the problem, but Kennedy is now too far ahead to get a clear shot. Oswald instead falls back to plan B: He assassinates Vice President Lyndon B Johnson instead.

(EDIT: Somehow forgot to specify: with Johnson dead, JFK chooses his brother/attorney general Robert Kennedy as his VP.)

This causes a few cracks in the time line: As Vice President, Robert Kennedy has secret service protection when running for President in 1968, and therefore he survives the assassination attempt (or maybe it doesn't even occur.)

But after the Kennedys, there is never another Democrat elected to office (at least until 2008). The elections go as follows: (President-Vice President)

1964: JFK - RFK
1968: RFK - Edmund Muskie
1972: RFK - Edmund Muskie
1976: Gerald Ford - Bob Dole
1980: Gerald Ford - Bob Dole
1984: Ronald Reagan - George HW Bush
1988: Ronald Reagan - George HW Bush
1992: George HW Bush - Pat Buchanan
1996: George HW Bush - Pat Buchanan
2000: Pat Buchanan - Dick Cheney
2004: Pat Buchanan - Dick Cheney
2008: Dick Cheney - John McCain

So...the challenge here: What does the world look like now, in 2008? What major events went differently? And why the heck hasn't a democrat won in 32 years?

Some food for thought questions as I thought about your scenario:
Where was LBJ in the motercade in relationship to Kennedy's car? How did Oswald know Johnson was there and targetable? I presume that you mean that JFK chose RFK to be his runningmate at the 1964 Democratic Convention, correct? Why would he do (not be talked out of doing) that? Why would the party nominate, not to mention the country elect another Kennedy in 1968? Why would GR Ford, who never desired to be POTUS prior to Watergate in OTL aspire to the presidency in TTL, and why Dole - other then the fact that he was Ford's '76 choice in OTL (GHW Bush or even Cheney would be more likely then him in this alternate scenario)? Why didn't Reagan run for the GOP nomination in '76 (that would be more likely then in 1984 and would open up the possibility of a GWB presidency from 1981 to 1993)? Who have the Democrats been nominating all these years (inept campaigners with no coherant message or positive vision for the future I can only presume)? Why did GHW Bush choose Buchanan as his running mate (someone along the lines of Jack Kemp would be more likely I think)? Why connect Buchanan W/Cheney?

I look forward to seeing how you flesh this idea out.
 

Typo

Banned
40 years is streching it

A democrat was elected only 16 years after calling for peace in 1864 after all.

Short RFK nukes NYC or something this really isn't going to happen.
 
I think a better JFK/RFK scenario is this...

LBJ asssassinated becasue of mixup over who is in what car, or whatever. Civil Rights still being pushed through, JFK feels need to try to finish the job despite his Addison's Disease. RFK, despite being only 40 years old, is chosen as the nominee after a *very* passionate speech at the convention, when JFK has been unable to decide on a VP; partly due to his being hospitalized, in secret, for his Addison's Disease.

So, they win the electino, but JFK dies in May of '67 from his Addison's Disease. (Don't know whether he'd pull out of Vietnam or not, let's ignore that for a second, I've heard claims across the spectrum there.) On the positive side for the Democrats, RFK can run two more times, since he'll have served less than 2 years of JFK's term, but people are already a little skeptical because of the coverups involving JFK's death.

Enter George Wallace. Upset at how well integration is going, he threatens to form a new party and draw votes away from RFK, and Democrats start to defect to him when RFK goes too far left for their tastes economically and socially. He wins in '68, but much like Truman did in '48.

Now you have a Democratic Party starting to splinter, and an RFK still possibly popular enough to win in '72; and certainly in '68, unless JFK has Vietnam going very poorly. The problems:

Can RFK still win in '72? Perhaps he gets peace in Vietnam, that is possible.
What happens to sour people on the Democrats besides this split; the remembered popularity of JFK can continue for a while with RFK and get him re-elected, but then what? A Yom Kippur War that goes hot?
If the Democrats fracture too much too fast, Nixon could win in '68. If they fracture too slow, it'll heal pretty fast; and the 1912 Republicans healed in 4 years anyway.

My thought is, have things get so bad that Reagan is elected in '76 but that anything is an improvement - otherwise the Democrats will beat him in '80. Have Ford as Reagain's VP; he only ever wanted to be House Speaker, but he might take this position if he doens't see any chance of them winning back the House. Or, on second thought, no, I think Dole is VP. Ford might actually *be* Speaker in '74, if the Democrats have started to be that unpopular.

So, Reagan/Dole in '76 and '80, Dole/Bush perhaps in '84, and from there, who knows.
 
There are a few holes in this scenario.

The biggest is probably the focal point of it. It is insanely hard to keep one party rule in a Democratic state in this way for so long. It is possible, given the right conditions, but under what we would consider normal circumstances it is very hard. There are just to many potential pitfalls. A war gone sour, a bad recession, a major watergate type scandal, any of these things could bring down the presidency. So could a charismatic opposition leader, some bad luck, or the President's own policies. If the republican party, and especially it's right wing (disclaimer: this is not political bias, but a fact of governing, with this group chosen by the scenario), get used to running things for so long, then they will ush harder for the more radical aspects of their core agenda. Sooner or later, there will be a backlash against them that will remove them from office.

There are ways around this, of course. The easiest would be some form of disenfranchisment which keeps the republicans in power, but that is unlikely (and kind of defeats the purpose of the scenario). A swing right in american domestic politics could happen, although it could be argued that it did already in OTL and it cannot be sustained forever. The opposition could fragment, although this leaves the problem of keeping some coalition from managing to create a victory. Perhaps the best would be to give the Democrats a semi-permanent control on the House and Senate, which allows them to limit the president's freedom of action (ITTL, congress would have to have more power). But none of these are perfect.

On a side note, I would like to object to some of the people chosen for this scenario. Kennedy nominating his brother as VP sounds rather like nepotism, and might not go over to well. Ford isn't going to be nominated unless he is Nixon's vice-president or the incumbent from said presidency. Reagan in 84 and 88 is getting a bit old to keep running. Cheney is definitly not an option in 08, given how he didn't even want the presidency in 96 or 00 and is getting on in years (and I doubt he would nominate McCain as VP). In addition, I don't know if the republicans can hold onto government for this long by nominating the same basic brand of conservative again and again and again. Finally, the political scene ITTL will be radically different. It seems hard to believe that the same people will rise to prominence after the first few years of this scenario. The political scene will be very different, and many choices will be different. This means that peole like Bush and Buchanan may never achieve prominence, and be supplanted by people like Kemp, Alexander, Powell, Baker, or Weld, to name a few.
 
i find the biggest flaw in this theory is that under the constitution the electors once they have chosen president must select a vice president from a different state so the JFK/RFK ticket would never work. Also Cheney would never run for president on his own and also Ford never wins election on his own either
 
Why would Oswald shoot Johnson? It's Johnson who gave him the order to kill JFK? ;)

EDIT: JFK and RFK WERE from different states. JFK was from MA, and RFK was governor of NY.
 
that couldn't be more wrong, they were both from MA, Kennedy hadn't lived in NY in decades when he ran for the senate seat, and neither of the Kennedy's was ever a governor
 
yes, rfk was the jr senator from ny, not governor.
but it would be very easy for him to change residences to become vice president. isn't that what cheney did (moved from texas to wyoming, if i'm not mistaken)?

here's the problem with this scenario (in addition to problems of practicality as raised above)...

a democratic split in 68 (basically wallace and the dixiecrats on one end, mccarthy/mcgovern and the progressives on the other end, and the kennedies and scoop jacksons of the world in the middle) could put the gop in power for a while. but they would only stay in power if the democrats continued to be split.

which means wallace, thurmond, eastland, etc. all have to stay democrats (or form an actual functioning third party). say they form a third party. after a couple of years, it shakes out like democrats are social progressives, fiscal liberals; dixiecrats are social conservative-reactionaries, fiscal liberals-or-moderates (maybe even conservative, in a states' rights sense); and republicans are left in the middle, as social moderates, fiscal conservatives.

so the issue is the evangelicals never come to power in the republican party. the party by default has to become the party of small government and tolerant but not forceful social policy. they basically have to become the third way, 20 years earlier.

this spells big trouble for the gop as we know them:

reagan, both bushes, and cheney believe in BIG, internationalist government with giant defense budgets.
buchanan is far too right-wing to be considered a moderate. he wouldn't get the nom. he might have migrated to the dixiecrats (which probably would have named itself the constitution party).
if anything, you're looking at a resurgence of rockefeller republicans and social-moderate libertarians in power. republicans like:
richard lugar
gerald ford (maybe)
pete du pont
howard baker
lloyd bentsen
john glenn
william weld
joe lieberman
mike gravel (!)
john mccain
 
in other words, an uber-dominant party is possible, with two parties to balance it. and i think it would end up being the `democratic-republican' party. just like jefferson.

of course, congress would probably not have a clear majority with 3 parties. making things extremely tough if a president can't get his legislation passed.
 
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