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--- alternate_history:robert_kennedy [2009/10/14 12:01] – RogueBeaver
+++ alternate_history:robert_kennedy [2019/03/29 15:13] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 ** Nixon/RFK Debates:**
 Nixon is the better debater- their sparring over Genovese in 1965, Vietnam, the blood-to-NV comment, etc. More so: Nixon projects an aura of "cool" publicly. Privately, not so much. RFK is the reverse- he hated TV broadcasts. Richard Nixon did not publicly raise his voice, pound the podium, or allow civilians in such close proximity to (even holding) his person. Those polarity numbers, surpassing Hillary at her peak, are very personality-driven.
  Likely outcome: tie on content, Nixon on style.
+----
-**Why middle class suburbanites Hated Bobby:** First: the motorcades. If the average middle-class burb resident sees one older candidate delivering a speech on their needs, speaking in an indoor voice- they'll be sympathetic. Then we have the candidate who allows people to touch his person, take shoes and cufflinks (without precedent before or since), speaks very passionately, prefers the streets to canned indoor speeches, who do you think they'll vote for? Not someone who summons them to the barricades and tries to persuade them of his concerns rather than the opposite.
+Policy: Vietnamisation, phased withdrawal of US troops. Will try to enact a UHC proposal, likely similar to Nixon's OTL CHIP. Focus on urban development, decentralization of Great Society programs: not privatizing, but handing over control to state and municipal governments.  Pursuit of detente with USSR, relations with China, and perhaps outreach to India.
+**RFK and the middle class:** First: the motorcades. If the average middle-class burb resident sees one older candidate delivering a speech on their needs, speaking in an indoor voice- they'll be sympathetic. Then we have the candidate who allows people to touch his person, take shoes and cufflinks (without precedent before or since), speaks very passionately, prefers the streets to canned indoor speeches, who do you think they'll vote for? Not someone who summons them to the barricades and tries to persuade them of his concerns rather than the opposite.
 Typical suburban view: "He's ruthless and phony as a twelve-dollar bill."
-**Why the South loathed Bobby**
+**RFK v. Dixie**
 Civil rights, thinking he'd try Reconstruction, Round Two. Often wanted him dead.
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 **RFK and Contemporaries**
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 **RFK and Hoover**: "J. Edna"- referring to Hoover's homo/bisexuality. "That hippie intellectual"- Hoover
-**1968**: The crucial state was California. Lose that in June, no nomination. Lose it in November- eight years of waiting. Likely VP: N.C. Governor Terry Sanford- without two to three Southern states, November's gone. Daley controls the "Syndicate" bosses, who can completely reverse the equation with a couple of phone calls. 75% of the delegates are machine-controlled. RFK's campaign, though very ad-hoc, was outraising HHH by obscene margins (self-financing allowed) and was motivated. For McCarthy- he can release the delegates, because putting HHH over the top would be antithetical to his raison d'etre. Final outcome: RFK nominated, 50-50 chance in November.
-**Personality and "Minority Coalition".**
-RFK connected to people through sincerity and personality, not policy. Interestingly enough, in private, this was a man who was very shy, hated being touched, and disliked small talk except among intimates. Speeches started off slow and halting, but after each round of applause, it culminated in shouting, pounding the podium, and that's where the three major gaffes occurred: "dictatorship strangled in own web of repression", "darker impulses", "violence of institutions." That's how Bobby Kennedy connected: by making people feel he understood their needs by going where no one else did except by TV. Minority coalition goes like this: Minorities (blacks, Hispanics, natives), Reagan Democrats (who voted Nixon/Wallace in the general) and farmers. Suburbanites are firmly in Nixon's corner.
+----
 **1972:** running against a popular incumbent Nixon in OTL conditions is a kamikaze act. Better to become Democratic Dictator, rebuild the organization, and wait for either Watergate (where he can replace Ervin) or 1976.
-**Policy:** There will likely be a phased US withdrawal from SVN and a reversion to supplying Thieu with proper equipment. On the domestic front: expect UHC similar to CHIP, increased emphasis on urban development, perhaps a go at Taft-Hartley. Foreign relations: relations with China, possibly with India. Likely re-elected in 1972 by a landslide if the economy and Vietnam hold.
-By 1976, likely Jackson v. Reagan. If RFK waits until 1976, he will be more focused on bread-and-butter domestic issues, deal with a crappy economy, and might lose in 1980. If he wins, then likely Bush Sr. succeeds him in 1984.
-----
-**1972:** running against a popular incumbent Nixon in OTL conditions is a kamikaze act. Better to become Democratic Dictator, rebuild the organization, and wait for either Watergate (where he can replace Ervin) or 1976.
 **1976: ** Kennedy/Sanford v. Reagan/Dole: Narrow RFK victory. Reagan is butterflied as President.
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 Legacy: Truman with the Kennedy aura- not a Great, but in the Top Ten.
-__________________
-ATL: Currently serving as President of the United States in RogueBeaver's "Eastern Entrance" (1969-present), "Sunshine Sadness" 1961-present, "Flight of Fate" (1969-present). Serving as the Conservative British Prime Minister from 1978 onwards in RogueBeaver's "High Wire Eire".
+ATL: Currently serving as President of the United States in RogueBeaver's "Eastern Entrance" (1969-present),  "Flight of Fate" (1969-present).
 RogueBeaver's historical figure of specialty.