I don't want to be that guy but you accidentally gave 205 electoral votes to both Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey in the wikibox. Anyways this update is awesome! I did sort of expect a result like this or the election getting deadlocked in a repeat of this timeline's 1960 election but President George Wallace in 1965, exactly a century following the ending of the American Civil War over slavery, is crazy and I love it. Dystopian alternate history timelines are my favourites and a round of applause for you my good sir @Intergallactic.
A Nixed Result: a 60s Timeline
- Thread starter Intergallactic
- Start date
Ah darn, I’ll fix that as soon as I can. The next post will be a summary of down ballot elections, figuring those out in this totally different landscape compared to irl 1964 election will be interesting. Also, I will be taking suggestions on the cabinet of President Wallace.
I am extremely thankful for the enthusiasm the timeline has received even when I took a long leave of absence.
Here's a wikibox I copied from New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System by @The Congressman with the cabinet of President George Wallace in 1969 (The picture didn't go through so I had to type it out). Now most of these people I haven't heard of before so I'm not sure if this is the most plausible list for this timeline but I am sure some of these names would fit like Curtis LeMay as Secretary of Defense for example.
President: George Wallace
Vice President: Robert McNamara
Secretary of State: Richard Helms
Secretary of the Treasury: John Connally
Secretary of Defense: Curtis LeMay
Attorney General: Frank Lausche
Postmaster General: John A. Gronouski
Secretary of the Interior: John Melcher
Secretary of Agriculture: Robert Docking
Secretary of Commerce: Miles E. Goodwin Jr.
Secretary of Labor: Walter Reuther
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Secretary of Transportation: Sargent Shriver
White House Chief of Staff: John J. McKeithen
Spoilers ahead for those who have not read this timeline! For a reshresher of the timeline until 1968 Vice President Richard Nixon is elected President in 1960 with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President. President Nixon is them assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in December 1963 leaving Vice President Rockefeller as President. President Rockefeller is defeated for re-election in 1964 by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy (who lost the 1960 Democratic nomination to Texas Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson) because of his divorce from his wife Mary Rockefeller and his subsequent remarriage to Happy Fitler. President Kennedy surprisingly lost re-nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention to former Alabama Governor George Wallace who proceeded to be elected President and serve two terms with President Kennedy's warhawkish Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as his Vice President.
One question why did you choose Vermont Congressman and former Governor Robert T. Stafford as Barry Goldwater's running mate? I had no idea who this guy was and had to Google him. If you wanted Goldwater to have a more acceptable running mate than William E. Miller then I would suggest Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton or even Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith to shore up the moderate to liberal Republican votes. Either of those two would immensely help Goldwater on the ticket a lot better than a Congressman and former Governor nobody's ever heard of, unless that was what you planned of course?
I chose the cabinet the way it was cause Wallace isn't a stupid politician. He's not going to fill his administration with segregationists and turn it into the second coming of the Confederacy. Representing a more rural, southern, and working class admin, he'd choose mostly populist or agrarian populist Dems with a few southern conservatives and a few liberals for ideological balance.
I think Robert McNamara or Henry M. Jackson as Secretary of State, Curtis LeMay as Secretary of Defense, and Walter Reuther as Secretary of Labor would be plausible cabinet choices in a Wallace administration.
Hmm I wonder how the Civil Rights movement will go with George Wallace as President? Will MLK Jr. and Malcolm X still be killed in this timeline? Now that the 1964 election has been completed are there any thoughts or predictions on how the 1968 election will turn out? I personally have no idea how it'll turn out, perhaps Hubert Humphrey primaries President Wallace and George Romney or Ronald Reagan win the GOP nomination in '68? Maybe Wallace will be targeted by Sirhan Sirhan?
Merry Christmas to you too! Can't wait to see what's coming!
What were the closest states in the election? Did the Progressives have any chance of winning the electoral college (and popular vote), I know their plan was to throw the election to Congress and force Goldwater to agree to pass a Civil Rights bill but what if they somehow achieved an outright victory? Were there any polls showing a closer race between Wallace, Goldwater, and Humphrey kind of similar to the polling of Perot in the summer of 1992 before he dropped out of the race and rejoined later in the campaign?
Humphrey wasn’t on the ballot in enough states to outright win
closest states were the rust belt states, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana