AHC: Make Eisenhower the face of the GOP instead of Reagan
- Thread starter Tre' T.
- Start date
Can the scenarios include simply not having Reagan become president? Because that's pretty easy, and even assuming no other changes, makes DDE by the early 80s the last respectable(IOW non-criminal) elected Republican president.
Though you might also have to find a way to increase Eisenhower's post-1960 profile. OTL, people weren't really idolizing him by the late 70s, even before Reagan took over and became the face of the party.
Though you might also have to find a way to increase Eisenhower's post-1960 profile. OTL, people weren't really idolizing him by the late 70s, even before Reagan took over and became the face of the party.
Nürnberger
Banned
Maybe his son(or his grandson David) is more politically active and becomes at first the face of the conservative wing of the republicans and then is elected President around the same time Reagan was IOTL, getting all the same achivements as him? And during all that time he builds a grand mythology around his father
Nürnberger
Banned
I believe there was a timeline titled "A national brotherhood week" written by Gonzo and Oppo that featured at first Connaly becoming President instead of Ford after Watergate and then Reagan dying spontaneously and being replased as a concervative darling by Ike's descendant who practically gets drafted to fill that position of a token leader, I believe his campaign's slogan in 1980 must've been "I still like Ike", but in that TL he ultimately ends up defeated though
Maybe have Eisenhower be THE pro-civil rights President, and the GOP follow that path? (I mean, it's possible. Eisenhower-era Republican Party had a civil rights platform)
Earliest POD I can think of is the 22nd amendment gets nixed or he's grandfathered in and he had the drive or vision to be a US version of De Gaulle. Say he stays in office until a CRA/VRA equivalent is passed in the mid-60s...
Well i mean, if Eisenhower was a demilich god emperor then he'd be the face of the party. But i suppose thats not the answer you want. In truth, Eisenhower would never be the face of the party for more than a decade. It became the party of Nixon when he won in 1968. And besides, Eisenhower would never really be a generation defining president like FDR or Reagan that was the herald of a new ideological coalition. He was a consensus based politician with all the strengths and drawback that it implies.
Sadly, the easiest way for Ike to be the face of the Republicans is for the assassination attempt on Reagan to succeed. This leaves a more centrist H.W. Bush as President and he may fall back into the more Eisenhoweresque policy stream. The other option is for Iran-Contra to become a Watergate style scandal that wipes out both Reagan and Bush from the political landscape. You then have Ike as the only Republican President in three quarters of a century who wasn't tarred and feathered with the brush of serious corruption and removal from office.
The problem with this scenario is that Ike never mobilized a mass movement the way Reagan did. He ran as an outsider, was really bad at politics (he had a relationship with Congress that could only be rivaled by Jimmy Carter, while he believed that kicking Nixon off the ticket in 1956 would be a better way to set him up for 1960), and by-and-large got elected because of his personal popularity as the hero of WW2. As far as his policies go, Ike was resented by no small part of the GOP; indeed, Goldwater, the 1964 nominee, even referred to his policies as a "dime store New Deal." He was also much more liberal than the GOP at large: the bulk of Republican leaders and voters had a philosophy similar to that of pre-5th Avenue Nixon -- i.e. centrist, but still conservative. Contrast this to Reagan, who ran (and governed, to a much lesser extent) as a conservative; he left a lasting impact, casting away an already-diminishing moderate faction within the GOP (see the 1976 primaries - Reagan earned 46% of the vote and nearly won the nomination from the hands of an incumbent President, a far better performance than Goldwater in 1968 -- even though Reagan's main challenger was much more conservative than Rocky!).
I should, however, note that Ike himself never viewed himself as a liberal or a Rockefellerite. He hated politics and ran because he was worried that the 'isolationist' Taft would win the nomination, and indeed tried to cut a deal to the very end in order to prevent himself from running. Much of the pro-business attitude that Reagan had could already be seen with Ike, whose Cabinet consisted of "nine millionaires and a plumber," with General Motors CEO Charles E. Wilson as Defense Secretary and conservative Texan banker Robert Anderson as Ike's dream successor, while Ike even did well in the South like Reagan eventually would. Ike was never a fan of deficit spending and tried to present himself as a pragmatic/moderate conservative, but was ultimately not an ideologue and recognized the realities of the time were such that anyone who tried to overturn the existing Keynesian consensus would find their career destroyed. Reagan was more ideological than Ike was, but even as President he was willing to understand that the realities of the 1980s were such that you can't just cut down the government to pre-New Deal levels. That was why much of his economic plan depended on a form of military Keynesianism, and why he never fully applied supply-side economics.
I should, however, note that Ike himself never viewed himself as a liberal or a Rockefellerite. He hated politics and ran because he was worried that the 'isolationist' Taft would win the nomination, and indeed tried to cut a deal to the very end in order to prevent himself from running. Much of the pro-business attitude that Reagan had could already be seen with Ike, whose Cabinet consisted of "nine millionaires and a plumber," with General Motors CEO Charles E. Wilson as Defense Secretary and conservative Texan banker Robert Anderson as Ike's dream successor, while Ike even did well in the South like Reagan eventually would. Ike was never a fan of deficit spending and tried to present himself as a pragmatic/moderate conservative, but was ultimately not an ideologue and recognized the realities of the time were such that anyone who tried to overturn the existing Keynesian consensus would find their career destroyed. Reagan was more ideological than Ike was, but even as President he was willing to understand that the realities of the 1980s were such that you can't just cut down the government to pre-New Deal levels. That was why much of his economic plan depended on a form of military Keynesianism, and why he never fully applied supply-side economics.
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H.W. wasn't really an Eisenhowerite; he was more conservative than him, even before 1988. The candidate whose policies were closest to Eisenhower's was John B. Anderson, and I think there's a reason he seemed much more liberal than he actually was. H.W. still opposed abortion (though opposed a Constitutional amendment) and was a monetarist (as opposed to Reagan's supply-side policies), but Eisenhower was still willing to abide by the Keynesian consensus though with limits.
Why would he run in 1948, when Dewey (who basically agreed with Ike on most matters, esp. foreign policy) was the candidate? And if he'd already served two terms, why would he run again in 1956, when there was already serious pressure to get him to not run for a second term due to his 1955 heart attack?
The obvious solution is to have his political heir more successful: VP Richard Nixon.
Nixon wins in 1960 and he, Ike and the GOP get credit for Civil Rights, the moon landings, and the boomtimes of the 50s and 60s, and then when party fatigue kicks in by 1968, the Dems take over just as the economy starts to tank.
That 16 year stretch will be seen as a relative Golden Age, especially since Nixon won't repeat JFK/LBJ'S foriegn policy blunders.
Then have David Eisenhower take an interest in politics, win office somewhere, and serve as Reagan's young, popular VP with ties to two popular GOP Presidents.
You could have two GOP golden eras ties to the Eisenhowers.
Nixon wins in 1960 and he, Ike and the GOP get credit for Civil Rights, the moon landings, and the boomtimes of the 50s and 60s, and then when party fatigue kicks in by 1968, the Dems take over just as the economy starts to tank.
That 16 year stretch will be seen as a relative Golden Age, especially since Nixon won't repeat JFK/LBJ'S foriegn policy blunders.
Then have David Eisenhower take an interest in politics, win office somewhere, and serve as Reagan's young, popular VP with ties to two popular GOP Presidents.
You could have two GOP golden eras ties to the Eisenhowers.