How can we get a presidential election with Joseph McCarthy as the Republican candidate and Eugene McCarthy as the Democratic candidate. Preferably with neither of them as the incumbent. Bonus if their VPs also have the same surnames.
AHC: McCarthy vs. McCarthy
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
- Start date
Must stop thinking every McCarthy is Charlie McCarthy....
Yeah, you'd have to either have the McCarthyism thing either become much more entrenched, have it never occur, or have the fallout on him less so he doesn't sink into depression, become alcoholic, and and die of hepatitis....
Yeah, you'd have to either have the McCarthyism thing either become much more entrenched, have it never occur, or have the fallout on him less so he doesn't sink into depression, become alcoholic, and and die of hepatitis....
Thande
Donor
It might be easier if Eugene McCarthy was the incumbent: if he had been the VP candidate of an elected Democratic president who was conservative and had been put there as a sop to the left wing of the party, but the president then died or was assassinated.
Maybe Joe McCarthy would seem more of an electable figure if the Democrats had reigned in what was in OTL the Eisenhower administration and he was more of a rabblerouser from the sidelines?
Maybe Joe McCarthy would seem more of an electable figure if the Democrats had reigned in what was in OTL the Eisenhower administration and he was more of a rabblerouser from the sidelines?
There is a lack of overlap, but Joe did die pretty young. He was only 48 when he died, and it was likely that his death was related to alcoholism. I think that could be fairly reasonably staved off for a while.
You would need to elect Dewey in '48 at the very least. But I don't see Gene McCarthy as a VP candidate since he's a) too liberal b) too much of a loner c) only elected to the Senate in '58. You don't need a conservative Dem POTUS (no such thing existed), after all he was seriously vetted in '64 as a fuddle-duddle gesture.
Certainly, especially since it was his fall into the political wilderness after being censured that really kicked his alcoholism out of control. If he's going to have a realistic chance of running for President he would probably have never been censured in any case, so he probably never has the same level of drinking problems as OTL.
He still drank a lot before the censure so you might just need to get McCarthy to not be such a heavy drinker period.
Just curious, but why would it require Dewey winning in '48?
Haha, that might work.Maybe if there was a conspiracy about Commie infiltrators poisoning alcoholic drinks with methanol and McCarthy embraced neo-Prohibitionism in response?
McCarthy was always prone to drinking, but the censure turned him from a mostly social drinker into a raging self-destructive alcoholic. Without the censure, he probably makes it into his late sixties or seventies before his drinking starts causing serious health problems, rather than dying at 48 per OTL.
Chengar McCarthy drank heavily and suffered from alcoholism well before his censure. There are numerous stories of his drunken rants before this. No doubt his censure led to a worsening though.
I don't think McCarthy, even at his height of power has the charisma to win a Presidential election unless the 'Red Scare' of the 50s was much much worse and lasted into the late 60s.
You'd also have to butterfly away the power of the press such as Murrow.
"Good night and good luck"