I agree, but I think this means he has to keep advancing the issue. The more he does so, the more it will divide the Democrats. Plus Nixon was a very savvy politician: in 1956 Eisenhower got a huge black turnout. The combination of an issue that might win new voters while simultaneous acting to drive a wedge in the Democrats may prove quite tempting. However, 1960s Nixon may have the room to allow his personal prejudice to influence his stance (though not his rhetoric).
It's hard to know. OTL Nixon saw his job as managing the decline of American power. Domestically he just did whatever in order to win (Nixon was more liberal than Clinton, say, let alone the current Republican Party) and he saw an oppourtunity to lock the South up.
I imagine his main 1964 goal is to really transition the South to the Republicans, but he also would like to drive down Democratic black support outside the South (inside it doesn't matter, and Southern blacks will understand Nixon's appeal to racist southerners).
Some kind of civil rights that seems impressive but actually doesn't matter? Voting rights, for instance, in the South doesn't matter because it just drives white turn-out high enough to drown out the minority black Democratic vote.
Even better Congress is probably Democratic so Nixon can take credit for it the North, and rail against it in the South.
He gets some northern blacks (though Goldwater won't, in '68), the South, and probably a pretty impressive '64 victory.
It also, of course, screws the Democrats over big-time.
I must not be following. Are you saying that if Wallace runs as an third party, the Democrats do better? I'd say it depends on the Midwest and California, the latter helped Nixon to win and the former is where Wallace's American Party had the biggest spoiler effect. Without the Vietnam war however, the Democrats may have enough of a latent following of farmers + unionmen to pull it off.
Look at this way. In OTL 1968 all of Wallace's voters were Nixon voters, basically, even though they probably called themselves Democratic voters. (In fact Nixon ended up sort of bribing Wallace to run in the '72 Democratic Primaries, instead of as a third party candidate…*if I recall correctly.) In the ATL most of Wallace's voters would otherwise be Goldwater voters.
So Wallace taking part of the Deep South takes x amount of electoral votes out the Republican pocket—making it harder on Goldwater to win.
Plus, Goldwater won't carry California (Nixon barely did) and so I think the Democrats win by keeping Texas (Goldwater/Wallace split), California, and most of the Northern states.
Goldwater takes the border South, part of the Deep South, the Rocky Mountain states and perhaps 1-2 New England states (New Hampshire, and then either Maine or Vermont).
Add California, Ohio, and Illinois to the Democrat ticket (Goldwater less appealing in all of them relative to OTL Nixon) and the Democrats win with 283 or thereabouts. (Wisconsin and New Jersey probably go Democratic as well.)
The most interesting thing, IMO, is if you can manage to get neocons to find a home in the Democrats and so keep the South from completely switching to be solid Republican. The very essence of liberal v. conservative is probably different.
The South was pretty economically conservative and couple that with the race issue even a no McGovern + anti-communist Democratic Party doesn't keep the south Democratic. I think you can probably keep competitive in the Deep South longer (a little more appealing) although it's still going Republican and you may keep the Dems competitive for the foreseeable future in the Border South. Kentucky, maybe Florida, and perhaps even Texas once in a while. That would be enough to help the Democrats considerably.
How do the Republicans change? I imagine without the neoconservative "do whatever you want domestically" free ride the southern religious voters are a little less powerful, probably in favour of the midwest conservatives (Ford, Dole type people) of the balanced budget staidness. That may prevent supply-siders from gaining power in any party.
This makes the Republican Party a little less appealing to the average voter, but given the very large post-Truman advantage the Republican Party had in electoral college math this just means Presidential elections will be a fairer fight in the 1968-1992 period.
Socially the Republicans probably wind up about the same, although Goldwater on the ticket means libertarians (as in OTL) are on board despite a non-libertarian social & economic policy. (As usual, libertarians are stuck with the lesser of two evil parties. With less religious interference in people's lives that probably leaves the libertarians happier with Republicans than they generally were/are IOTL).
On foreign policy: isolationism + realism, going back and forth I imagine depending on the President. Certainly none of the neo-conservative nation building/democracy stuff.
A Jackson-Humphrey ticket in 1968 perhaps?
That sounds pretty plausible. Not geographically balanced, but you have to figure that Goldwater + Wallace and the Democrats understand the South is gone. Texas, however, may compel Connally on as VP. Jackson-Connally still won't win the South, but it should have a very strong pull with the blue collar industrial state voters.
Also, that could leave Humphrey as Senate Majority Leader, which would be a pretty good consolation prize to liberals.
Remember that if Nixon win in 60 and 64,repubblicans have the White House for 16 years.
So a democratic victory in 1968 is very probable.
The names? well,i think Humphrey,or Johnson.
RFK maybe as VP.
Humphrey is a strong possibility, but I'm not sure he goes all the way. People will remember his poor 1960 performance, and he may be up against too much to handle in the '68 primaries.
Johnson was too old and had health considerations. Without being VP, he had no chance at becoming President. Which is why, IOTL, he became VP despite loving his job in the Senate and hating being VP. He really really wanted to be President, someday.
RFK won't have the profile he did IOTL, as there was no JFK administration. He may be a Senator, or perhaps he takes on Rockefeller for Governor of New York, but I doubt he's considered for the nomination in '68. Perhaps '76 or even later, he was a young man after all.
If Nixon won the Presidency and avoided Vietnam, there is likely no counter-culture, which would lead to their being no Neo-Cons
Nah. Neoconservatives were Democratic anti-communists who felt that the OTL Democratic Party was not doing enough to fight communism and spread democracy. (Think of them as going all the way back to President Wilson.)
Neoconservatives, in the proper sense, concern themselves purely with an idealist foreign policy revolving around nation-building and the spread of democracy.
To gather support they usually concede a free hand in domestic affairs (be it to Southern religious conservatives and big government conservatives under Bush's Presidency; neoliberals in Iraq, and so on).
Neoconservatives have
no domestic policy agenda.
Neoliberals (i.e. classical liberals) concern themselves purely with domestic affairs and a focus on the free market as the best way to manage government and the country.
US liberals are actually social democrats. US conservatives are actually liberals of various stripes. There aren't any actual conservatives in US politics. Actual conservatives concern themselves with group rights over individual rights and slow measured change over fast change. Liberals, in the general sense, are about individual rights and change of whatever sort (which is why all American politics are liberal, and the lack of true conservatism is also why Americans never developed socialism).
Having fun yet?
