If longtime Republican NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the leader of the GOP's moderates, had avoided his 1963 marital scandal he no doubt would have been the party's standard bearer in 1964 instead of Goldwater. He would have lost that year, but like Dewey in 1948 he would stand a good chance of winning the nomination a second time in 1968. Rockefeller, who polls showed was the most nationally electable Republican, would easily have beaten Hubert Humphrey had he - not Nixon - been nominated in '68. Supposing that President Rockefeller takes office on January 20, 1969, how would his administration play out and how does this alter the course of American history?
WI: President Rockefeller (1969-1977)
- Thread starter Amadeus
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Wallace's party likely expands its influence and moderates a bit (to appeal to non/less-racist Goldwaterites) given the liberal shift/maintenance this would cause in the Republican party. I think Rocky/Reagan to be a very likely ticket in this scenario to placate the Goldwaterites. George H.W. Bush becomes an even stronger candidate in '76 unless there's an even more massive conservative backlash against this moderate Republican party.
I never know why people always act like the anti-Rockefeller faction was too strong for him to ever win, he was the respected governor of New York and widely popular. Although he was liberal, he was hardly ideological and even tried to put together a Rockefeller/Reagan ticket at the RNC in ‘68.
Had the Rockefeller/Reagan ticket been formed it would have definitely had won. Not sure about Wallace moderating or being able to win much outside the Deep South, but a good way to force that would be for him to get Happy Chandler on the ticket. Chandler was against segregation, so maybe Wallace runs a dogwhistle campaign instead.
Had the Rockefeller/Reagan ticket been formed it would have definitely had won. Not sure about Wallace moderating or being able to win much outside the Deep South, but a good way to force that would be for him to get Happy Chandler on the ticket. Chandler was against segregation, so maybe Wallace runs a dogwhistle campaign instead.
He instituted the toughest drug laws in the entire country, and he was a pronounced anti-communist hawk. (In fact, those close to him described Rocky as being just as anti-communist as Goldwater or Reagan). He even worked with the Buckley's to win a fourth gubernatorial term in 1970. So it's fair to say that Rockefeller was conservative in his own way, but a "liberal-conservative" (to quote Earl Warren) as most Republicans were during the New Deal consensus.
Kinda funny to imagine that in a Johnson vs. Rockefeller vs. Wallace campaign in 1968 it would've been between the incumbent President, a champion of civil rights who wanted to continue the Vietnam War while also continuing large-scale domestic spending, the Republican challenger, a champion of civil rights who wanted to continue the Vietnam War while also continuing large-scale domestic spending, and a third party candidate, a staunch segregationist who wanted to quickly wrap up the Vietnam War while also continuing large-scale domestic spending.
(1) His being governor of New York was part of the problem. New York, to much of the Republican Party outside the Northeast, meant Wall Street internationalism. (And of course to the South, increasingly important in the GOP, it meant civil rights liberalism.) It meant the force that had dominated the GOP for decades, and had led to the failed candidacies of Willkie and Dewey (and to Eisenhower, whose success was personal and went along with an actual decline of GOP strength on the non-presidential level during his administration). It was not the conspiracy-obsessed Robert Welch but the respected Senator Taft who bitterly said after Eisenhower's nomination, "Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase Bank." https://books.google.com/books?id=-f9QDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT485 Of course "Chase Bank" meant the Rockefellers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Bank
(2) The fact that Taft in 1952 had almost defeated the very popular Eisenhower for the nomination gives some indication of how powerful conservative resentment of the "Eastern Establishment" had become. It only intensified in later years, for three reasons:
(a) the rise of a conservative movement (something which Taft had never really had) centered on National Review, Clifton White and William Rusher's "Syndicate" (which gained control of the Young Republicans years before Goldwater was nominated--in 1959 "at the YR convention in Denver, Rusher and White saw through the election of an alliance that was overtly anti-Rockefeller, anti-Eastern, and anti-liberal" https://books.google.com/books?id=6vwvCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1392), etc.
(b) the defeat of Nixon in 1960. Progressive and conservative Republicans could join forces behind him that year, but once he lost, it became commonplace for conservatives to blame his defeat on his being a "me too" candidate--his choice of Lodge for running mate and his "surrender" to Rockefeller in the "Treaty of Fifth Avenue" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fifth_Avenue were particularly blamed; and
(c) the increasing importance of the South and Southwest in the GOP. It would be difficult to overstate southern opposition to Rockefeller. In 1964, of the 278 southern delegates, 271 voted for Goldwater, and Goldwater's southern coordinator, John Grenier, claimed that 260 of them were "rock solid", meaning that they would have stayed with Goldwater even had he lost in California. (George Gilder and Bruce Chapman, *The Party That Lost Its Head*, p. 184.) In 1968, as I noted here, "The conservatives were more polite to him than they were in 1964, but he was still just as unacceptable. In particular, he had virtually no support in the South. Or rather, the only southern support he had was from the New Orleans Rockefeller for President group, led by a Tulane University history graduate student named Newt Gingrich...To show how hopeless Rocky's position in the South was, consider this: Kentucky was the most "northern" southern state; it had produced moderate Republicans like US Senators John Sherman Cooper and Thruston B. Morton. Yet Governor Louis Nunn told reporters in Miami, "Our delegates know that if they voted for Rockefeller down here they wouldn't be allowed off the plane back home." (Kabaservice, p. 243.) Rocky was also weak in the West, and hardly had the Midwest--or even *all* the delegates from the East--locked up either." https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ronald-reagan-in-1968.443980/#post-17038433
(3) There was indeed a de facto Rocky-Reagan alliance at the 1968 convention, for the purpose (almost achieved!) of denying Nixon the nomination on the first ballot. But as Geoffrey Kabaservice noted, "The Reagan-Rockefeller marriage at the convention would be strictly one of convenience. Rusher admitted that if Rockefeller actually received the GOP nomination, he would bolt to form a new party. Rockefeller was still anathema to conservatives, while Reagan was almost as unacceptable to GOP progressives as Goldwater had been in 1964. The implausibility of this left-right coalition left Richard Nixon in the center, exactly where he wanted to be." https://books.google.com/books?id=ZlRpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA241 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZlRpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA242
I maintain that there was only one way for Rockefeller to become president, and that was through the vice-presidency. Nixon offered him the second spot in 1960 but (as expected) he declined; in 1968 there was serious talk of a Humphrey-Rockefeller ticket https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/humphrey-rockefeller-ticket-in-1968.336723/; and of course when Rocky finally accepted the vice-presidency, Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore came very close to making him president...
(1) I am considerably less certain that Rocky would have been the nominee if not for the remarriage, for the reasons I give at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/rocky-doesnt-remarry.411309/ and below at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...t-rockefeller-1969-1977.450248/#post-17484123 Yes, he would doubtless have won the California primary, but that wouldn't even necessarily mean stopping Goldwater, let alone getting the nomination himself.
(2) If he did get the nomination, he would lose to LBJ--badly. A late January 1964 Harris poll actually had him losing to LBJ by an even bigger margin that Goldwater! (By 61 and 58 points respectively--see https://books.google.com/books?id=Oc4_3JKYvo0C&pg=PA72) Now granted, that poll was taken too soon after JFK's assassination to be taken literally, but in truth Rockefeller would have handicaps almost as great as Goldwater's. He too would have a divided party--and a Wallace third party candidacy would not only doom the chance of any GOP breakthrough in the South, bur could attract diehard anti-Rocky Republicans in the North and West.
(3) If, as I believe, Rockefeller loses decisively, I don't think he has any chance of being nominated in 1968. The "Dewey in 1944 and 1948" analogy doesn't hold, because in the 1960's unlike the 1940's there was a strong rightward drift in the GOP, and the fact that "we lost big with another me-too candidate" will be a powerful argument against not only Rocky but any other progressive Republican in 1968. (And it's not like the only alternative to Rocky in 1968 will be from the far right--there's always Nixon, who could point out he came a lot closer in 1960 than Rocky did in 1964, however unfair the comparison might be...)
Cook
Banned
Would Nelson Rockefeller have violated the Logan Act an undermined the Vietnam Peace talks taking place in Paris in '68? I get the feeling that Rockefeller was far too scrupulous to do something like that. If he doesn't, and the final act of the Johnson administration is to present the country with an "honourable Peace in Vietnam" just before the election, then Humphry would be a real contender in '68.
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What exactly was behind this bizarre hatred of New York and the Northeast as a place? This seems to be based less on ideology (William F. Buckley and his brother James were New Yorkers after all), since Wall Street has always been very conservative...why wouldn't that be good enough for movement conservatives? The fact that most of the party's presidential nominees came from New York doesn't seem like a good enough reason for this frothing at the mouth disdain for NY.
LBJ struggled to get a last minute peace in Vietnam because he wanted to help HHH defeat Nixon. Johnson actually preferred Rockefeller to Humphrey, and told him personally that if nominated by the Republicans he wouldn't campaign against him. He then successfully convinced Rockefeller to enter the Presidential race in 1968, but ultimately Rocky lost to Nixon. Had Rockefeller been nominated that year, Johnson would be working behind the scenes against Humphrey. So the last minute chance for peace in autumn 1968 wouldn't even have taken place and Rockefeller easily trounces Humphrey in the North and West.
bguy
Donor
Is there any reason to believe that Johnson would have been able to conclude a peace treaty before the 1968 election absent Nixon's interference? After all even if the South Vietnamese agree to join the talks, it's a long way from that to any sort of actual peace agreement.
Most historians agree that the South Vietnamese President was unlikely to come to the peace table under Johnson's conditions, but Nixon did realize that if the public perceived that peace was at hand it could throw the election to HHH. The irony here is that if Nixon never interfered, and had Humphrey won the election as a result, the faux "peace" that carries Humphrey to the White House probably would have broken down anyway in November after the election.
I'll quote to you a previous post that argues otherwise:
Humphrey at least could get 37-40% against Rocky and Wallace, but he's unlikely to win against a Republican who his own boss favors over him.
Had Rockefeller been President, what do you think he would have done differently from Nixon? The War on Drugs would at least be just as tough if not tougher on a national level. Kissinger was Rocky's foreign policy advisor before he started working for Nixon, although Rockefeller took a strong interest in Latin American development and he put forward a comprehensive plan to end the Vietnam War in 1969. So I expect he'd be less brutal in foreign affairs but his domestic policies would be generally similar. Rockefeller may also manage to pass the Healthcare reform that he supported but eluded Nixon in 1974.
And obviously: NO WATERGATE.
Two more interesting differences come into play when discussing President Rockefeller. One: he would propose universal basic income (which Nixon backed down from at the last minute) and may get it passed as he did in NY in OTL. Two: Rockefeller was originally rather liberal when it came to law & order, favoring rehabilitation of criminals and commuting many death sentences to life imprisonment. But then he did a 180 and passed the now infamous Rockefeller drug laws in an obvious attempt to court favor with the right in order to become President or VP. Had Rockefeller been elected President in 1968, would he have remained a social liberal or would he have implemented his stringent drug laws but this time on a national level?