Hello, fellow alternate historians, your challenge should you may choose to accept is one of most difficult the challenge. Have perennial candidate Harold Stassen get elected President in 1980 instead of Ronald Reagan have fun.
AHC: Harold Stassen elected President in 1980
- Thread starter Joseph Weaver
- Start date
bguy
Donor
Alright, how about this.
In the 80th Congress some Republican legislative aide figures out that a provision in the Commodity Credit Act they are working on will make it impossible for the federal government to build grain storage bins near farms. That provision gets deleted from the final version of the bill, and farmers are much better disposed to the GOP that fall, resulting in a narrow Dewey win over Truman. Dewey goes on to make Harold Stassen his Ambassador to the United Nations where Stassen is able to make a name for himself criticizing the Soviet Union.
Dewey wins reelection in 1952 over Illinois Senator Scott Lucas due to the economy being decent and no Korean War. (Dewey's military buildup and Secretary of State Dulles not making Dean Acheson's OTL gaffe about South Korea being outside the US defense perimeter resulted in Stalin and Mao refusing to greenlight the invasion and thus the war was avoided.) Stassen continues to serve as UN Ambassador in Dewey's second term.
In 1956 Vice President Earl Warren narrowly wins the presidency over California Governor James Roosevelt. Based on Stassen being a fellow liberal Republican and having extensive foreign policy experience from his time at the UN, President Warren makes Stassen his Secretary of State. Lets also assume the US achieves some modest diplomatic triumph during the Warren presidency (lets say a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets) which further bolster Stassen's reputation as a statesman.
Regardless of that diplomatic success Warren still loses reelection in 1960 to Lyndon Johnson. (We'll blame the defeat on an inconveniently timed recession and also on party fatigue since the GOP has been in power for 12 years.) Stassen isn't particularly damaged by the election loss though since it is not blamed on a foreign policy failure.
President Johnson will subsequently authorize US forces to invade Cuba to topple the Castro government when TTL's Bay of Pigs invasion fails. The US invasion is ultimately successful in toppling Castro (albeit at the cost of stirring up a lot of anti-US sentiment in Latin America), but US forces will have to remain in Cuba for several years thereafter, so the US does not end up sending troops into South Vietnam. At home, Johnson pursues civil rights legislation and an expansive social welfare program. The increasingly conservative GOP mostly supports the civil rights legislation but opposes Johnson's social welfare programs and runs a conservative candidate to oppose Johnson in 1964. (It won't be Goldwater because absent the Korean War he would not have won his 1952 senate race and thus would never have ascended to national prominence.) Regardless, presiding over a good economy and with having enacted civil rights and defeated communism in Cuba, LBJ wins reelection in a landslide in 1964.
South Vietnam falls to the communists sometime in Johnson's second term.
In 1968 the Democrats run Johnson's vice president, Stuart Symington, and the GOP (with conservative candidates seemingly discredited following the 1964 defeat) nominates a moderate, Michigan Governor George Romney. (No brainwashing gaffe in this timeline to discredit Romney since the US isn't fighting in Vietnam in 1968.) Romney's experience is pretty much all in domestic politics though, and with the fall South Vietnam in 1966 and an anti-American government seizing power in Panama in early 1968 (a result of increased anti-American feeling in Central America after the US invasion of Cuba), foreign affairs are looming large in the election, so Romney decides he needs someone with a lot of foreign policy experience on his ticket and thus eschewing regional balance in favor of foreign policy experience he selects Harold Stassen to be his Vice President. The Romney-Stassen ticket goes on to narrowly win the election (aided greatly by George Wallace running a third party candidacy in protest over LBJ's and now Symington's support for civil rights.)
President Romney's first term is largely successful, and he comfortably wins reelection in 1972. However, a lot of President Romney's policies such as arms reduction treaties with the Soviets and normalizing relations with China upset the right wing of the GOP. Thus in 1976 Vice President Stassen will face a conservative challenge for the GOP nomination in the form of former California Governor Ronald Reagan. The more dynamic Reagan goes on to win the nomination from Stassen, but then loses the general election to New York Senator Robert Kennedy.
President Kennedy faces a lot of problems during his administration as the US economy is sluggish in the face of increased foreign competition and then the overthrow of the Shah of Iran will lead to an oil shock that throws the US economy into recession just in time for the 1980 election. With Kennedy looking vulnerable, Stassen decides to throw his hat in the ring one more time, and with conservative candidates being discredited among the GOP after having lost in both 1964 and 1976, this time Stassen succeeds and receives the Republican nomination for president. (To unify the party and provide regional balance to the ticket, Stassen will select Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt as his running mate.) While Stassen's age cuts against him in the election, no one can question his experience, and with the bad economy and scary international situation the American public decides to go with with Stassen, and he is elected president.
bguy
Donor
Hard to say without fully threshing out the timeline. IOTL Stassen apparently expressed some support for the idea of a Universal Basic Income later in his life, so I could see achieving that being one of the principle goals of his presidency.
On foreign policy I would expect him to continue to pursue detente with the Soviets, and as the Soviet economy will definitely be straining by the 1980s, there is a good chance he will be able to achieve some significant arms control treaties with them. Given Stassen's support for civil rights, I would also expect him to take a hard line against South Africa which may help end Apartheid a little quicker than IOTL.
bguy
Donor
I don't know. Nixon came to prominence through the Alger Hiss investigation which happened the same year as the POD for this scenario, so Nixon probably still makes his reputation as a red baiter. And between the Soviets getting the A-bomb and the loss of China (neither of which Dewey getting elected will prevent), there is likely to still be some sort of Red Scare in Dewey's first term. (And especially since the Democrats have their own red baiting senator in the form of Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada.) As such anti-communism will likely still be a big issue ITTL's 1950 which means Nixon still has a good chance of being the Republican senate candidate in California that year.
I assume Helen Gahagan Douglas will still be the Democratic senate candidate in 1950 because as I understand it, she made her primary challenge against the incumbent Democratic Senator Sheridan Downey, not because of disagreement with him on national issues (where Downey had faithfully supported the Truman agenda) but because she disliked how cozy Downey was with the California agri-business and oil interests, and if her problem with Downey is based on local rather than national issues I assume she will still challenge him regardless of whether the president is Truman or Dewey (and at least IOTL Downey dropped out of the race rather than wage a primary battle if Douglas, so it's likely he would do the same ITTL.)
If the race does end up as Nixon vs Douglas then Nixon is probably favored to win. Yes, mid-term elections tend to go against the president's party, so Douglas will probably do better than she did IOTL but given the extreme male chauvinism of the time period it's just hard to see a woman candidate winning an election at that time against a credible male opponent.
I could then see Senator Nixon winning reelection in 1956 (aided by fellow Californian Earl Warren getting elected President that year) and then again in 1962 (since that is a mid-term election with the Democrats holding the presidency.) He likely tries for the GOP nomination in 1964 but loses out to a more conservative opponent and trying again in 1968 only to lose out to George Romney (whose record as a successful businessman and governor would look more impressive to GOP primary voters than Nixon's senatorial career.) Maybe Nixon then ends up as Secretary of State or Defense in the Romney Administration.
POD:
Stassen gets along better with Richard Nixon in the mid-1950s. When Stassen runs for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1958, Nixon intervenes to get a federal position for State Treasurer Art McGonigle, ensuring he cannot challenge Stassen for the nomination. Stassen wins the gubernatorial nomination and pulls off a win thanks to his famous name and connections to the Eisenhower administration, and divisions in the PA state party.
In 1960, a Nixon-Stassen ticket narrowly loses to JFK. Stassen is re-elected Governor in 1962 but as in OTL clashes in personality and politics with the GOP of Goldwater. He tries and fails to get the GOP nomination in 1968 (it goes to Nixon) and sits out both 1968 and 1972.
In 1973, Nixon nominates Stassen as his VP to replace Spiro Agnew. There is some wisdom to this as Stassen has no real national following anymore but he is a well-known liberal who has Nixon ties but is not implicated in Watergate. In August 1974, Stassen becomes POTUS after Nixon's resignation. Stassen proves to be an effective President, rising to the occasion as some unexpected Presidents have.
In 1976, he loses narrowly to Jimmy Carter but remains widely seen as a party leader. In 1980 he runs for President again, clearing the field of non-Reagan candidates, and wins the nomination at the age of 73. He defeats Carter (his fellow Baptist!) and becomes POTUS! His VP is Bob Dole, who is widely seen as the "mean" VP to Stassen's nice-guy POTUS...
Stassen gets along better with Richard Nixon in the mid-1950s. When Stassen runs for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1958, Nixon intervenes to get a federal position for State Treasurer Art McGonigle, ensuring he cannot challenge Stassen for the nomination. Stassen wins the gubernatorial nomination and pulls off a win thanks to his famous name and connections to the Eisenhower administration, and divisions in the PA state party.
In 1960, a Nixon-Stassen ticket narrowly loses to JFK. Stassen is re-elected Governor in 1962 but as in OTL clashes in personality and politics with the GOP of Goldwater. He tries and fails to get the GOP nomination in 1968 (it goes to Nixon) and sits out both 1968 and 1972.
In 1973, Nixon nominates Stassen as his VP to replace Spiro Agnew. There is some wisdom to this as Stassen has no real national following anymore but he is a well-known liberal who has Nixon ties but is not implicated in Watergate. In August 1974, Stassen becomes POTUS after Nixon's resignation. Stassen proves to be an effective President, rising to the occasion as some unexpected Presidents have.
In 1976, he loses narrowly to Jimmy Carter but remains widely seen as a party leader. In 1980 he runs for President again, clearing the field of non-Reagan candidates, and wins the nomination at the age of 73. He defeats Carter (his fellow Baptist!) and becomes POTUS! His VP is Bob Dole, who is widely seen as the "mean" VP to Stassen's nice-guy POTUS...