Partially inspired by this IMHO thread on the '68 Democratic Convention, I submit the following alternate history scenario. It’s Election Day 1968 and, at the last minute, several hundred thousand voters, deeply disturbed at the prospect of Richard Nixon being president, set aside their disappointment and disgust with Humphrey over his slowness to distance himself from LBJ’s disastrous Vietnam policy and cast their ballots for The Hump. As a result, Hubert Horatio Humphrey is narrowly elected the 37th President of the U.S.A.
So how differently would things have turned out?
Watergate (and all the other related Nixonian dirty tricks) obviously wouldn’t have happened but about other events? Would the U.S. have pulled out of Vietnam sooner? If so, how long would the South Vietnamese government have lasted? If it quickly collapsed, what would’ve been the political impact for Humphrey and the Democrats?
Also, would the SALT talks, the ABM treaty, and the opening of diplomatic relations with China been possible in a Humphrey presidency? What about domestic and economic policies? How would they have been different?
How successful would Humphrey have been as president? Would it have been possible for him to mend relations with anti-war Democrats? Could have gotten re-elected in 1972? What about the Republicans? Would the defeat of a relative centrist like Nixon embolden the Goldwater wing to take over the party and nominate a more electable arch-conservative like Ronald Reagan in '72?
Damned good question! Given that I remember that election quite clearly (I must 'fess up to having been a member of Youth for Nixon that year!), especially the part where we didn’t know who won until mid-morning the next day (on election night, they called Missouri for Humphrey, and in Illinois, Cook County was out until the morning after the election, with everyone wondering how many of Mayor Daley’s dead constituents were going to vote this time), I’m kinda startled that I’ve never remotely considered this question.
I don’t have anything to say off the top of my head - I’ve really got to stop and think about it. But like I said, it’s a damned good question.
Probably because, unlike with some losing presidential candidates, hardly anybody ever thinks about Humphrey any more. He kinda seemed to vanish from the space-time continuum after '68. (Yes, I know he went back to the Senate; but I had to look that up.)
The Great Society would have continued apace. Most of these domestic initiatives went too far and were dialed back in the conservative reaction - indeed, the modern Democratic party would go about things differently in many cases given the outcomes here. So there would still have been a lot to animate conservatives.
Humphrey never would have abandoned the Vietnam War - even if he transferred warfighting operations over to the South Vietnamese, he never would have cut off arms and funding to them like some of his Democratic colleagues. To the end of his life Humphrey had harsh words for the antiwar movement, and even after this battle receded into history he maintained his old positions. The war would have continued.
Humphrey was an honest man. I think we have to concede that his support for that war was an honestly held position, however much some might disagree with that.
The recession of Nixon’s second term might have been still worse without the U.S. withdrawal from an active combat role in Vietnam in 1973-75 (which would have been in a second Humphrey term, if he could even have won one). Nixon resorted to price controls, which aggravated his more economically-conservative supporters; Humphrey would have been even more likely to do so. The economy would have been a mess. Humphrey was more pro-Israel than Nixon, too, IIRC, so the OPEC oil embargo might have come sooner, causing further damage.
Reagan might have taken the White House in 1976 or even, I suppose, 1972 (unless Nixon won in a rematch, but I doubt the GOP would give him a third try after losing narrowly in both 1960 and 1968). I can’t see Ford leaving the House of Representatives, and McGovern or Carter probably wouldn’t have had much of a chance against an incumbent President Humphrey or trying to succeed him, respectively. After the real and perceived failures of LBJ and HHH, the Dems might have spent an even longer time in the wilderness after that.
We might still have had some form of detente with the USSR, but I can’t see HHH having the flair (or the skills of Kissinger at his side as national security advisor) to craft an opening to China. The USSR might even have been more emboldened without Nixon to scare them into behaving themselves.
As a loyal Democrat with some lingering admiration for Humphrey, I have to say I think he would have had a very tough time in the White House, and might now be accorded a failure. At least he was a decent man and we wouldn’t be reading transcripts of Oval Office tapes with him inveighing against his enemies, the liberal media, the Georgetown salon crowd, Jews, etc.
OTOH, he (probably) would have run his administration without Nixon’s inflated persecution-mania that led to the Watergate scandal and ultimately brought the “imperial presidency” into such disrepute.
I’ll give you that. I admire HHH for his humility, “politics of joy,” his early commitment to civil rights and his genuine concern for the national interest; I just think the issues and the opponents he’d face as President in 1969-73 would not have played to his strengths.
But would we have pulled our troops out sooner than 1973? Also, wouldn’t the anti-war faction in Congress have had more leverage over a fellow Democrat like Humphrey than they would’ve over the Republican Nixon? At some point, couldn’t they have told Humphrey they weren’t going to support his favorite domestic programs unless funding of the Vietnam War was cut?
On the other hand, without Kissinger I don’t think the excursion into Cambodia and Laos would’ve taken place. In the former’s case, that would’ve made the takeover of the country by the Khmer Rouge and its genocidal policies less likely. There also probably wouldn’t have been the overthrow of Allende in Chile in 1973 (but that’s getting into what would’ve been Humphrey’s second term).
On another matter, I don’t think the “War on Drugs” would’ve been carried out as aggressively under Humphrey as it was under Nixon. Also, Humphrey’s Supreme Court nominees would’ve kept the court more liberal for a longer period of time.
How much leverage did the antiwar faction have over LBJ?
Humphrey could have buried the antiwar faction - by uniting Republicans and the Cold-War Democrats, he could have marginalized that faction to the point of irrelevance. As it was, that faction really only succeeded in forcing the draft to end, after which enthusiasm for the antiwar cause in America dropped sharply.
The anti-war Democrats, at least, might have had less. It’s always easier to oppose something your opponents support than it is to oppose something your allies support.
But since the public tide had mostly turned against the war after 1968, would the anti-war Democrats’ hand been stronger? I would think there would’ve been more pressure to bring things in Vietnam to an end rather than continue with business as usual. Humphrey probably would’ve been more likely to listen to at least listen to the anti-war Democrats than Nixon who would’ve stuck them on his enemies list and gotten his boys to harass them.
Another thing I didn’t really mention is racial relations–busing in particular. That would’ve begun under a first Humphrey term and, unlike Nixon, Humphrey supported it. How would’ve that affected Democratic support in the South and among blue collar voters? Would they have turned to the Republicans sooner?
No, Wallace would have had an even stronger run in 1972. Assuming he wasn’t shot.
Remember, his rhetoric was that there wasn’t a dime’s bit of difference between the Republican and Democratic party, and that both Nixon and Humphrey wanted to push integration on the South. This found an audience in 1968, and Wallace won several Democratic primaries in 1972.
[QUOTE=NDP]
But since the public tide had mostly turned against the war after 1968, would the anti-war Democrats’ hand been stronger?QUOTE]
Had the public tide mostly turned against the war after 1968? Looking at the Gallup polling, I can see that in February of 1969, 47% of people under 30 supported the war, 43% of people 30-45, and 31% of people over 45 (From here:)
And you had a poll in October of 1969, saying that about 70% of the public supported Nixon’s Vietnam policy. So while there certainly was opposition to the war, I don’t know if you can say that public opinion had mostly turned against it.
That would make a big difference. (It’s possible Pinochet could have carried off his coup with or without CIA help – but not without the groundwork the Nixon Admin laid to gut Chile’s economy through sanctions, etc.)
That’s interesting because I always thought the opposite was true. Did the other polls also bear this out?
Anyway, before this topic sinks into the Thread Sea, does anybody think that if Humphrey had been elected in '68, the U.S. would likely have a national health plan of some sort in place today?