# if agnew hadn't been busted or beat the charges could he have been elected over carter ?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 3, 2019, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471 "2019-03-03T09:37:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/1 "2019-03-03T09:37:39Z")
the Wikipedia article I consulted for another thread says this
> [@](#):
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> Some recent historians have seen Agnew as important in the development of the New Right, arguing that he should be honored alongside the acknowledged founding fathers of the movement such as Goldwater and Reagan; Victor Gold, Agnew’s former press secretary, considered him the movement’s “John the Baptist”.[194] Goldwater’s crusade in 1964, at the height of Johnsonian liberalism, came too early, but by the time of Agnew’s election, liberalism was on the wane, and as Agnew moved to the right after 1968, the country moved with him.[191] Agnew’s fall shocked and saddened conservatives, but it did not inhibit the growth of the New Right.[195] Agnew, the first suburban politician to achieve high office, helped to popularize the view that much of the national media was controlled by elitist and effete liberals.[194] Levy noted, “He helped recast the Republicans as a Party of ‘Middle Americans’ and, even in disgrace, reinforced the public’s distrust of government.”[196]
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> For Agnew himself, despite his rise from his origins in Baltimore to next in line to the presidency, “there could be little doubt that history’s judgment was already upon him, the first Vice President of the United States to have resigned in disgrace. All that he achieved or sought to achieve in his public life … had been buried in that tragic and irrefutable act”.[197] In October 2018, Rachel Maddow wrote and produced a seven part miniseries, “The Bagman”, documenting bribery throughout much of Agnew’s public career, and the bargain by which he avoided prison.[198] Levy sums up the “might-have-been” of Agnew’s career thus:
> It is not a far stretch to imagine that if Agnew had contested corruption charges half as hard as Nixon denied culpability for Watergate – as Goldwater and several other stalwart conservatives wanted him to – today we might be speaking of Agnew-Democrats and Agnewnomics, and deem Agnew the father of modern conservatism.[194]
Levy, Peter B. (Winter 2013). “Spiro Agnew, the Forgotten Americans and the Rise of the New Right”. The Historian is the Levy mentioned
Could he of taken Reagan’s place in politics or wishful thinking on the part of Mr. levy?
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/2 "2019-03-03T15:58:23Z")
He was Nixon’s Vice President. So he would still be tainted by his association with Nixon and a significant number of people would have voted against him to show their disapproval of Nixon’s behavior.
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### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/3 "2019-03-03T16:16:01Z")
I’m one of the few people who I know that admit to having supported Nixon’s presidential run, at least the first one, and I would not have voted for Spiro Agnew under any circumstances. I did vote for Gerald Ford.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/4 "2019-03-03T16:58:51Z")
Agnew had no charisma. Zip. Not electable on his own–no crowd appeal.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/5 "2019-03-03T17:21:05Z")
> [@susan](#):
>
> Agnew had no charisma. Zip. Not electable on his own–no crowd appeal.
Admittedly, I was a kid when Agnew was in office, so I knew little about him at the time.
A few months ago, I listened to Rachel Maddow’s podcast series, [Bag Man](https://www.msnbc.com/bagman), which tells the story of Agnew’s corruption and fall from grace. A point which they make several times in the podcast was that Agnew was sort of Nixon’s attack dog – he was apparently happy to make fiery speeches, in which he vilified liberals, hippies, foreigners, etc. for leading the decay of American society.
In modern terms, he was decidedly non-PC, and this apparently made him extremely popular among more conservative members of the party. For a time, when it first became known that he was under investigation, he was able to successfully galvanize support among them to fight against the charges.
Now, could that strong support among a possibly smallish base translated to enough support to get elected president? I suspect not, but I also suspect that the bigger issue would have been Nixon’s very large negative coattails.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/6 "2019-03-03T22:40:07Z")
Are we supposing that Nixon doesn’t resign because of Watergate and Agnew runs as a regular nominee in 1976, or that Nixon does resign and Agnew becomes President?
If Nixon survives Watergate, he spends the rest of his term trying to keep South Vietnam collapsing, and Agnew is stuck trying to defend that, just like Humphrey in 1968.
If Nixon resigns then Agnew has to decide whether to pardon him as well as how to deal with Vietnam, just as Ford did in 1976.
> [@](#):
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> It is not a far stretch to imagine that if Agnew had contested corruption charges half as hard as Nixon denied culpability for Watergate – as Goldwater and several other stalwart conservatives wanted him to – today we might be speaking of Agnew-Democrats and Agnewnomics, and deem Agnew the father of modern conservatism.
Ummm, the Feds had tons of evidence on Agnew, including the fact that he was still taking payoffs while he was Vice President. The plea bargain was designed to cut short the shitstorm that would have come about.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/7 "2019-03-04T01:20:57Z")
I remember reading Mrs. Agnew’s Diary in National Lampoon.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2019, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-agnew-hadnt-been-busted-or-beat-the-charges-could-he-have-been-elected-over-carter/830471/8 "2019-03-04T06:54:58Z")
Agnew wasn’t overall as conservative as some make him out to be, and during his time was considered a moderate Republican at best, a liberal Republican for the most part.
He had been a huge supporter of Nelson Rockefeller (another liberal Republican and world class asshole) until NR took a big dump on him by backing out of the 1968 election without any prior warning.
As mentioned, Agnew had little charm. Ford was as dull as watching paint dry, but he was likable. Carter won by only 1 state. Had Agnew been the candidate Carter I predict Carter would have won handily.