Obamas 2008 win has a lot of parallels to Nixons 1968. He won by a modest margin in the electoral college and put new states into play for Democrats such as Nevada, Colorado and Virginia. Nixon would have won by a similar margin if not for Wallace. 2012 also would have been a larger Obama win if he faced someone like Bachmann who was the GOP version of McGovern. The demographics of America pretty much guarantee a competitive showing for Democrats in 2016 and by 2020 an unpopular Republican president could doom the GOP.
It is totally and completely your assumption (and I'll add bias) that Nixon would have scooped up all these Wallace voters. Did HHH have a strong civil rights record? Sure, but so did Nixon...
Wallace voters (at least in the South) voted Republican in 1964,
