1968: Robert Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon vs. George Wallace

[johnpressman]

Robert Kennedy would not have won the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. The thought that RFK would have won had he lived is just romantic hindsight.  I include a video from ABC TV analyzing his chances on the very day he won the California primary.  Hubert Humphrey already had a majority or near majority of the delegates pledged to him. The Video is Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMr97_M7okw

RFK even states in the interview that without Eugene McCarthy's support, unifying the anti-war candidates for President, he would not be able to win the nomination.  McCarthy and, for the most part, McCarthy's supporters, hated Kennedy.

Here is "On To Chicago" a terrific book on this very subject; if RFK had lived: https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Rediscovering-Robert-Kennedy-Campaign/dp/1944229981

Should somehow, RFK had won the Democratic nomination, he would be leading a badly fractured party, with a sitting President of his own party in opposition, and with George Wallace taking formerly Democratic votes in the South and industrial Midwest and North.  He would have lost the election much more handedly than Humphrey did.

America was a much more conservative nation in 1968 and the voting age was 21, not 18.  Nixon was the perfect candidate for that year. A nostalgic figure who promised to restore law and order to a chaotic, violent time in America's history.

[johnpressman]

LBJ would not have endorsed Nixon.  However, if somehow RFK was the Democratic Presidential Nominee in 1968, LBJ would have worked against him behind the scenes. LBJ hated Bobby and was convinced that he would have abandoned Vietnam and would have blamed Johnson for the debacle.

RFK would not have won Texas or any of the Southern or Border States, the Wallace vote would have increased, further cutting into the Democratic tally in the North and Midwest.  RFK was seen as a polarizing figure and the American electorate in 1968 yearned for stability in that chaotic and violent year.

Nixon was the perfect candidate for 1968.  He reminded voters of a more serene and stable time and his foreign policy credentials convinced them of his ability to handle the Vietnam war and relations between the superpowers.