Not at all. Not because he couldn't make it work with the base somehow- look no further than Bill Clinton and the DLC Democrats, although it took until the 1990s for labor to get weak enough for that- but because the Democrats were a sinking ship by the time he wanted to run for president. He came at just the right time and with just the right message to benefit from a strong trend in the South, West, and suburbs, a symbolic rejection of New Deal liberalism that only got stronger throughout the 1970s. As a Democrat, he wouldn't have enjoyed a similar realignment at any point in his career and would have faced backlash from factions in the party.
Lmfao
