Kennedy picks Humphrey in 1960

[gorkay]

I don't think there would have been much if any difference in the EV with Humphrey running in '64. He would have gotten the same Kennedy sympathy vote that LBJ did. I also question whether, by 1964, he would have been seen as being much if any more liberal than Johnson.

The question of who Humphrey would have picked as a running mate is an interesting one. I don't think it would have been Morse... he was too much of a maverick, and I think he may already have been voicing disagreement with administration foreign policy. The only region in which Humphrey looked to be weak was the south, so perhaps he would have chosen a moderate southerner... Symington, maybe?

Lodge and Miller, IMO, were both poor choices. I think Goldwater was afraid that if he picked Scranton, there would be too much talk about how divergent his views were from Goldwater's, and of the criticisms they leveled at each other during the nomination campaign. I'm not sure Goldwater was too wild about Scranton stepping in at the eleventh hour to try and get the nomination, either. Another possible factor: one of the only logical reasons Scranton would have set himself up for direct involvement in the 1964 Republican debacle was to prove his party loyalty and thus set himself up for future campaigns. Could be that Goldwater didn't want to give him that kind of aid.

I've read that the only thing Miller did during the campaign was drink with the press corps on the bus.