1988: Biden/Bentsen vs. Deukmejian/Kemp

[gorkay]

Your timeline is very plausible. Of course, much would depend on how the alternative presidents and vice-presidents performed, or were perceived to have performed, in office. Not to try to run your timeline for you, but it would be interesting to speculate on such questions as what Humphrey and Muskie would have done about Vietnam (and Reagan and Schweiker, for that matter, if the war was still going when they took office). Or what Reagan and Schweiker would have done about the hostage crisis, provided you think there still would have been one with them in office.

[gorkay]

Your conclusions seem plausible to me, and well thought-out. As for Askew: didn't he run briefly in '76? Or was it just speculated that he might run and he didn't? There were so many Democratic candidates that year I can't keep track of them all. If he didn't, he should have: 1976 was about the only year he had a chance. By '84 he had gone from rising star to has-been. That can happen awfully fast in politics.

BTW, the speculation about a Humphrey presidency reminds me that the latest issue of the New York Review of Books has a fascinating excerpt from Arthur Schlesinger's journals of '66, '67 and '68, with his takes on the main actors in Democratic politics in those days. The journals are coming out in book form next month, and should be really interesting.