Kennedy 1972

[fruitofstardew]

Going off of MABA 2020's prompt, let's say that RFK wins in a squeaker against Nixon in 1968 outright and avoids an election in the House (like Nixon's irl win).

How does President Kennedy do in 1972? Would he win by Nixon irl numbers or would a potential 4th straight term of Dems in the White House complicate things?

[brucejoel99]

The whole notion of party fatigue is rather recent & was frankly unknown in 1968 & 1972, so if RFK had won in 1968, then his viability in 1972 would solely depend on whether or not his shutdown of the Vietnam War would be well-received.

Now, RFK would've likely gotten a peace agreement in 1969/70 along the lines of what LBJ was negotiating pre-election. However, if the North Vietnamese violate the agreement with the same intensity as real life, then RFK would come under fire from both right-wingers who'd see the ceasefire violations as evidence that the negotiations were naive in the first place & New Left-types who'd feel that RFK had betrayed them. If Saigon has fallen or there are still large numbers of American troops deployed in Vietnam on Election Day 1972, then the Reagan administration starts 8 years early. Otherwise, RFK is reelected in 1972 on the strength of his (apparently) successful peace negotiations & the legislative agenda he would've managed to pass (potentially a health-care bill & additional civil rights bills).

[mianfei]

“brucejoel99”,

I basically agree with this. Given that RFK was, although progressive on racial issues, a much more religious Catholic than his brother, it would be interesting to see how his judicial appointments respond in the case of Roe v. Wade? If Roe was decided as it was, many Catholics would have viewed him as betraying them.

Then there is the issue of how President Kennedy would have responded to the energy crisis of 1973? If he failed to do anything, or if he was perceived as too focused on reducing consumption, it could easily have cost him dearly at the polls in the 1974 midterm elections, and possibly later than that. If he tried to resolve the crisis by aid to Israel – the very problem for which he was assassinated – he could have found a backlash for betrayal just as might have occurred with Roe.