Unfortunate Son

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Election Results
Running on a platform of a renewed and revitalized arms race with the Soviet Union in the name of defending America's national interests, reduced tax rates, social conservatism, and a balanced budget, Robert Joseph Dole was elected to be the 40th President of the United States of America. The landslide Republican victory would sweep all parts of the nation, though Dole's highest totals would come from the "farm belt", where not only was he its favorite son, but it would profit the most from Dole's proposal to re-establish grain sales to the U.S.S.R. The ticket nevertheless, would suffer at certain points. While Republicans made significant inroads into the Democratic-leaning "rust belt", the national popular vote totals would be reflected at dis-proportionally low levels in New England, the South, and the West. New England was an area that Republicans had been losing ground in since the days of FDR. In this case, while Vermont and New Hampshire both gave Dole majorities, the other states he would either lose or gain only by plurarlity. This was seen largely as a result of socially moderate-to-liberal and more affluent voters favoring the Clark/Westman ticket despite the efforts of Dole surrogates in the region. The same could be said for the opposite end of the country, where Westerners of all stripes had given a significant amount of support to the Libertarian ticket relative to its national totals. Political scientists would credit this with the fact that "movement conservatives" and Disraeli supporters were disaffected by Dole's much more "middle America" oriented brand of conservatism, that moderates in states such as California had gone for the "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" ticket, and anti-war activists and former McGovern supporters had preferred Clark immensely over the other two. Dole's lackluster performance in the South relative to Connally's was largely the fact that Dole's campaign had worked mainly to build a coalition of the industrial North and had abandoned some more Nixonian race-baiting tactics, and, obviously the region was where from the incumbent Brewer hailed. Nevertheless, Dole had won not only an electoral majority, but a popular mandate to govern, and with the Senate remaining in Republican hands, it seemed there was little stopping him.

Senator Robert J. Dole (Republican-Kansas)/Former Governor A. Linwood Holton, Jr. (Republican-Virginia) 475 electoral votes, 53.6% of the popular vote
President Albert Brewer (Democrat-Alabama)/Vice President Daniel Inouye (Democrat-Hawaii) 40.3% of the popular vote
Attorney Edward E. Clark (Libertarian-California)/Senator Scott Westman (Libertarian-Montana) 0 electoral votes, 5.7% of the popular vote
Former Congressman John Rarick (American Independent-Louisiana)/Ms. Eileen Knowland Shearer (American Independent-California) 0 electoral votes, .3% of the popular vote
Others: 0 electoral votes, .1% of the popular vote

Alternate history indeed.   Nixon never used "race-baiting" in real life; he campaigned as a centrist opposed to the racism of George Wallace and the cultural liberalism of Hubert Humphrey.

This is patently false.

And good TL, Cath.