1968 - Romney/Brooke vs Humphrey/Muskie (including Wallace)

[Enderman]

Let's say Romney makes all the right moves in the GOP campaign, defeats Nixon and moves on to the general election, but makes history by picking Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. Democratic Primaries go the same as IRL. What happens? Who wins? What's the map?

[tpfkaw]

Romney/Brooke would come in third in the popular vote and probably wouldn't win a single state, even Utah.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This one is a real wildcard to predict.  If Romney is the nominee, I'm assuming he has managed to avoid his "brainwash" comment, though he is still very critical of the war, and his handling of the Detroit riots is largely considered a success. His campaign calls for national healing and picks up a larger share of support than usual for a Republican from young, urban and minority populations. On the other hand he is seen by many in his own party as too eager to surrender in Vietnam.  Romney's religion is a hindrance in some areas, and he runs into some conflict with his own church over race issues though he retains the support of a majority of his fellow Mormons.  Quite a few Americans are reluctant to vote for a black for VP, though many of those are willing to stomach this given dissatisfaction with the Democrats. In the end, Humphrey is able to win the most support by a wide margin, though Romney is given credit for pulling Humphrey to break somewhat from LBJ on Vietnam in order to hold on to his liberal supporters.

VP Herbert Humphrey (MN) / Sen. Edmund Muskie (ME)  46% 374
Gov. George Romney (MI) / Sen. Edward Brooke (MA)     37%  87
Fmr. Gov. Geroge Wallace (AL) / Gen. Curtis LeMay (CA)  17%  77

[tpfkaw]

-snip-

In the Gallup poll conducted April 19-24, 1967 (before the two waves of race riots in 1967 and 1968), 51 percent of Americans said they were willing to vote for a black president, and 43% said they were unwilling.

Remember, this is the amount who would admit to a live interviewer that they wouldn't vote for a black president.

In addition, I suspect that a substantial majority of that 51% were Democrats, certainly outside the South in any case.

Here's a map of ultra-liberal, McGovern in '72, Massachusetts's 1976 (8 years later) Democratic primary for President:



Yes, that is none other than George "Segregation Forever" Wallace winning the City of Boston, Massachusetts's Democrats. And not by a small margin either. He was a close third statewide, while the statewide winner was Scoop Jackson, who also had made opposition to busing the centerpiece of his campaign. Granted, Boston saw more racial backlash during that period than anywhere else in the country, but Wallace and Jackson did well in the rest of the state too, and certainly Wallace couldn't have done well if there wasn't quite a bit of preexisting racism, in a state one would have to admit was one of the least racist in the country (having elected Brooke by landslides in '66 and '72, both also during the busing crisis).

I reiterate; with a black running mate, Romney would come in third in the popular vote and lose every state.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

And yet the Gallup poll for March 69 already has those numbers up to 66 willing vs. 24 unwilling. 
I'm sure that understates the racism considerably, but even for the prejudiced, prejudice is only one factor.  Surely it can't be that a full 90% of South Carolinia's voters (even as restricted as the franchise was) were willing to vote for a Catholic in 1928, and yet they did.
Voting for a VP also isn't the same as voting for a president.  I voted for McCain in 2008; I didn't consider it a vote for Palin - she was just unfortunately attached to the ticket.  Willingness to vote for a ticket with someone as VP might be more analogous to willingness to vote for someone as a senator - if even that - than a president. It could be different in the 60s given the JFK assassination, but I still would guess the claim that a Republican candidate would win less than 1/3 of the vote in 68 on a pick of VP overstates the racial effect.  Humphrey and Wallace had their own limitations as well when it came to voter appeal. 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Romney isn't enough of a scumbag to sabotage the peace talks. Humphrey obviously wins.

[tpfkaw]

And yet the Gallup poll for March 69 already has those numbers up to 66 willing vs. 24 unwilling.

I suspect that has quite a bit to do with the change in presidential administrations.

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South Carolina voters back then were wealthy (and therefore educated), extremely partisan Democrats. I don't think they were unaware of their party's demographics. But, in any event, they were far more anti-Republican than anti-Catholic-candidates.

In 1968 you have the groups of people who would have been

More pro-Republican than anti-black-candidates (these people would be turned off by Romney's dovishness)
More pro-black-candidates than anti-Republican (a description that fits virtually nobody, since New England WASPs were extremely partisan Republicans and blacks were extremely partisan Democrats)

vs.

More anti-black-candidates than pro-Republican (describes a large portion of whites)
More anti-Republican than pro-black-candidates (describes most blacks and another large chunk of whites)

The latter two groups would have dwarfed the first two.

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I suspect that people's feelings about race in 1968 were quite a bit stronger than people's feelings about Palin in 2008.

Romney isn't enough of a scumbag to sabotage the peace talks. Humphrey obviously wins.

The South Vietnamese contacted Nixon's campaign, not the other way around. They asked if they could get a better deal in Paris under a Nixon administration than the one they had been negotiating up to that point, and the Nixon camp said yes. (What were they supposed to say? No?) They did in fact get a better deal with Nixon.

One might compare to Ted Kennedy, unsolicited, offering to aid Yuri Andropov in sabotaging Reagan's arms control negotiations. Offering to aid an enemy seems rather more treasonous to me than reassuring an ally, but then I'm just some fascist nutcase.