I don't understand why you feel that RFK was a social conservative. Both RFK and Eugene McCarthy's support by a young, vocal (and mostly under 21 and unable to vote) minority is preciesly what made them unappetizing to the majority of Americans in 1968. Opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968 was still seen as unpatriotic by the majority of over-21 Americans in 1968. The average American perceived RFK and McCarthy as aligned with the "hippies" and the Black Nationalists. Richard Nixon was the perfect candidate for 1968. Being a man of the 1950's, he represented a return to a more stable, staus-quo era.
In 1968, RFK and McCarthy had the difficult task of prying away delegates that were already pledged to Humphrey. If somehow RFK would have won the nomination, he would have led a badly fractured party with LBJ doing everything possible to undermine his candidacy. Nixon adds TX to his electoral vote total and increases his winning margins in the Southern and Border States.
RFK was a social conservative, not a social reactionary. He was a devout Catholic who, if elected, would have ranked as one of the most religious men to occupy the White House. But he was an avid reader of Camus and other existentialists. Obviously we don't know his views on Roe vs. Wade, but it's likely that he would have opposed it (as did his wife and all of his siblings at the time). Also, Bobby derided the welfare state as unable to actually lift people out of poverty. It's inaccurate to label him a "social democrat", but he's definitely just as motivated to fight poverty. He was a Jeffersonian in the sense he supported decentralization of government programs, but he was a full on believer in a (not the) War on Poverty.
Would like to know more about why LBJ hated RFK, and why LBJ would've done these things if RFK won the nomination. Was it because of LBJ's personality? An inferiority complex? A fear of failure?
It was entirely a personality clash. Many instances of culture clash, as well as LBJ knowing full well that RFK never wanted LBJ on the ticket in 1960. Around 1967 you start to see real policy disputes over Vietnam and the War on Poverty.
