Had Martin Luther King Jr. not been assassinated, would he have been President?
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  Had Martin Luther King Jr. not been assassinated, would he have been President?
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Author Topic: Had Martin Luther King Jr. not been assassinated, would he have been President?  (Read 2052 times)
Kringla Heimsins
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« on: April 04, 2017, 07:37:14 PM »

Jesse Jackson made a good run in 1988. But Martin Luther King is obviously leagues ahead of him in every way possible. Even though he was a socialist, could he have won a Democratic primary between 1968 and 1999 (the year he would have turned 70)?

I mean, Martin Luther King may have been divisive, and his assassination perhaps helped to make him less so, but he is the most well-known American figure, ever. (Yes, more than old Abe, at least in Europe.) He is the only private citizen to have a special holiday, and his Dream speech is considered one of the most eloquent speech ever given... The fact he's a pastor may also be a plus for evangelicals.



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Computer89
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« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2017, 07:57:55 PM »

He prob runs in 1976 , 1984 and loses primary in 1988  he loses general .
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2017, 08:13:12 PM »

I think he could have won in 1988 or 1992.
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Cashew
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« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2017, 04:58:38 PM »

I think he could have won in 1988 or 1992.

I actually think the earlier on the better the odds are for him. The United States may have been more racist in the 1970's, but the new deal coalition was still dominant, however fragile it was. By the late 1980's the country is too right wing economically for someone like him to be electable.

You would need to somehow sabotage a political realignment to make this plausible.(And I doubt he alone is capable of holding back the tide.)
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KingSweden
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« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2017, 03:11:11 PM »

MLK was also in remarkably poor health for much of the late 1960s due to the stressors of his life. One wonders if he'd have survived super long anyhow
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2017, 05:40:39 PM »

1968, as an independent. He would get support from the Kennedys, Eugene McCarthy, Nelson Rockefeller, and mainstream pro-civil rights GOPers like Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford.
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RogueBeaver
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« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2017, 05:45:50 PM »

In a word, no. Too far left, no indication he was interested & given his poor health (IIRC autopsy said he had a 60yo heart or similar) skeptical he lives much past 1980.
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Devout Centrist
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« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2017, 09:02:23 PM »

No. Lots of (mainly white) people claim to love MLK, jr. today for two main reasons:

1. He's the only Civil Rights leader they know.
2. His words and actions are warped or outright fabricated to fit their political agenda.

If MLK, jr. was not assassinated, it's likely he would have been viewed negatively by a lot of whites. Indeed, he was anti-war and left wing. The New York Times criticized him for protesting the war in 1967 and also for his orchestration of protests in Northern cities.

If King were alive today, as unlikely as that might be, many on the right would dislike him or perhaps even outright hate him. His record and beliefs are twisted so much today to fit political agendas that the real Dr. King would be unrecognizable to millions of Americans.

So, no, not a chance.
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ChairmanSanchez
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« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2017, 06:36:44 PM »

He'd probably die of a massive heart attack by '79-he had the heart of a man twice his age.
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