PBrunsel
Junior Chimp
Posts: 9,537
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« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2005, 10:30:01 PM » |
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Well, here is my take on this:
1956:
Kefauver, needing to attract younger voters to counter the popular Eisenhower, chooses the young Senator John Kenendy as his running mate, over the protestant Hubert Humphrey. JFK is punded 4-years earlier for his Catholicism, and he goes on the attack against the Press and the Republicans, claming that they are, "Al Smith-ing" the election or something along that line. On Election Day, Kefauver is destroyed at the polls as was expected:
Dwight Eisenhower/Richard Nixon (R): 453 Electoral Votes
Estes Kefauver/John Kennedy (D): 78 Electoral Votes
Despite gaining Massachusettes and Rhode Island due to Kennedy's Catholicism and New England heritage, the ticket loses Missouri and North Carolina due to Kennedy's religion.
1960 Democratic Primaries:
JFK enters the Democratic Primary in 1960, and the shadow of his failed Vice Presidential bid haunts him. Johnson and Symington blame the defeat in '56 on kenendy's religion, and it works. Kennedy is defeated in the Wisconsin Primary by Hubert Humphrey and then again in West Virginia. His campaign dies, and it is blamed on his failed 1956 campaign and his religion that "caused" the defeat (althougn it obvioulsy did not).
1960 Election:
Nixon, running on Eisenhower's record and against the somewhat shady Lyndon Johnson, never debates on television. Had he ran against the charismatic John F. kennedy and debated, some historians say today in 2005, he might have been defeated, and not won, by a narrow margin.
Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge (R): 323 Electoral Votes
Lyndon Johnson/Hubert Humphrey (D): 206 Electoral Votes
Harry F. Byrd/Strom Thurmond (I): 8 Electoral Votes
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