Interesting piece of history: HHH offered Rockefeller VP in '68

[WI_DEM]

I've been reading a biography of Lyndon Johnson titled, "Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times" by Robert Dalleck and Dalleck indicates that in '68 Vice President Hubert Humphrey offered the liberal Repubican Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller (when they had liberal republicans) the second place on the Democratic ticket telling Rocky that the country needed a "unity ticket" that year. Rockefeller, who challenged Dick Nixon for the GOP nomination that year, was a good friend of both LBJ and HHH, but ultimately he declined the offer and HHH chose Maine Senator Edmund Muskie.

Given that HHH lost to Nixon by about 500,000 votes would in the inclusion of Rockefeller perhaps have changed history? and been enough to help Humphrey who closed strong, but it took him until the end of September to get his campaign momentum going.

On this subject another thought comes to me. If Humphrey thought a unity ticket was a good idea he might have approached Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, another liberal republican--whose voting record in the senate was more liberal than many democrats--but he was also an African-American. I think it would have given HHH some momentum coming out of a stormy convention by putting a black man on the ticket and uniting the Kennedy-McCarthy progressive wing of the party behind him sooner than Humphrey was able to. Also, with George Wallace in the race--the racist vote would have been split between Wallace and Nixon.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Wow!! What might have been.....

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. But Muskie was widely considered a huge assett...

to the ticket; the stronger of the two running mates.

My guess is, between Muskie and Rockefeller, it would have been a wash.

HHH should have picked an explicitly antiwar DEM like Proxmire or Bayh or even Gore Sr. The DEMS were the majority party in those days. With a leftwing/rightwing ticket Humphrey would have won.

Lot's of antiwar DEMS stayed home on election day '68. More than 500,000.