What if RFK LIVED? What Do You All Think Would've Happened?

My personal belief is that there would have been a convention battle between him and Humphrey. The convention would have been raucous, but it wouldn't have become the kind of disaster that it was. RFK would have received the nomination ultimately, since he was the only way to keep the party united -- he was a popular antiwar pol who could get the support of not only his own supporters but McCarthy's, and he was mainstream enough to be acceptable to the party establishment.

I think he would have defeated Nixon, although I think it's possible the nominee could've been Nelson Rockefeller -- maybe the Repubs would have decided that Nixon wouldn't be able to beat Kennedy and they needed somebody more charismatic.

Robert Kennedy gets elected, and pulls us out of Vietnam. Over the next few years, the U.S. economy rebounds, and the Great Society is expanded upon and made more efficient -- more funding for education, more funding for colleges, expansion of head start, comprehensive national health insurance, environmental protection, a more efficient "war on poverty" with programs like a TVA for the Mississippi Delta and major efforts to revive the cities -- public funding for well-governed cities, extensive civil rights reforms, and MAYBE even proportional representation in the U.S. House -- RFK had long expressed interest in it. It's not so inconceivable that he could have gotten the electoral college abolished either, since there was widespread support for it after 1968, and a constitutional amend. to abolish it actually passed the House but failed in the Senate.

I'm probably being idealistic -- I'm sure as in any presidency, there would've been missteps.

What do you all think would have happened?

Another MAJOR question I have is this -- what are some sources where I can find ACTUAL alternate histories of RFK -- i.e. books, websites, magazines...please tell me of some if you know of any.

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killed him again

America does not treat it's best leaders well. RFK getting killed was inevitable. Just like WW1...even if Gavrilo Princip hadnt shot Ferdinand...something else would have been the spark to light the fire. This is one of those sad hypotheticals that can never have a happy ending.

Rethug/CIA killers of JFK.

Which is why RFK had to be killed.

wrote books on RFK.

Jack Newfield's book is the faster read.....

Arthur Schlessinger's treatment is more scholarly....


It's hard for me to be objective when it comes to the Kennedys. My mom walked precints for JFK in 1960. She took me to the front of a rope line in Queens, N.Y. when I was six years old to shake Bobby's hand.His autographed picture still sits on my dresser drawers. I was a Kennedy delegate in 1980.

It's hard to know what a second Kennedy presidency would have been like and would it have even occurred but I know there will never be a politician like Bobby Kennedy.

Humphrey had the lead in delegates even when McCarthy's delegates were lumped with RFK's. But the lead was not insurmountable. Daley likely would have thrown his delegates to RFK, but much of labor was hostile. If I had to bet, I think Humphrey would have won out. But it's possible that he would have picked RFK as his running mate. Whether RFK would have accepted is another matter. But, unlike McCarthy, I don't think RFK would have kept his distance from Humphrey during the campaign, and his support might have been enough to push Humphrey over the top.

besides the Teamsters

I think Bobby was the last "tough" liberal who had the power to bring disparate groups together.

For instance, I once read that working class whites who voted for Wallace said RFK was their second choice.

Labor was never all that wild about the Kennedys going back to their investigation of the Teamsters in the 50s and their pursuit of Jimmy Hoffa. Plus, George Meany and many of the other labor leaders were cold war liberals, and were big supporters of the Vietnam war.

Both John and Bobby supported the war.

Bobby turned against it when he saw it was "unwinnable" and how it was tearing our country apart but I don't think he ever wavered in his fierce anti-communism.

we only know what we lost.

Haven't read the book, but it seems to lay out what would have happened had the South not taken over.

The Sierra Club and other would have protested and stopped the project through judicial means. Much like today with any and all human made dams.

nt

Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.

Thanks for saying what I held back. I hate the fact that political leaders can kill off any of us that they deem a threat. Any and all will do it so this is not a partisian issue.

Peace

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Do you think it would've been Sen. Eugene McCarthy?

He would have prolly taken a southerner....


Maybe Albert Gore Senior.

in the us:
lbj, jackie-o and her sister lee radziwill would have done 25 years min.
cardinal ratzinger would have gone to the electric chair
gerald ford would have been permanently sectioned as incurably insane
george bush senior and dick cheney ditto as ratzinger
dubya, jeb and various other shrublets in barbara b's dynasty would have done life - hard labour, no parole
in the uk:
harold macmillan would have faced a military firing squad
98% of the so called windsor royal family would have been sent back to exile in bielorussia/estonia/latvia/ukraine
lee radziwill's husband stanislaus and his fellow members of the p2 would have been asset stripped and faced the same grim zyklonB death as those their little vanity club inflicted on millions of east europeans in ww2
etc

pretty much all else as it did happen.

RFK would be a Senator today, widely pilloried on Internet forums as a sell-out member of the DLC.

Like his brother was getting ready to do before the CIA and friends killed him! I think the people behind the CIA then, killed them both!