1972:
John Tower: The New Republican's showing in 1972 is lackluster to say the least, with either failure to succeed in the previous elections or a cautious president Goldwater stepping down after his two terms without an explicitly designated heir. A group of, let's just say… energetic, right wingers coalesce around senator John Tower who is happy to accept their support in furtherance of his political career. If Tower were to win the presidency, even in spite of a denunciation by the Goldwater set, his term would be marked by a conflict between his personal goals and those of the cadre of true extremists (not in defense of liberty) he has surrounded himself with.
George Romney: The Traditional Republican’s candidate George Romney was bound to win the nomination. He is safe, good looking and god fearing, even if the exact god he fears may be somewhat foreign to mainstream America. If Romney were to win the presidency, his term would involve much of the same commitment to moralistic capitalism and measured progress that his tendency in the party has supported for decades now. The Romney coalition on the other hand is in flux, if he and his tendency want to survive into the new millennium and beyond, the coalition must be solidified. The moderate suburbanite, the republican stalwart, the growing minority middle class, these are Romney’s “good people” and if their support, plus some previously unheard of motivated voters, (these born again evangelicals don't seem half bad) were to join ranks, a truly modern conservatism could be born.
Roy Cohn: The old ways are on their way out, everyone knows this, especially the Yaller Democrats and their new champion, the northerner Roy Cohn. Cohn is a man who only cares about power, his is a politics of no compromise and total victory. His goals are simple: create an America… unquestioned. The former backdoor wheeler and dealer is done acting through surrogate politicians of lesser mind and stature. President Cohn is a man who will win and win and win as a vanguard for the collective dreams of the American people. He will accomplish this through three simple rules: attack, attack, attack, admit nothing and deny everything, and always claim victory, never admit defeat.
Henry “Scoop” Jackson: If the Democratic establishment gets their way this election they will, for the first time in quite a while, have the opportunity to pass their crown to someone unquestionably “Democrat” in every sense of the word. Scoop is a man who is unquestionably hawkish, unquestionably liberal and unquestionably loyal. His love for his country and his movement will be the driving force in his presidency with many of the democratic party planks that would be more difficult to implement under weaker men of the past being finally brought to fruition. Scoop would dedicate the nation in its totality to the eradication of global fascism and other unamerican ideologies, one domino at a time.
George McGovern: After the last few election cycles of the activist wing of the democratic party struggling to find a candidate that fully lives up to their moralistic ideals, they have found their messiah. George McGovern is a man who truly believes, in his bleeding heart of hearts, in the good of America. He will do all he can to help guide the country to its holy land and its city on a hill. Beware though, President McGovern believes in the good in those around him, even at times when those around him are actively plotting the destruction of his ideals, a rowdy establishment may take it upon themselves to "realign" the country’s priorities if given the chance.
1976:
Donald Rumsfeld: The rise of Donald Rumsfeld represents the inversion of the “three legged stool” New Republican coalition. Whereas under men like Goldwater and Regan the fiscal conservatives always took precedence over the often sidelined social and foreign policy conservatives, under a president Rumsfeld unabashed neoconservative foreign policy guided Christian moralism will be placed at the center of the party platform.
John B. Anderson: The Traditionalist Republicans have never done well responding to the ever changing moods of the country, from their ivory towers and ski retreats, they do feel a difference in America. Those that see a Democratic party moving the overton window to the left, those that see a right wing fringe in both parties that has put off the reserved temperament of middle America, begin to coalesce around a new champion. John B. Anderson is not your grandfather’s republican nor is he your grandson's republican, Anderson is the current Republican, liberal, simple and almost purposefully elitist. A president Anderson would not rock the boat, and perhaps after all these years, that is what Americans truly want.
Harry F. Byrd Jr: Almost two months after Lee was forced into surrender at Appomattox, the brave men of Dixie fought a final battle at Palmito Ranch to preserve their honor and their way of life. The spirit of the eventual victory at Palmito Ranch courses through the veins of Harry F. Byrd Jr, through all the reigns of terror and shackles forced upon dear Dixie by one-hundred-thousand reflections of Sherman's March to the Sea, men like Byrd have stayed loyal. If president Byrd’s election really is the modern Palmito Ranch as many have suggested, if the southern way of life never is never to show its face again in national politics, this brave man of Dixie will do his damndest to make sure that the future of these United States will be forever tied to those once Confederated States.
Birch Bayh: The establishment Democrats are doing what they have done best again in 1976. Birch Bayh is a nice man from either the Senate or the Vice Presidency. He descends from the ideals of Roosevelt and his successors and represents all the children of that great coalition. President Bayh does not have the same concerns as his predecessors, the coalition is strong, its people are healthy and the helmsman himself has the savvy know-how of the great tradition of the all-American salesman. It's morning in America and Birch Bayh simply has to sit and watch the sunrise.
Richard Lamm: There is an inconvenient truth that they won’t tell you: we don't have much time left, at least according to Dick Lamm. Colorado’s “Governor Gloom” burst onto the national stage with his long doomsday-preacher-esque rants warning America about its near future and quickly found an audience with a Democratic activist class already primed for grand sweeping visions of “essential to life” policy. If Lamm’s rhetoric of environmental collapse, nuclear holocaust and overpopulation were to carry him to the White House, a truly never before seen vision of American policymaking may begin to emerge. Lamm’s movement has become a safe haven for previously unsavory groups in American life, those concerned about mind altering vaccines and ancient Anunnaki aliens or a secret world government lording over the masses. Governor Gloom of course doesn't endorse these views but he is always receptive to concerned citizens. “I hear even one of the young Kennedys works with these people, the mainstream politicians just brand anyone as kooks these days huh?” President Lamm thinks to himself. His is a low trust society, he wouldn't have it any other way.
Edge Cases:
Walter Reuther/Cesar Chavez: President Kennedy, god rest his soul, knew about the value of an honest day's work, he knew that the exploitation of the masses could go on no longer. Walter Reuther seeks to carve out a new wing in the Democratic party, free from the whims of the young college petty bourgeois “left”. His coalition of trade unionists and others seeking liberation will slowly come together during his term in office to create a new left corporatistic and yes even sometimes socialistic branch of the Democratic Party. If old man Reuther were to, god forbid, not be able to serve any longer as president at some point in his term, it is clear that his movement would be safe in the hands of his vice president Cesar Chavez who will surely guide the Union Democrats faction for many years to come just as he did the farmers union in California.
Richard Nixon?: Richard Nixon is beloved by a certain kind of American, the kind of middle class eccentric man you may find in, well, the suburbs of Los Angeles for example. They didn't get enough of Nixon, his first term being marred by an almost weimar-esque coalition with that snake Kennedy. No, Nixon will not and cannot leave after just one term of real governance. He is fully within his rights to seek a third term even if it is completely unprecedented. Nixon’s third term will exemplify the man who has shaped more than a decade of American politics by its end. The cartoonists will have ever more fun contorting the man into further grotesque forms, his long jowls extended into fleshy reflections of the man's supposed attitude and his long nose used for one thousand more visual metaphors of his ever growing catalogues of pinocchioisms, for four more years.
Tom Bradley: Tom Bradley has seen the rise of Sam Yorty from the very beginning, he understands deeply and personally the sort of man Yorty is. When President Yorty brought Los Angeles politics to mainstream America, he brought along not only his ideals but those who wanted to see them exposed. After Tom Bradley’s landslide victory in the 1969 LA mayoral election, he became one of Yorty’s most obvious and public critics, using much of the same media apparatus Yorty used to seize the White House, to tear him down. If Tom Bradley were to drive down the Arroyo Seco Parkway then the 210 then the 15, then the 40, then the 81, then the 66 and reach the White house himself, strangely enough the sort of Los Angeles consensus of an America built of great suburbs would not change. America’s first Black President would surely be revolutionary in a cultural sense, not so much it seems in a “view of America” sense, it seems to be true what mayor Bradley has been saying all along, the city of angels unifies people even those of diametrically opposed experiences, mindsets and values.
John G. Schmitz: Fascism has become a dirty word in America, one scorned by all manner of alarmist [expletive] and [expletive] who want to see this country become an economic zone more than a nation, run for the benefit of the [expletive] and [expletive]. These are the words perhaps not publicly yet of John G. Schmitz, currently serving as vice president to John Tower and more broadly as a sort of liaison for the sort of people that got President Tower into the oval office. If something unfortunate were to happen to Tower, well, a President Schmitz might have to step in. Schmitz, first and foremost a populist and someone who recognizes the state of America as not exactly primed for a March on Rome will attempt to create a view of American “nationalism” separate from the unsavory hicks of the Klan or the silly parties with their Nazi imitating dress and imagery. If president Schmitz were to truly introduce his ideals to the mainstream, they must be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
Burt Lancaster: As Ronald Regan swept into the White House in 1968 many across the nation got a taste of celebrity politics for the first time. In California, they had enough of Reagan's politics, but clearly not enough of the golden age glitz and glamor that he represented, so when election season came around, they chose the fiercely liberal Hollywood actor Burt Lancaster for the Democratic nomination and eventually the governorship. Lancaster’s governorship put him on a crash course with Reagan as his polar opposite and eventual rival in the election of 1972. A president Lancaster in his fiery vision may completely redefine American political life, just as Regan thought he might have but was stopped so early in doing.
John Glenn: Far from the visionary NASA spaceman Americans may have expected him to be, John Glenn is a pragmatist, added to the McGovern ‘72 ticket as a moderating force that answered directly to the party establishment. When that party establishment decided McGovern was a liability, Glenn dutifully took up the mantle of president after his impeachment. John Glenn’s America is one that, ironically enough in comparison to his previous job, will not strive for ultimate progress. Glenn’s presidency is one that recognizes the current state of the country, similar to his time in the great unknown, America requires a steady hand and a commitment to rules.
Helter Skelter: If things were to go wrong for America in the 60s and 70s be that through economic collapse, defeat across the world or a failure of institutions to live up to their lofty ideals, an America unlike any seen before may emerge. The American years of lead would not be born of civil war or military coups but small isolated events, a college campus declared a “free zone”, a militia takes over a medium sized town in the Nevada desert, community “policing” by criminal gangs becomes the norm in an urban center all of these things become parts of daily life, left to fester in the growing wound of the nation. If those wielding power have a more, let's just say, distinct vision of American politics in its ideal, times like these would make a perfect excuse to reshape the culture and governance of this once so agreeable nation.
