It's safe to say that the greatest hinderance to LBJ's presidential career and more than likely to his health both mental and physical was Vietnam. The most intense periods of conflict spanned the majority of LBJ's presidency starting in late 1965. LBJ was incredibly confident that he would be able to take care of this situation but unfortunately for him it was not to be. There is something absolutely hilarious about hindsight and life in general. LBJ announced in 1968 that he would not seek nor accept the democratic nomination for the presidency. With Johnson's announcement came Hubert Humphrey's nomination and subsequent run against Nixon.
Hubert Humphrey won the nomination because RFK was shot in June of that year and subsequently Humphrey was the go to guy since Ted Kennedy did not come out to take his brother's place. It was recently revealed that LBJ had a plan to come back into the race in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. LBJ's plan was to arrive on board Marine One and declare his intentions while simultaneously undermining Humphrey and striking a major blow to Nixon's not so dominant lead.
The underlying subject of Vietnam was going to be Johnson's big blow to Nixon as he had proof that Nixon was the reason for the extension of the Paris Peace Talks since he was basically serving a stop to the progress by saying that he could provide Vietnam a better result than Johnson should he win the election. LBJ accused Nixon of treason and while Nixon used cunning and deception to extend the war Johnson was using it to extend his legacy. If Johnson would have gone back in the chances are that the turmoil experienced by the country would have been just as great in some different level. Johnson was growing weaker physically and his presidency was riddled with opposition from the anti war movement and young angry voters deceived with the fact that Camelot came to a quick and bitter end yielding the way for a Texas war monger.
I think Johnson would have faced more challenges than Nixon with Vietnam and likely would have probably died in office. More than likely Johnson's exit would have yielded the way for either a McGovern presidency or an unlikely Nixon comeback on the basis of Johnson's inability to effectively craft a strong war policy to deal with Vietnam. Nixon would have probably served until 1981 and more than likely would have had a far better legacy being that his presidency would have dealt with inflation, the Panama Canal, and little to no overseas conflict. Perhaps a 20 year republican lead would have been beneficial seeing as how Nixon, Reagan, and Bush were almost liberal by today's republican standards.
The fact is that nothing like that happened but it's interesting to wonder if it had, maybe this blog would have been talking about a whole different set of possibilities.
