Editor says, what if Richard Nixon won the 1962 California Gubernatorial race? muses Robbie Taylor. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the May 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Michael McNeil commented on Facebook: Why, he might have been elected President in 1968!

Eric Oppen commented on 2012-08-08 09:50:35 ~ He might have been a good governor...but as unpopular as he was on the left side of the aisle, he'd have been a very polarizing figure during the upheavals of the 1960s. When did the FSM movement start?

Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 10:25:30 ~ The so-called "Free Speech Movement" (which was never about free speech) started in 1964. The reason those miserable bastards (radicals burned my dorm, with me in it, in 1967) were able to cause so much trouble in California was Reagan's habit of running against his own record. I personally believe that a competent governor would have clamped down on their habit of embezzling their way to power while I was a freshman. (Reagan, on the other hand, belonged in prison as an accessory.

Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 10:34:15 ~ Regarding Nixon against Pat Brown, I honestly don't think he stood a chance. He was too hated, for good reason. But as effective as he was as an administrator, Brown was much too weak on campus thugs, and opened the door to Reagan's effective attack ads.

Eric Lipps commented on 2012-08-08 11:50:34 ~ If Nixon had served as a "tough on radicals" California governor, he might have been able to win in '68 just as he did in our history, and perhaps by more than the narrow margin we saw. One of the weaknesses of his 1968 campaign was his loss in 1962, and the ill grace with which he took it. As for Reagan belonging in prison as an accessory, he belonged there anyway for his connections with the Mob during his Screen Actors Guld days--but Hollywood was so mobbed up in the fifties and sixties that pulling on that string might have brought the whole movie industry down.

Jeff Provine commented on 2012-08-08 14:00:53 ~ Interesting idea on a '60s Hollywood mob-hunt. It would be way messier than the Red Scare blacklisting days.

Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 19:48:50 ~ I attended AFI -- no one there ever mentioned the "mob" in Hollywood. The LA mob was a petty affair mostly involving gambling. Regarding "tough on radicals" -- enforcement the state non-profit corporations code would have easily landed most radicals I knew in prison. They were astonishingly greedy.