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I'm looking at the cards for "Candidates" of the US President, and generally, the Democratic candidate is the pro-Civil Rights candidate, while the Republican candidate is the anti-Civil Rights candidate. Since the rules does allow for player intervention on the Presidental elections, it would encourage the Civil Rights player would support the Democratic candidate...which is fine...but it would ALSO encourage the Segregationist player to support the Republicans candidate.
The Segregationists exist in an era when the South was a Democratic stronghold. It was true that these Southern Democrats were highly conservative (they were staunch opponents of the New Deal Democrats), and they began moving right during this period and starting supporting the Republican Party (Goldwater was the first Republican president in a long time to pick up a couple of Southern states: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, and in 1968, most Southern states voted for Nixon).
Yet the Southern Democrats were still...Democrats. All of the leaders of the "Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission" (which were also all Governors in Mississippi) were members of the Democratic Party. James P. Coleman, the first head of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission were also friends with Senator John F. Kennedy. Even when they had ideological disputes with their Northern fellow-travelers, I still think they must work together somehow; partisans must stick together.
I think one way to handle this might be to just introduce some Southern Democrats Presidental candidates into the Presidential elections. In 1960, Harry F. Byrd ran against the Democratic and Republican Party as a third-party candidate representing southern interests. And in 1968 (granted, not covered in the game period), George Wallace ran as a third-party candidate as well (though in 1968, all the Southern states that didn't vote for Wallace voted for Nixon, meaning the South had changed from being pro-Democratic to pro-Republican).
Both third-party candidates lost, but there was a chance that these third-party candidate might have won enough electoral votes to demonstrate their electoral strength, throwing it to the House of Representatives. No matter who win the HoR vote, the resulting Presidential candidate would likely have to pay attention to pro-segregationist views to fend off another potential third-party challenge. I can't think of a candidate for the 1956 election, though I must point out that the Democratic candidate for that period, Stevenson, managed to win electoral votes ONLY in the South, so having that candidate be (slightly) anti-Segregationist makes little sense.
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Tim Stellmach
United States
Arlington
Massachusetts
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It seems to me that you want the game to be something that it isn't. This is not a comprehensive simulation of American politics of the era. The core conflict of the game is segregation vs. anti-segregation forces.
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Ted Torgerson
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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Great points. I tried to make clear in the rules that the president represents the national mood, not just who is in the White House. If the national mood was such that Goldwater could beat Johnson, then the Congress and even the courts (which respond to politics more than judges would have you believe) would be far more friendly to the segregationist's states rights position. So it doesn't necessarily mean that the South wants Nixon over Kennedy, but that the South wants the status quo to change more slowly and Nixon's election would represent continuity over change. I personally feel there was little difference between the two in terms of making civil rights a priorty in their administration as compared to the economy or relations with the Soviet Union, it would be a problem to be managed weighing interests on all sides and finding avenues to defuse problems as they arose. For 1956 I feel comfortable with Eisenhower's rating, again meaning not that he was a segregationist but that the mood of the country was changing very slowly and that school desegration was a slow painful process. It means the Civil Rights player cannot jump the gun and start registering voters en masse while children are still attending segregated schools. But you are right it makes the politics anomolous, so probably you could make an event "Yellow Dog Democrats" that the Segregationist has to randomly discard a card to help Stevenson. Then you would make Eisenhower's E rating that much higher so he still has a 90% chance to win.
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Thanks for explaining what the "national mood" is, I was a little confused about that. I'll likely think about adding a "Yellow Dog Democrats" card to the game, thanks.
One question though, how exactly do you select which Presidental candidates run against what? Let suppose Steveson do win in 1956. Do we still have a Nixon versus Kennedy race in 1960, or do we instead have Stevenson run again for re-election, along with another Republican candidate instead of Nixon (VP of Eisenhower), such as Rockefeller?
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Ted Torgerson
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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As a Print and Play the game is unpolished, and this is one area that is incomplete. I would say you should do what makes sense. I don't think a Nixon candidacy in 1960 was farfetched even if Stevenson had won in '56, but I also can see using Rocky as the GOP standard bearer in that situation.
I remember I made some alt-hist candidates including Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy, and a unity ticket of Rockefeller-Reagan to unite the establishment and conservative wings of the Republican Party. So you could do a random draw, or allow players to choose, or use the historical candidates.
As soon as I finish 1989, in the next few weeks, I am going to revisit the Civil Rights movement, drawing some ideas from Free at Last but with new cards and a new map.
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Posted Mon May 9, 2011 5:12 am
