Happy Rockefeller, whose marriage to governor scandalized voters, dies

Happy Rockefeller, the socialite whose 1963 marriage to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, soon after both had been divorced, raised a political storm in a more genteel time and might have cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, died Tuesday at her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 88. Beyond the 1964 nomination, won by Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the scandal helped scuttle any further presidential hopes Nelson Rockefeller had. Although his governorship remained secure until 1973, he came no closer to the Oval Office than the vice presidency, to which President Gerald Ford appointed him in 1974, ending the musical-chairs turmoil set off by the Watergate scandal.
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