Retrospective US Presidential Election Results Thread

[undeadpixel]

I don't know if this has been asked already but what are your plans post 2008?

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by undeadpixel

I don't know if this has been asked already but what are your plans post 2008?

He's going to do a 2012 election when the election is finished IRL.

[Turquoise Blue]

Jefferson, or Blood!: The Almost Revolution of 1800
Yellow and Green: The First Party System.
The Era of Partisan Feelings: 1812-1824
Four Ambitious Men: Adams, Clay, Jackson and Crawford.
The Rise of the National Republican Party.
Orange and Sky Blue: The Second Party System
James G. Birney's Legacy: The Compromise of 1845
Blue and Green: The Third Party System
Blunders and Buffoonery: A Tale of Fremont's Civil War
Two Greenback Presidents: The Story of Cooper and Butler.
The New Order: Populism and its Rise in the United States.
Dark Red and Blue: The Fourth Party System.
The First Socialist President: Eugene V. Debs
The Rise of Progressivism: Theodore Roosevelt's Second Term
Adversary in the White House: The Story of First Lady Kate Debs
Resurgence and Reinvention: The Democratic Party: 1920-1932
Red and Blue: The Fifth Party System.
Al Smith and the Great Depression: How he Screwed up.
Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones: A Creation of a Song.
Two Great Men and Two Elections: The Tale of Ike and Addie.
Camelot to Watergate: The Story of America from 1960 to 1975.
Gerald R. Ford: The Last Republican President of the United States.
Rise of Ronald Reagan: How the Republican Party Declined.
William Jefferson Clinton: The Southern President's Legacy
Red and Gray/Green: The Sixth Party System.
Barack Hussein Obama II: The First Black President.

[JSmith]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Jefferson, or Blood!: The Almost Revolution of 1800
Yellow and Green: The First Party System.
The Era of Partisan Feelings: 1812-1824
Four Ambitious Men: Adams, Clay, Jackson and Crawford.
The Rise of the National Republican Party.
Orange and Sky Blue: The Second Party System
James G. Birney's Legacy: The Compromise of 1845
Blue and Green: The Third Party System
Blunders and Buffoonery: A Tale of Fremont's Civil War
Two Greenback Presidents: The Story of Cooper and Butler.
The New Order: Populism and its Rise in the United States.
Dark Red and Blue: The Fourth Party System.
The First Socialist President: Eugene V. Debs
The Rise of Progressivism: Theodore Roosevelt's Second Term
Adversary in the White House: The Story of First Lady Kate Debs
Resurgence and Reinvention: The Democratic Party: 1920-1932
Red and Blue: The Fifth Party System.
Al Smith and the Great Depression: How he Screwed up.
Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones: A Creation of a Song.
Two Great Men and Two Elections: The Tale of Ike and Addie.
Camelot to Watergate: The Story of America from 1960 to 1975.
Gerald R. Ford: The Last Republican President of the United States.
Rise of Ronald Reagan: How the Republican Party Declined.
William Jefferson Clinton: The Southern President's Legacy
Red and Gray/Green: The Sixth Party System.
Barack Hussein Obama II: The First Black President.

Love the titles-cant wait for the blurbs from each title

[Abhakhazia]

Al Smith and the Great Depression: How he Screwed up.

Blunt title, don't you think?

Gerald R. Ford: The Last Republican President of the United States
Red and Gray/Green: The Sixth Party System.
Barack Hussein Obama II: The First Black President.

I wouldn't overstep myself here.
Ok, I would that seems right.
Also quit with the Red Democrats, Blue Republicans.
It angers me.
Why not have purple whigs then? Or white greenbacks? Or black socialists?
American political parties have colors, just like British ones do. Don't switch them around.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by Abhakhazia

Also quit with the Red Democrats, Blue Republicans.
It angers me.
Why not have purple whigs then? Or white greenbacks? Or black socialists?
American political parties have colors, just like British ones do. Don't switch them around.

There actually were plans to establish it as Dem-Red and Rep-Blue, but the closeness of the 2000 election screwed that up. With Gore's landslide here, it would be Red Dems and Blue Reps.

[Abhakhazia]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

There actually were plans to establish it as Dem-Red and Rep-Blue, but the closeness of the 2000 election screwed that up. With Gore's landslide here, it would be Red Dems and Blue Reps.

Yes but it didn't happen.
Aren't we trying to keep stuff like that as close to OTL as possible?

[OAM47]

Originally Posted by Abhakhazia

Yes but it didn't happen.
Aren't we trying to keep stuff like that as close to OTL as possible?

US election atlas, which is a great resource, uses the Dem-red Rep-Blue scheme because it was founded in the 90s, before the 2000 election cemented the colors. I believe a lot of people are taking after that in this thread.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by OAM47

US election atlas, which is a great resource, uses the Dem-red Rep-Blue scheme because it was founded in the 90s, before the 2000 election cemented the colors. I believe a lot of people are taking after that in this thread.

You know, I've thought about it a lot -- too much -- but I've decided not to buck the trend. Democrats are blue and Republicans are red. Plus, I don't want to have to redo all the Wikiboxes.

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

You know, I've thought about it a lot -- too much -- but I've decided not to buck the trend. Democrats are blue and Republicans are red. Plus, I don't want to have to redo all the Wikiboxes.

Laziness trumps all!

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by metastasis_d

Laziness trumps all!

I like to think of it as pragmatism. And laziness.

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

I like to think of it as pragmatism. And laziness.

It's a beautiful thing when the two sync up like that.

[Evan]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

You know, I've thought about it a lot -- too much -- but I've decided not to buck the trend. Democrats are blue and Republicans are red. Plus, I don't want to have to redo all the Wikiboxes.

I think ITTL, the Democrats don't get red because the Socialists earlier in the century already took it. But I don't know why the Republicans would grab a slightly different shade? I don't think parties had colors already in the 1800's?

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Justin Green

Heres a question. The Democrats and Populists both nominated Bryan as their presidential canidate, but they had seperate canidates for veep. I cant find how many votes Bryan got as a Populist, but if you can find the numbers Nerdlinger and they are sufficient, I would like to suggest Bryan be listed twice on the '96 ballot as a Democrat and Populist, his votes combined to determine if he wins, and whichever party has more votes than the other determining veep.

You know, Justin, since you brought it up, I've been pondering how exactly to deal with this situation. I apologize for rejecting your suggestion out of hand -- it was just because I had never listed any candidates twice in one election before that I didn't even seriously consider it. The idea I had of running a separate VP election between Sewall and Watson would actually have been inadequate. If we were to simulate the VP vote in the Electoral College, all VP candidates should be in the running. So then I thought about including all the running mates in the separate VP poll, but this could easily result in an unrealistic situation such as McKinley receiving a different percentage of the presidential vote than Hobart receives of the VP vote. This then led me back to your proposal, which as I see it is probably the best way to handle the thus far unique case of a viable candidate having two running mates.

In short, here's what the poll is going to look like for 1896:

• Charles Bentley/James Southgate (National Prohibition)
• William Jennings Bryan/Arthur Sewall (Democratic)
• William Jennings Bryan/Thomas Watson (Populist)
• Joshua Levering/Hale Johnson (Prohibition)
• Charles Matchett/Matthew Maguire (Socialist Labor)
• William McKinley/Garret Hobart (Republican)
• John Palmer/Simon Buckner (National Democratic)

Bryan's total will be the sum of the votes he receives for the Democratic and Populist tickets. Interestingly, this could result in Sewall and Watson splitting the vote enough to give Bryan the presidency and Hobart the vice presidency.

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Bryan's total will be the sum of the votes he receives for the Democratic and Populist tickets. Interestingly, this could result in Sewall and Watson splitting the vote enough to give Bryan the presidency and Hobart the vice presidency.

Sounds like fun.

[Justin Green]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

You know, Justin, since you brought it up, I've been pondering how exactly to deal with this situation. I apologize for rejecting your suggestion out of hand -- it was just because I had never listed any candidates twice in one election before that I didn't even seriously consider it. The idea I had of running a separate VP election between Sewall and Watson would actually have been inadequate. If we were to simulate the VP vote in the Electoral College, all VP candidates should be in the running. So then I thought about including all the running mates in the separate VP poll, but this could easily result in an unrealistic situation such as McKinley receiving a different percentage of the presidential vote than Hobart receives of the VP vote. This then led me back to your proposal, which as I see it is probably the best way to handle the thus far unique case of a viable candidate having two running mates.

In short, here's what the poll is going to look like for 1896:

• Charles Bentley/James Southgate (National Prohibition)
• William Jennings Bryan/Arthur Sewall (Democratic)
• William Jennings Bryan/Thomas Watson (Populist)
• Joshua Levering/Hale Johnson (Prohibition)
• Charles Matchett/Matthew Maguire (Socialist Labor)
• William McKinley/Garret Hobart (Republican)
• John Palmer/Simon Buckner (National Democratic)

Bryan's total will be the sum of the votes he receives for the Democratic and Populist tickets. Interestingly, this could result in Sewall and Watson splitting the vote enough to give Bryan the presidency and Hobart the vice presidency.

Awesome. Not by intention, our last(?) retro election will be unique.

Didnt Hobart die in office?

[Porthos]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

There actually were plans to establish it as Dem-Red and Rep-Blue, but the closeness of the 2000 election screwed that up. With Gore's landslide here, it would be Red Dems and Blue Reps.

While Wikipeida isn't going to be the definitive say on anything, for very obvious reasons, it looks to me like the red/blue dichotmoy was fairly random. More subject to the whims of the network/newspaper involved than anything else.

Origins of the color scheme

Before the 2000 presidential election, there was no universally recognized color scheme to represent the political parties in the United States. In fact, the color scheme was often reversed, in line with historical European associations (red was used for left-leaning parties).[2][3] The parties themselves had no official colors, with candidates variously using either or both of the national color palette of red and blue (white being unsuitable for printed materials).

There is some historical use of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans: in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Texas county election boards used color coding to help Spanish speakers and illiterates identify the parties;[4] however, this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not picked up on a national level. For instance, in the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the color Cleveland perceived to represent the Union and "Lincoln's Party", and red for the Democrats.[5]

The practice of using colors to represent parties dates back at least as far as 1908, a year during which at least two newspapers depicted electoral maps in color. That year, The New York Times printed a special color map, using blue for Democrats and yellow for Republicans, to detail Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 electoral victory.[6] That same year, a color supplement included with a July issue of the Washington Post used red for Republican-leaning states, blue for Democratic-leaning states, yellow for "doubtful" states, and green for territories, which had no presidential vote.[7]

The advent of color television prompted television news reporters to rely on color-coded electoral maps, though sources conflict as to the conventions they followed. According to one source, from 1976 to 2004, the broadcast networks, in an attempt to avoid favoritism in color coding, standardized on the convention of alternating every four years between blue and red the color used for the incumbent party.[7][8] According to another source, in 1976, John Chancellor, the anchorman for NBC Nightly News, asked his network's engineers to construct a large illuminated map of the USA. The map was placed in the network's election-night news studio. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it would light up in red; if Gerald Ford, the Republican, carried a state, it would light up in blue. The feature proved to be so popular that four years later all three major television networks would use colors to designate the states won by the presidential candidates on Election Night, though not all using the same color scheme. NBC continued to use the color scheme employed in 1976 for several years. NBC newsman David Brinkley famously referred to the 1980 election map outcome as showing Ronald Reagan's 44-state landslide as resembling a "suburban swimming pool".[9] CBS, from 1984 on, used the opposite scheme: blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC used yellow for one major party and blue for the other in 1976. However, in 1980 and 1984, ABC used red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. In 1980, when independent John B. Anderson ran a relatively high-profile campaign as an independent candidate, at least one network provisionally indicated that they would use yellow if he were to win a state.

By 1996, color schemes were relatively mixed, as CNN, CBS, ABC, and The New York Times referred to Democratic states with the color blue and Republican ones as red, while TIME and The Washington Post used an opposite scheme.[10][11][12]

In the days following the 2000 election, whose outcome was unclear for some time after election day, major media outlets began conforming to the same color scheme because the electoral map was continually in view, and conformity made for easy and instant viewer comprehension. On Election Night that year, there was no coordinated effort to code Democratic states blue and Republican states red; the association had gradually emerged. Partly as a result of this eventual and near-universal color-coding, the terms "red states" and "blue states" entered popular usage in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election. After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as The Atlantic's December 2001 cover story by David Brooks entitled, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible", illustrated.[13] Thus, red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people's minds, despite the fact that no "official" color choices had been made by the parties.[14]
[edit]

So if we are looking for a close election that 'froze' things, perhaps the 1980 election? The drama over that election might be the time when the colors solidified ITTL.

[Justin Green]

Democrat: Arthur Sewall was a Swedenborgianist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedenborgianism He was an eastern Millionaire (Billionaire in our dollars today I'm sure), who made his money building ships and banking. He will die in September of 1900.

Socialist Labor: Mathew Maguire, according to wikipedia, is an Australian rules footballer born in 1984. He plays for the Brisbane Lions.

Republican: Garret Hobart made his money originally as a corporate lawyer, who rarely ever set foot in a courtroom.

Hobart's real work was in advising corporations how to accomplish their aims, yet remain within the law.

He later became a bank manager, railroad owner and a New Jersey Republican politician. He would die in November of 1899.

And then theres Watson, who became an embittered racist towards the end of his life. I'm really impressed with the veep canidates

[serbrcq]

Originally Posted by Justin Green

I'm really impressed with the veep canidates

I don't know, I'd kinda like the time-traveling Australian as VP.

[TNF]

Here's an interesting idea -- who would you have voted for ITTL if it had runoffs in the event that nobody received a majority of the vote?


1789: No runoff
1792: No runoff
1796: John Adams (Federalist), Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)
1800: Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican), John Adams (Federalist)
1804: No runoff
1808: Charles Pinckney (Federalist), James Madison (Democratic-Republican)
1812: James Madison (Democratic-Republican), Rufus King (Federalist)
1816: No runoff
1820: No runoff
1824: John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican), Henry Clay (Democratic-Republican)
1828: No runoff
1832: No runoff
1836: No runoff
1840: No runoff
1844: Henry Clay (Whig), James G. Birney (Liberty)
1848: Gerrit Smith (Liberty), Zachary Taylor (Whig)
1852: No runoff
1856: No runoff
1860: No runoff
1864: No runoff
1868: No runoff
1872: No runoff
1876: Peter Cooper (Greenback), Rutherford Hayes (Republican)
1880: No runoff
1884: Benjamin Butler (Greenback), James G. Blaine (Republican)

1900: Eugene Debs (Social Democratic), William McKinley (Republican)
1904: No runoff
1908: Eugene Debs (Socialist), William Howard Taft (Republican)
1912: No runoff
1916: No runoff
1920: Eugene Debs (Socialist), James Cox (Democratic)
1924: No runoff
1928: Al Smith (Democratic), Herbert Hoover (Republican)
1932: No runoff
1936: No runoff
1940: No runoff
1944: No runoff
1948: Harry Truman (Democratic), Thomas Dewey (Republican)
1952: No runoff
1956: Dwight Eisenhower (Republican), Adlai Stevenson (Democratic)
1960: John F. Kennedy (Democratic), Richard Nixon (Republican)
1964: No runoff
1968: Hubert Humphrey (Democratic), Richard Nixon (Republican)
1972: George McGovern (Democratic), Richard Nixon (Republican)
1976: Gerald Ford (Republican), Jimmy Carter (Democratic)
1980: Jimmy Carter (Democratic), Ronald Reagan (Republican)
1984: Walter Mondale (Democratic), Ronald Reagan (Republican)
1988: Michael Dukakis (Democratic), George H.W. Bush (Republican)
1992: Bill Clinton (Democratic), Ross Perot (Independent)
1996: Bill Clinton (Democratic), Ralph Nader (Green)