WI: Gore wins in 2000

[John Farson]

My idea on how 2004 with a President Gore might have gone, presuming that McCain were the GOP nominee and that 9/11 occurred as IOTL:



Gore-Lieberman 347 EV
McCain-? 191 EV

This scenario presumes that Bin Laden hasn't been killed/captured yet, there is no war in Iraq and there is a stronger commitment in Afghanistan. It also presumes that McCain doesn't pick someone like Palin as his running mate. Like Bush in OTL, Gore is helped by the post 9/11 national unity that slowly erodes as the months and years go by and political tribalism returns. However, without a costly war in Iraq and with Afghanistan still generally regarded as a justified and successful effort, Gore is in no way near as weak a position as Bush IOTL, so his margin of victory is greater as a result.

Notice that though the electoral vote may look relatively close (compared to past re-elections), the popular vote margin may well be greater. I think 2004 would still be a little too early for Virginia and North Carolina to go blue, though they may be more competitive. I think this time Tennessee would go for Gore, though, due to his incumbency leading to a stronger home state factor than OTL 2000, though it would still be close. Of course, if OBL is killed/captured before the election or McCain nominates 2004's version of Palin or something else happens, the result could be very much different.

[Dan Reilly The Great]

Originally Posted by BlairWitch749

I'll grant DHS probably doesn't get created because the line of attack on 9/11 out of the gate would be that we had too much beauracracy preventing the CIA and FBI from doing their jobs and creating a new layer would not help; and the Delay/Hasstert House would not create a new cabinet department for Gore;

k

Tax cuts are probable since both parties were into them, at that moment

Iraq is possible; Gore himself and many of his key allies were interested in going into Iraq since at least 1996; although the republican house may put breaks on it

Again, you're basing your assumptions on the attitudes that prevaled in the years prior to 9/11, once the towers fall all bets are off. Tax cuts were popular with a congress that didn't have to worry about paying for a massively expensive war in Afghanistan and we had a massive budget surplus. Also, Gore wanted to go into Iraq without the massive military obligation involved in going to war in Afghanistan. The political landscape was very different prior to 9/11, basing your assumptions on what politicians supported beforehand is faulty to say the least.

The big thing is that Gore has a very good chance of being crippled by 9/11; the people in charge of the National Security structure have been there a long time and there was 93 towers and the Cole without doing anything in response; Bush was only able to shake the immediate charges of incompetence by saying that he just got there and none of his people were confirmed by the Senate. Gore has no excuse and never was the most gifted speaker in the party; and with an opposition congress, there will be immediate commissions into administration failures which will show him involved in the committee that created the wall of seperation

And despite the absolute hatred that the GOP has always had for Bill Clinton, he has never suffered too much in the court of public opinion for his role in the bureaucratic atmosphere which allowed Al Queda to pull off 9/11. Bush managed to get carte blanche to pass the Patriot Act, conduct torture, and launch a war based on bogus evidence as a result of the political capital he got following the attack. It lasted him the entire rest of his first term and more or less bought him a second, despite failing to find OBL, and despite fighting an increasingly unpopular war. Really, I don't see the GOP or Gore's opponent(presumably McCain) dabbling in such dirty tactics in the aftermath of the failure of Karl Rove's own tactics in 2000 and similar moves by the GOP throughout the 90's against Clinton.

The republicans may not be bold enough to try impeachment again after their failure to ouster Clinton just 3 years before but they may inflict a catestrophic drubbing in the 02 midterms (maybe even getting close to overriding veto power) and Gore may decline to run in 04

Can I have some of what you are smoking?

[Cylon_Number_14]

I want to thank everybody from jumping back into this debate after my post!

As for Gore's version of the "Bush Tax Cuts" the first one was passed in June of 2001, basically as part of the "first hundred days." Gore would certainly be on a similar schedule, so his 79%-as-big-as-Bush's tax cut would be in effect when 9/11 happens. But Gore might avoid any other tax cuts after that, and combined with a lack of Iraq war the deficit would be significantly smaller than OTL by the time a major recession swoops down...

... which brings me to this question again: would it be likely that the timeline of the Housing Crash and Financial System Crash (however smaller or bigger than OTL) would be delayed until after the 2008 election? Because if the crashed don't occur until 2009, then whoever won the Presidency is going to wish he hadn't.

[hcallega]

In regards to the tax cuts: With a Republican Congress, Gore will be hard pressed to find political victories in his "First 100 Days." Tax cuts were something both sides generally agreed on. The only major difference was how much should be cut and who should they be targeted towards. A middle-class tax cut would be a political slam-dunk that Gore would eagerly pass to claim a victory.