Reagan pulling a Nixon?

[Zioneer]

So what if, because of a public revelation about his Alzheimer's, a stronger and more publicized investigation into the Contras, or both, Reagan resigned from the Presidency like Nixon did? What would happen afterward?

[TNF]

More negative general public opinion of Reagan. The current high opinion of Reagan is more fabrication than reality, of course (Reagan was never as popular as say, Clinton was, during his term of office) but it would be far less. He might not be a Nixon like figure entirely, but certainly not as popular. Conservatives would lionize him, blame the media for running him out of office, etc. Liberals would make a bigger deal about what he did while President and there'd be a lot less of them praising him (see: Obama)

Also, George H.W. Bush could be implicated in anything involving the Contras as well, IIRC. Either way, the Democrats probably win in '88.

[vultan]

Originally Posted by TNF

Also, George H.W. Bush could be implicated in anything involving the Contras as well, IIRC. Either way, the Democrats probably win in '88.

Probably not with Dukakis, though. The primary field would almost certainly be larger, and include candidates like Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, and maybe Paul Tsongas.

[CaliBoy1990]

Originally Posted by vultan

Probably not with Dukakis, though. The primary field would almost certainly be larger, and include candidates like Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, and maybe Paul Tsongas.

Tsongas or Cuomo would be interesting to see in '88.....and, btw, how come nobody's mentioned Bruce Babbitt or Mo Udall yet?

[Æsir]

Originally Posted by CaliBoy1990

Tsongas or Cuomo would be interesting to see in '88.....and, btw, how come nobody's mentioned Bruce Babbitt or Mo Udall yet?

By this time Udall is too ill to run for President again; by 1991 he would resign from Congress and his Parkinson's had already prompted him not to try again in 1984.

[strangeland]

Originally Posted by TNF

Also, George H.W. Bush could be implicated in anything involving the Contras as well, IIRC. Either way, the Democrats probably win in '88.

I wouldn't be so sure: the economy was reasonably good in 1988, and the U.S.'s standing in World Affairs was the strongest it had been in decades. Anyway, having Bush, rather than a near-senile Reagan, in office will have only positive impacts. Oliver North will still take the fall for Iran-Contra, and Bush will probably still get reelected, albeit by a narrower margin than in OTL.

I'm not sure how stigmatized Alzheimer's was in the late 80s, but there's no way Reagan would be viewed anywhere near as negatively as Nixon, who resigned due to a scandal that shook the very foundations of American democracy.

[Æsir]

Originally Posted by strangeland

I wouldn't be so sure: the economy was reasonably good in 1988, and the U.S.'s standing in World Affairs was the strongest it had been in decades. Anyway, having Bush, rather than a near-senile Reagan, in office will have only positive impacts. Oliver North will still take the fall for Iran-Contra, and Bush will probably still get reelected, albeit by a narrower margin than in OTL.

I'm not sure how stigmatized Alzheimer's was in the late 80s, but there's no way Reagan would be viewed anywhere near as negatively as Nixon, who resigned due to a scandal that shook the very foundations of American democracy.

The economy IIRC wasn't doing that great, especially for farmers, which was the reason Dukakis polled better than Democratic Presidential candidates had in years in the rural and agricultural great plains states, and Dukakis himself had squandered a substantial lead by firing the campaign manager who got him the nomination and ending up running a weak general election campaign.

[Paul V McNutt]

If there is a bigger Iran Contra scandal then Maybe Bob Dole is elected president in 1988 and loses in 1992.

[ColeMercury]

This means that BOTH of the last two Republican presidents to be elected to office have resigned in scandal. What does that mean for the Republican brand?

[eaglesfan101]

Maybe Perot runs in 1988 after a Watergate-like scandal. The GOP are also going to have to find a Republican Jimmy Carter who is more of a Washington outsider.

[LegionoftheUnitedStates]

Originally Posted by TNF

The current high opinion of Reagan is more fabrication than reality, of course (Reagan was never as popular as say, Clinton was, during his term of office)...

Regan won re-election with 58.8% of the popular vote. Clinton won re-election with 49.2% of the popular vote. That, by definition, makes Reagan considerably more popular than Clinton.

A lot of people liked Clinton. But Reagan was loved. Witness the response at his funeral.

[Plumber]

I honestly think Reagan would throw George H. W. to the dogs if his ship was sinking that badly. And President Baker / Dole can't beat Cuomo. Neither can Bush, actually.

[Peelitebkearns]

I think that Reagan resigning due to his Alzheimer's flaring up early will have very different consiquences to Reagan resigning in disgrace after Iran Contra blows up in his face. My take on the former first-if he resigns for health reasons, I really can't see why either Reagan himself or the GOP will lose any popularity. I'd actually expect a simelar sympathy boost to November 94 in OTL.

The party will be untouched by a personal health problem as well-the whole thing would have been handled smoothly by 'the powers that be' and Bush, having been elected as Reagan's stand-by in the previous election, will assume the presidency without much fuss.

Reagan's former political aponents won't dare to make any political capital out of his resignation because that'd be likely to backfire.

As a result, I see Bush winning in 1988 in these circumstances and as he's the incumbent, it could be with a bigger margin than OTL. The 88 primaries could go differently as well-but Cuomo won't enter here, unless Bush screws up.

The shape of the 92 election will depend on when exactly Bush takes over. If it's before January 20th 87, then he's unable to run in 92, which will mean that Cuomo probably runs and wins. If Reagan's resignation happens after Jan 87, then Bush can run again, which probably leads to a simelar looking primary to OTL 92.

A scenario where Iran Contra is bigger could go many different ways. Let's assume that Reagan is more heavily implicated than Bush, since he's the man in charge. Bush will be taking over under a massive cloud and will be suspected by some of involvement in the Iran Contra scandle, even if it can't be proven, he was on the Ticket for his FP expertees, after all. This will be a big disadvantage compared to Gerald Ford in 1974, because Ford was bought in as Nixon's VP after Watergate and it was pretty obvious that he had no direct involvement in Watergate himself. In the end, I think it's very likely that a bigger Iran-contra erruption will lead to president Cuomo taking the oaf of office on January the 20th, 1989. It's possible that if enough questions are posed about Bush's conduct, the GOP could nominate Dole or someone else, but in the end, Cuomo isn't Carter and won't let that innicial lead evaperate the way Jimmy did and so he wins.

[Paul V McNutt]

Originally Posted by Plumber

I honestly think Reagan would throw George H. W. to the dogs if his ship was sinking that badly. And President Baker / Dole can't beat Cuomo. Neither can Bush, actually.

What do you mean by throw to the dogs? He can't force him to resign. If Cuomo didn't run OTL, I don't see him running ITTL.

[Æsir]

Originally Posted by Paul V McNutt

What do you mean by throw to the dogs? He can't force him to resign. If Cuomo didn't run OTL, I don't see him running ITTL.

Cuomo almost ran; supposedly he had a plane waiting on the tarmac in 1992, fueled and ready to take off in case he decided to run. However, in 1992 (And perhaps to a lesser extent 1988?) Bush was seen as essentially a shoe-in and it was difficult to find an A-list Democrat who wanted to run. At least that's how I understand it. The situation will be very different if Reagan and Bush implode over Iran-Contra.

[Paul V McNutt]

I think if Cuomo really wanted to run, he would have done so in 1988. b Bush was no where near ax strong as he was after the Persian Gulf war.If Reagan resigns for health reasons, the only change I see is if he does it before January 20, 1987. Then Bush can't run in 1992. I see Dick Gephardt beating Bob Dole.

[TNF]

Originally Posted by LegionoftheUnitedStates

Regan won re-election with 58.8% of the popular vote. Clinton won re-election with 49.2% of the popular vote. That, by definition, makes Reagan considerably more popular than Clinton.

A lot of people liked Clinton. But Reagan was loved. Witness the response at his funeral.

Clinton didn't win a majority of the popular vote because there were two different strong third party campaigns running against both he and Dole. Remove Nader and Perot, and Clinton wins a majority in 1996 and probably in 1992, as well. Perot stole votes equally from the Democrats and the Republicans. Nader, not so much.

Reagan had the luxury of running against a lackluster Democrat who wasted his time attacking Reagan on deficits and pulling the Democratic Party rightward on economics while ignoring the Soviet threat. That, plus the ultimate hail mary of all time, Geraldine Ferraro, didn't exactly add anything to the ticket. Mondale would have done better had he actually campaigned on the fact that there was still ~7% unemployment in 1984, and that Reagan had pushed the United States into the deepest recession since the Great Depression with his supply side policies before ultimately ditching them for Keynesian growth strategies.

Reagan isn't 'universally loved' by any means. Much of the Reagan mythos is just that, myth. He's been posthumously given the sort of air of respect that he was not afforded by most Americans during his tenure in office. Yes, he won re-election with 58% of the vote. No, he did not leave office with a 65% approval rating. Clinton did. They were both shitty Presidents in my opinion, but the public seems to have liked the shitty job that Clinton did more than the 'great' job that Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s.

Bear in mind that Reagan, in 1983, had an approval rating in the 30% range, mostly owing to his hatchet job on social services and tax cuts for multi-millionaires. The Democrats didn't seize overwhelming control of Congress in 1982 mostly because the party was broke and couldn't afford to run anywhere except where they knew they could win. This of course is why Mondale and other Democrats eventually invited Wall Street into the Democratic Party, but that's neither here nor there. Reagan was not invincible in 1984, nor in 1980. Had Carter actually campaigned on the issues, rather than simply attacking his opponent, he might have won. Prior to the debates, Carter held a strong lead over Reagan. The South was very close. Had Carter flipped enough states in the South, and won enough of the North, he'd have beaten Reagan, albeit by a smaller margin than he won in 1976.

This is the same myth that gets trotted out over and over again about the 'invincibility' of American Presidents. Nixon was probably going to be beat in 1972, until the Democrats decided to shoot themselves in the foot by nominating George McGovern. Humphrey, Muskie, or Wallace would have mopped the floor with Nixon in a very weak economic situation. 1984 isn't much different; had the Democrats simply nominated a candidate (or had Mondale not ditched his previous New Deal politics for the 'New Politics' of neoliberalism, feel good multiculturalism, and the nuclear freeze nonsense) that talked about the issues, rather than playing into the Republican culture war nonsense, they could have beaten either one of them. Same goes for 1988. Anybody that thinks George H.W. was a shoo-in should look up the polls in the summer of '88 wherein Dukakis is wiping the floor with Ol' Poppy. But again, Dukakis played right into the Bush culture war claptrap, alienated a lot of potential Democratic voters, and then got his ass handed to him.


Sorry about the rant. Just felt like that needed to be said.

[theReturner]

Originally Posted by TNF

Sorry about the rant. Just felt like that needed to be said.

Don't worry, I enjoyed reading it.

[freivolk]

But Reagan was so popular, that his VP won the next election and Clintons VP lost it.

[TNF]

Originally Posted by freivolk

But Reagan was so popular, that his VP won the next election and Clintons VP lost it.

Bush won in spite of Reagan. The 1988 Presidential Election was the Democrats' to lose, and Dukakis lost it because he eschewed negative campaigning and hoped that the public wouldn't buy the Willie Horton crap the Bush campaign was spewing. Well, that and he also was just an awful campaigner with no charisma to speak of. With few exceptions (Jesse Jackson, and...Jesse Jackson) any Democrat could have beaten Bush in '88.

Gore lost despite Clinton. Gore refused to campaign with Clinton, didn't even note that, uh, yeah, the economy is doing pretty well right now, I guess we deserve credit for that, and of course ditched the populist campaigning because it made his pollsters uncomfortable. Gore could have won a big victory, and should have, but still managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Even while completely failing, he still managed to win the popular vote, and that says something.