Sorry for the double post, but I figured this was too big to just throw in as an edit. Anyways, about Jim Hightower again, in case you're wondering where I got the idea for that, apparently Ralph Nader wanted him to challenge Obama in 2012. He also mentioned
Mark Green, though he explicitly ruled it out, which is why I went with Hightower.
I also had a mini project I was doing, which I abandoned pretty quickly, where
Henry S. Breckinridge and
Upton Sinclair challenge FDR in the 1936 primaries, as they did in real life, with the added twist that they actually had success with their political career and thus posed a pretty real challenge to the president. Sinclair is elected governor of California in 1934, and that same year Breckinridge runs for and wins the Democratic nomination for US Senate in New York, and then wins the general election.
Not at all a serious suggestion here, but I would love to see a satirical timeline where
Fred Tuttle continually wins offices without seriously running, all the way up to presidency.
Hillary Clinton's brother
Hugh Rodham ran for US Senate in Florida in 1994. If you can somehow make him win that election, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could eventually run for president. Actually, on the family of presidents/presidential candidates note, Jimmy Carter's son
Jack Carter, and his son
Jason Carter, ran for senate and governor, respectively. Have them win those offices and you could eventually elevate them to the presidency. Actually, you could do this with a lot of presidents. Heck, even George Washington had a great grand nephew (
George Corbin Washington) who was the original VP nominee on the very first Know Nothing ticket in 1852, but after the death of Daniel Webster, both men were replaced by the time the general election rolled around. Have Webster hold on, then by some miracle win as a third party candidate and then kick the bucket in office, and suddenly we got another George Washington for president.
Taking someone from a recent election,
John Carroll has been a perennial candidate in Hawaiian politics for some time now. He's kind of like if Harold Stassen lived in Hawaii. But if you make him win an election awhile back I could see him being a presidential candidate eventually. I liked his debate performance last year (not saying I agree with him at all, just saying I liked it) and hey, what can I say, I like underdogs. Speaking of underdogs (although this one actually won his election), I think a president
S. I. Hayakawa would be a neat idea for a timeline.
A couple of others (who actually did run for president) that I would like to see timelines for or play around with myself some day are
Albert B. Cummins,
Champ Clark, and
Joseph I. France. All three ran in presidential primaries (though they didn't mean much back then), and had pretty impressive performances. Cummins won the most contests in 1916, and of candidates actually running he got the most votes, second only to favorite son Martin Brumbaugh. Clark placed second to Wilson in the 1912 primaries in a pretty tight race, and Joseph France actually beat Hoover in the 1932 Republican primaries. There are numerous others like this who could be used, but these are my favorites off the top of my head.
Another pretty rich resources for "Almost" ones are vice presidential nominees to presidents who died, or had near death experiences in office. For example,
Irvine Lenroot was supposed to be Harding's VP nominee, but the convention quickly turned to Calvin Coolidge after he was offered up.
One more that I'd like to mention is
John M. Palmer and
William Russell. Palmer was a serious candidate for the nomination, and 35 year old William Russell was suggested by a friend as his running mate to balance out concerns about his advanced age. Russell was even seen as a future candidate for the presidency, although as fate would have it he died suddenly in 1896, four years before Palmer would in fact. Anyways, Palmer discouraged his name being put forward and stood by Cleveland, but lets say Cleveland decides to sit it out for some reason. Apathy toward running in a system that he perceives as having cheated him, being defeated by an embarrassingly large margin, I don't know. This could make for an interesting ticket. A fun idea I just had, what if Russell still dies in 96, resulting in Palmer going the opposite way with the age issue and picking Simon Bolivar Buckner as his running mate for this election, as he did in reality. It would almost be like Palmer saying "Welp, we tried a young man and he died on us. At least this old fella has proven he has some longevity!"
Damn, that sounds like it's worth reading, especially considering that that would bolster the Republicans
Thanks! Unfortunately, there is not much to be read. I only ever completed the box and all the math along with it, never did a proper write up. I might though. This is kinda from a world where primaries were always in place and it was kind of customary for the president to be challenged from within his own party, although rarely would it amount to more than some protest votes. For a reason I never fully decided on, Obama's challenger is much more formidable.
I said "kinda" earlier because the world isn't radically different from ours, for one thing. It sort of follows this principle I saw on another site where things are different, but they're very similar to our world. It's also not actually a timeline, just an idea I had for a world/electoral system that I place real elections in for fun. I've got a few different versions of several elections.
Really, it's just based off of ideas I have from games of PI I play or ideas I have when I'm sitting around reading about elections. I'd like to be an author some day but fictional history isn't something I'm interested in writing professionally, so if I decide I wanna write political stuff I might transplant these ideas but replace the real folks with fictional stand ins.
Anyways, back on the topic. Obama is hurt by Hightower's challenge, but thankfully the Republican party also had a very competitive primary season between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul (whose career and standing in the party is actually a lot more distinguished), at least in the most recent version. Paul refuses to endorse Romney and instead subtly implies support for whoever the Libertarians nominate, and although it doesn't result in said candidate getting a large percentage of the vote, it's enough to keep the Republicans from winning.
Funnily enough, this came after another 2008 game I played with Dick Cheney, which actually resulted in a pretty close election after he somehow defeated Condoleezza Rice in the primaries, even though in both instances he was very, very far behind. In my "head canon," so to speak, I attribute it to Cheney somehow being more popular and the Tom Bradley effect (I also, in my head, attributed it to Bill Clinton defeating Colin Powell in 1996). Or, I guess, maybe Clinton's supporters are really that sour about him winning the nomination over her. Huh, you know, I just realized in these games and this world I've worked on, Obama actually seems kinda unpopular. Dunno what that's about (pretty neutral toward him myself), but it made for some nail biter scenarios at least.
