Trying Out A New Format To Own The Libs
Nominees of Major Political Parties Since 1976:
1976: Governor James E. "Jimmy" Carter (GA)/Senator Walter "Fritz" Mondale (MN)-48.2 PV/241 EV
Def. Gov. Jerry Brown/Gov. George Wallace/Rep. Mo Udall/Sen. Henry Jackson/Sen. Frank Church
A deeply devout yet very progressive Governor from Georgia, Carter ran as the leader of a new generation of moderate Southern Democrats. The expectation was that Carter would sweep into victory riding a wave of popular discontent following the scandalous Nixon Administration and the lackluster term of his predecessor. As it turns out, what is expected is not always the ultimate result.
1976: Governor Ronald Reagan (CA)/Mayor John Linsday (NY)-48.8 PV/297 EV
Def. Pres. Gerald Ford
"The unexpected", Governor Reagan, a former Hollywood actor infamous for his legendary Westerns, ran an insurgent campaign against President Ford, blasting the corruption of Richard Nixon and the ineffectiveness with which Gerald Ford pursued conservative causes. In one of the biggest political upsets of the century, the charismatic Governor usurped President Ford, before going on to defeat the expected victor, Governor Carter, in a close general election.
1980: Senator Micheal "Mike" Gavel (AK)/Representative Martha Griffiths (MI)-52.6 PV/431 EV
Def. Sen. Ted Kennedy/Sen. Walter Mondale/Gov. George Wallace
Staunchly anti-war and socially libertarian, Alaska's Senator Gravel was the face of the new Democratic Party. Gravel was also the perfect candidate to face down an unpopular President neck deep in an unpopular foreign intervention, an economic crisis, and a brewing culture war. Paired with progressive Congresswoman Martha Griffiths, the first woman to be the Vice Presidential nominee of a major party, Gravel went toe-to-toe with President Reagan running on platform of peace abroad, expanding civil liberties, and restructuring the "rigged" economic system and won.
1980: President Ronald Reagan (CA)/Mayor John Linsday (NY)-45.4 PV/107 EV
Def. Sen. John Anderson
Elected as a firebrand conservative, Reagan governed as such. However, Reagan's plans for a rapid transformation of society were put on hold by the outbreak of an Islamic revolution in Iran, which quickly turned into a five-way civil war as the Soviet Union backed a group of Communist insurgents and Reagan put his weight behind the Shah, confident that his allies in the country could prevail. The war turned into, for lack of a better phrase, a shitshow, a massive oil crisis beginning back home as the result of an embargo by the Gulf States and American troops coming back in body bags. The Iranian Conflict, combined with an unpopular anti-drug program and a lagging economy, sunk Reagan's chances for reelection, even if he did manage to prevail over his liberal primary challenger, Senator John Anderson.
1984: President Micheal "Mike" Gravel (AK)/Representative Martha Griffiths (MI)-50.8 PV/333 EV
Def. Sen. James "Jim" Folsom Jr.
While his push for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment may have been very divisive, earning him a primary challenge from a conservative Southern Senator, his successes in ending the Iran Conflict, creating the National Healthcare Program, legalizing marijuana, and decriminalizing homosexuality made President Gravel a popular man. Focusing on other issues, like investigating the malpractices of the CIA and tackling the AIDS crisis, instead of campaigning, Gravel gave off the impression that he was to hard at work fighting for the American people to focus on attacks from his opponent. While this may have backfired for a more unpopular figure, President Gravel's popularity, combined with his image as a dedicated public servant, ensured his reelection against his Republican counterpart, a dedicated culture warrior.
1984: Former Vice President John Linsday (NY)/Senator John Tower (TX)-46.2 PV/205 EV
Def. Sen. John Tower, Former SecTransportation. Gil Carmichael, Sen. Pete McClosekey
After the defeat of Ronald Reagan, former Vice President John Linsday was basically a shoe-in for the 1984 Republican nomination. A culture warrior to the core and a man who made Reagan's views on the cold war look non-interventionist, Linsday was a true conservative's conservative. Fending off the rising liberal wing of his party in the form of former Secretary of Transportation Gil Carmichael and the less notable California Senator Pete McClosekey, Linsday was nominated at the RNC in Chicago with little fuss. Running with Texas Senator John Tower, a former Democrat and primary challenger, to project an image of a united conservative front, Linsday put up a valiant fight against the popular President Gravel, but ultimately could not cut it.
1988: Secretary of State Avram "Noam" Chomsky (MA)/Senator LaDonna Harris (OK)-47.3 PV/232 EV
Def. SecTres. Walter "Fritz" Mondale/Gov. Gatewood Galbraith
The man responsible for President Gravel's landmark nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, Avram Chomsky was tied to some of the highest points of the Gravel Administration and that's really saying something, all things considering. Unfortunately for the progressive intellectual turned statesman, he was also tied to some political views which were too radical even for the ever left-leaning American public. Once considering himself an Anarcho-Syndicalist and still holding deeply libertarian views, Chomsky was popular enough with the Democratic base, radicalized by the Gravel Presidency, to earn the Democratic nomination. However, once facing the general public, his views, decried as "socialistic" by the opposition, sunk his popularity among the middle-classes of the United States, a growing and now crucial constituency. He still managed to earn a fair share of the vote, buoyed by President Gravel's relatively successful second term and his own successes in the state department, but ultimately, he went down to a more liberal anti-interventionist.
1988: Senator Peter "Pete" McClosekey (CA)/Governor Paula Hawkins (FL)-49.7 PV/306 EV
Def. Gov. Maureen Reagan
If you had told a Republican back in 1984 that Pete McClosekey would be the party's nominee for President one day, most would have laughed at you. But when the pro-choice, anti-interventionist Senator from California who had become the face of the party's liberal wing swept the nomination after defeating the controversial conservative daughter of former President Reagan, nobody was laughing. Under normal circumstances, it was unlikely that McClosekey, who had often broke his party's ranks to vote on certain civically libertarian or anti-war bills proposed by the Democrats under Gravel, would have been washed by his Democratic opponent. However, these were no normal circumstances and when faced with the possibility of a man who once proudly called himself a socialist, Republican voters decided to swallow their pride and convictions to cast their vote for a California liberal.
1992: Former Secretary of Labor Lane Kirkland (SC)/Representative Carol Bellamy (NY)-48.9 PV/248 EV
Def. Sen. Jesse Jackson Sr./Gov. Mario Cuomo/Former Gov. Gatewood Galbraith/Richmond Mayor Lyndon LaRouche
A dedicated labor-leftist, but much less so than the previous nominee, former Secretary of Labor Lane Kirkland was a sort of compromise between the various Democratic factions vying for power in 1992. The dedicated Gravelites and Libertarians found themselves backing Senator Jesse Jackson of Illinois, while those who sought to return the party to it's old ways of New Deal Liberalism put their faith in New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Kirkland was, in a sense, the best of both worlds. A former Secretary of Labor in the Gravel Administration, he was moderately popular among both the libertarians in the party and the "Old Left" for his synthesis of views from both sides of the party. The fact that he was immensely charismatic and had a base among traditional labor unions as former President of the AFL-CIO-IWW was just an added benefit. Nominated after tense negations between the Jackson and Cuomo camps at the 1992 DNC in St. Louis, Kirkland fought hard against President McClosekey, promising to bring the successful system of sectoral bargaining recently implemented in many European countries to the United States, as well as investing in American infrastructure. He probably would have beat McClosekey, too, if it hadn't been for the unexpectedly low turnout.
1992: President Peter "Pete" McClosekey (CA)/Vice President Paula Hawkins (FL)-49.1 PV/290 EV
Def. Virtually Unopposed
Most historians would describe the first term of President Pete McClosekey as "uneventful" and largely that is an accurate description. While he oversaw the final implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment as put in place by President Gravel and negotiated multiple trade deals with the reforming Soviet Union, all in all President McClosekey had a smooth sailing ship throughout the entirety of his first administration. While he wasn't necessarily an unpopular man and definitely not the false Shepard that many hard conservatives had predicated, McClosekey wasn't exactly beloved either. Honestly, many Americans just saw him as kinda boring. Ironically, this may have been his saving grace. Most Americans were just okay with how things were going; the world was calm, for the most part, the economy was sailing along as productivity rose and wages rose with it, and people were largely secure in their lives. As a result, many voters just ended up staying home, depriving his opponent, a fire breathing left-laborite, of many potential voters.
1996: Senator Jesse Jackson Sr. (IL)/Governor Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (VT)-52.3 PV/357 EV
Def. Gov. Richard "Dick" Grephardt/Rep. Marianne Williamson
While he may have had his chance stolen from him by the complicated and ever changing nature of the party apparatus back in 1992, this time there was no stopping the reverend. Having built up his so-called "Rainbow Coalition", an alliance of working-class and ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, Senator Jackson returned in 1996 with a vengeance, rallying his base and defeating his closest competition, the "Old Left" Governor Grephardt, to become the first black nominee of a major party. Fifteen years ago, Jackson's race may have been a major hindrance to him, but the rapidly progressivifying nature of American culture had allowed the former reverend to overcome the still prominent bigotry to earn the nomination. Eventually, after running a strong campaign criticizing the President and his successor's handling of the crisis in Iraq and their attempts to drastically alter the tax code that was rebuked by a Democratic congress, Senator Jackson managed to win in a eight-point landslide, a margin not seen since former President Gravel's stomping of Ronald Reagan.
1996: Senator Elizabeth Ann Warren (OK)/Secretary of the Treasury Willard "Mitt" Romney (MI)-44.7 PV/181 EV
Def. Vice Pres. Paula Hawkins/Sen. Patrick "Pat" Buchanan
The battle for the Republican nomination in 1996 was an absolute free-for-all. Most expected Vice President Hawkins to ultimately declare herself the winner, but she soon found herself under siege from both her left and right flanks, the left going after the Adminstration's failed attempts to restructure the progressive taxation system, the right going after her for her support for President McClosekey's expansion of abortion rights, and both factions decimating the Adminstration's response to the Iraqi Civil War. Eventually, the more liberal wing of the party won out, with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former economics professor and Senator, vaulting over Hawkins in the last stretch of the race. Warren and her running mate, Secretary of the Treasury Willard Romney, a frequent critic of McClosekey from within the Administration itself, would not go down without a fight, presenting themselves as the voices of reason on issues like foreign policy and taxation, but in the end, it was a fruitless effort. The American people were to soured on the Republican Party after McClosekey's failure to stop the crisis in Iraq from exploding into Civil War and his economic conservative reforms. Warren, the first major female nominee of either party, would loose out on her chance to make history to her competitor, Senator Jackson.
2000: President Jesse Jackson (IL)/Vice President Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (VT)-50.6 PV/311 EV
Def. Virtually Unopposed
President Jackson dealt with quite a few crisis as President. The rise of the right-wing militia movement, the standoff between the Koreas, the rise in racial tensions, and the 1997 "Premillennium" economic slump. But, ultimately, even after an attempt on his life by former marine turned militia fighter Timothy McVeigh, President Jackson managed to deal with these issues effectively and cleanly. Although he had drastically reformed the CIA, Jackson still had resources available to him, and quickly used the FBI to investigate and dispatch most domestic terrorist threats. His response to the rise in racial tensions was to bring the nation together, drastically reforming the police and instituting more democratic oversight while also providing economic opportunities to both poor blacks and poor whites through a massive infrastructure program designed to advance the South. With the aid of Vice President Sanders, who had built a libertarian haven in his home state of Vermont, Jackson reformed the penal code and the justice system to ensure fairness and stomp out corruption, while his Secretary of State, none other than Jimmy Carter, was hard at work easing tensions between North and South Korea. When the economic slump that had started in Europe did hit the United States, Jackson responded by instituting a federal jobs program that employed several million Americans, while also investing heavily in public infrastructure and enticing new businesses, specifically workers owned cooperatives as championed by the AFL-CIO-IWW. His effective handling of the challenges thrown at him endeared the President to the American public and even his most ardent critics could admit that it was unlikely that he would be defeated in 2000. They were correct, apparently.
2000: Governor John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (FL)/Senator Clarence Thomas (GA)-48.4 PV/227 EV
Def. New York City Mayor Donald J. Trump
"Low Energy Jeb", as his opponent called him, can't really be blamed for the Republican's failures in 2000, although he certainly didn't help matters with a performance that is often described by historians as "Wooden" and "Sad". While he managed to beat back the crass and deeply conservative New York City Mayor Trump, a controversial former businessman and philanthropist, Bush, the black sheep of a major conservative political family, had little chance of defeating President Jackson and he seemed to accept this. He had a long and relatively successful career in Florida politics, being a congressman for several years before eventually becoming it's Governor, where he was hailed for improving the state's education system and fighting off right-wing terrorists when they attempted to make Florida's Pan Handle region their base of operations in the South. However, his accomplishments were nowhere near as impressive and perhaps more importantly, as well known as President Jackson's and his inability to communicate his successes doomed his campaign to the trash bin of American political history.
2004: Senator Bill "Spaceman" Lee (VT)/Secretary of Labor Donna DeWitt (SC)-47.5 PV/298 EV
Def. San Francisco Mayor Jello Biafra/Former Gov. Gatewood Galbraith/Gov. Paul Krugman
Unable to convince Vice President Sanders to run, the party was forced to settle for the next best thing; One of Sanders' close confidants, Senator Bill "Spaceman" Lee. Lee, a former professional baseball player and close ally of Sanders since he had first rose to become a representative in the late eighties, was somewhat infamous for being the head of the Lee-Paul commission, a Senate group comprised of libertarian leaning Senators Bill Lee, Ron Paul, Martin Chavez, Russ Feingold, and Barbra Lee to investigate CIA crimes in Latin America, the findings of which would result in President Jackson's massive hollowing out of the agency. A hero to the libertarian left for both his time as head of the Lee-Paul commission and his fight against agriculture megabusinesses, Spaceman Lee was a shoe on from their faction for the 2004 nomination and with the backing of the popular Vice President Sanders, he managed to outwit the charismatic former punk musician Jello Biafra and the eccentric Governor Gatewood Galbraith to win the nomination. Assembling a crack team of leftist wunderkind to run his campaign and selecting Secretary of Labor Donna DeWitt, an advocate of sectoral bargaining, as his running mate, the Spaceman faced off against Governor Weld of the Republicans and managed to dispatch his challenge to the left's hegemony over libertarianism, even if it was a bit more narrow then he would have liked.
2004: Governor William "Bill" Weld (MA)/Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (CO)-46.5 PV/240 EV
Def. Gov. Margret "Maggie" Kelly/Sen. Ross Perot Jr.
The other Bill in the race, Governor Weld was an interesting and often odd character and to many Republicans, just the man they needed to defeat the Democrats and reclaim the White House. Having broke the Democrat's stranglehold over the state of Massachusetts for the first time in nearly three decades, Weld was seen as the man who could break into some of the Democrat's stronghold states in New England and the Midwest, even if it meant sacrificing some of their new gains in the South. Part of the reason why Governor Weld was able to upend the Democrats in his home state was due to his relatively moderate views, something which his more conservative opponent Governor Kelly detested. However, as it turns out, these views were more in line with the post-McClosekey Republican Party and after the failure of the "Common Sense Conservative" John Bush, many were ready to give the moderates another try at the wheel. After winning, Weld and his running mate, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who made history as the first Native American since Charles Curtis to be on a Presidential ticket, went on the offensive, decrying the "failures" of the Second Jackson Administration, such as his admittedly poor attempts to assist the Europeans in dealing with their ongoing economic depression and his tax hike half way through his Administration. Positioning himself as the candidate of the middle class while portraying Jackson as the voice of the workers was an interesting strategy, which ended up paying off in the form of several North Eastern States going Republican for the first time in decades, although a handful of Southern States did go back in the Democratic column, which was what ultimately cost him the race.
2008: President Bill "Spaceman" Lee (VT)/Vice President Donna DeWitt (SC)-46.8 PV/226 EV
Def. Virtually Unopposed
For all of his faults, what can be said about President Lee is that he tried his hardest. But chance is a cruel and unforgiving mistress and it had no intent to spare the Spaceman's soul purely because of good intentions. The recession, the Soviet Invasion of West Germany, the Ketterfield Incident; All of it and more hit the President like a wave, strangling the Spaceman's hopes of expanding the National Healthcare Program and investing in rural infrastructure in the cradle. Forced to fight in a war that only continued to get worse as it went on, struggling desperately to restart the sputtering economy as the nation fought overseas, and trying but failing to convert America's massive nuclear grid into wind and solar power as a result of the Ketterfield Incident, the President fought on through it all, only to see his efforts fail time and time again. Lee and Secretary of State Leland spent long, sleepless nights trying to negotiate an end to the war in Europe, to no avail. Only after the death of a high ranking Soviet General, orchestrated by Supreme Commander of Allied Forces David Pretraeus, did a ceasefire finally come and by then, it was too late for the boost in approval ratings to save the Spaceman. He may have finally gotten a ceasefire after months of negations, but his opponent was promising to finally end it. End it, she did.
2008: Senator Dora Lizette Irizarry (NY)/General Robert Mueller (DC)-51.2 PV/312 EV
Def. Sen. Ron Paul/General Robert Mueller/Sen. Charlie Sykes
Promising to end the war in Europe and bring our boys home was an odd stance for the Republicans to take, even with the recent libertarian trends of the party. But Senator Dora Lizette Irizarry, the conservative legal wiz of New York turned right libertarian wunderkind senator, was the right woman to sell it. Running on a platform of negotiating an end to the war with the Soviets, by hook or by crook, and supporting lower taxes on the middle class, more investment in small businesses, and a restart to the American economy with it, Senator Irizarry managed to upset the frontrunner, Senator Paul, as well as pro-peace General Robert Mueller and the more gung-ho conservative Senator Charlie Sykes of Wisconsin, winning a historic victory after a solid win in the primaries. At her victory speech at the 2008 RNC in Portland, Oregon, she declared that a new era had come, one of peace, unity, and economic security. Announcing General Mueller as her running mate, Senator Irizarry went to take on the Spaceman President and when the dust settled, she had won by a convincing margin, winning the votes of the struggling middle class and the poor working class alike.
2012: Senator Monica Moorehead (AL)/Governor Alexi Giannoulias (IL)-48.2 PV/264 EV
Def. Sen. Jesse Jackson Jr./Former Gov. Tom Barrett
While the general consensus among the American public was that President Irizarry was a fine President and the woman responsible for ending the war with the Soviets, many were disturbed with what the President had done afterwards. The start of mass surveillance under the so-called "Patriot Act", the ID cards, the mandatory two years of public or military service, the expansion of police powers and the slashing of the National Healthcare program budget all upset a very large portion of the population and many felt like the freedom that they had grown up with was being surrendered in the name of "security". Enter Senator Monica Moorehead. A former socialist activist turned congresswoman, Moorehead was a prominent advocate of left libertarian principles and became one of the loudest voices against both the war under the Lee Administration and the expansion of state powers under President Irizarry. When she announced she was running for President, she quickly became the frontrunner, although she did face a conflict with the son of former President Jackson. After a mostly respectful contest, given both Moorehead and Jackson agreed with eachother on most issues, Moorehead got the better of Jackson after California and became the nominee, selecting his close ally Governor Giannoulias as her running mate. Moorehead hit the President hard on the unpopular sects of her agenda, diverting public attention away from the slowly recovering economy and the relative peace and quiet. Soon, Moorehead narrowed the gap between her and Irizarry from ten points to two. While it would not be enough to unseat the President, Moorehead's campaign reclaimed the South for the Democrats by recreating the old "Yellow Dog" coalition of poor whites and blacks, while also retaking swaths of the electorate by reminding many that the economy wasn't recovering for everyone.
2012: President Dora Lizette Irizarry (NY)/Vice President Robert Mueller (DC)-50.8 PV/274 EV
Def. Former Sen. Ron Paul
After four years of reshaping America in her image, President Dora Lizette Irizarry was facing an unexpected battle for reelection. While some of her polices had been controversial, specifically the Patriot Act and the Mandatory Service bill, she had also been the one who had negotiated the end to the war in Europe, restarted the nation's economy, and caused a boom of small businesses through massive loans and "entrepreneurship funds". She had not been expecting such a rough road to reelection, especially considering that her approval ratings were in the high fifties. Nonetheless, she intended to fight off these challengers and after fending off a quixotic libertarian primary challenge from Senator Paul, the field was set for a showdown with Monica Moorehead. A showdown that she would almost loose. Luckily for President Irizarry, the economy was strong and it almost looked as if the Soviets were looking over the horizon again, which she was quick to remind her base about. With these facts in mind, while it may have been narrow, the President still managed to pull off a victory. And why shouldn't she have? After all, not even the national strike against the mandatory service program was able to bring her down, nor were the bump in negotiations with the Soviets early on in the process, or the border skirmishes in Korea. Why should a little competition be any different?
2016: Mayor of Chicago Cornell West (IL)/Governor Jane O'Merra Sanders (VT)-53.8 PV/353 EV
Def. Sen. David Graeber
If you want to beat a fascist, you better get yourself a socialist. Or at least that's how the old saying goes, I think. Nonetheless, the Democrats saw the authoritarianism of the post-war Republican Party and decided to get themselves exactly that in the form of Cornell West, the silver tongued Mayor of Chicago. West, a former professor of economics at the Charlotte and Steve Landvoigt Cooperative Universty in Chicago, was a well known leftist theoretician, specializing in Marx and more recently, left libertarian thinkers like Bookchin and Goldman. Eventually becoming the Mayor of Chicago, West was one of the most prominent voices against the Patriot Act and the Mandatory Service Program, decrying it as fascistic in nature. With the help of Jesse Jackson Jr. and AFL-CIO-IWW President Sara Nelson, West carved out a socialist safe haven in Chicago, funding publicly owned institutions and subsidizing cooperative businesses, rejecting both the mandatory service program and the massive expansion of private businesses into the region in the aftermath of the "Irizarry Recovery". Announcing he was running for President early in 2015, he faced little internal opposition, with the exception of friend and ally David Graeber, who dropped out early into the process. Running with Jane O'Merra Sanders, wife of former Vice President Sanders, West ran a strong populist campaign against the Republicans, promising to repeal the mandatory service program, replace it with a federal jobs guarantee, refund the NHP, raise wages, empower unions, and further democratize all parts of American society. Against all odds, West managed to win, becoming the first openly Socialist President of America. The future likes bright for the new United States.
2016: Secretary of State Micheal "Mike" Bloomberg (NY)/Secretary of Commerce Carly Fiorina (CA)-44.2 PV/185 EV
Def. Secretary of Commerce Carly Fiorina
A businessman by trade, Mike Bloomberg was an unlikely pick for Secretary of State. Ultimately, however, it turned out that he was the right man for the job, managing to strike a deal with his Soviet counterparts that ended the war in Europe. While some would accuse Bloomberg of being an Authoritarian, pointing to his insistence on adopting the "Israeli Model" of mandatory national service in order to "Bring us together" and his advocacy for the de-democratization of the police department, others would hail the man as a visionary statesman and fantastic deal maker. As it turns out, after eight years of dealmaking and "visionary leadership" that saw the United States recover, but at the price of many of it's freedoms, the American public was not ready for another dealmaker. Bloomberg's loss, at least to the pundit class in America, was very unexpected, and the margin by which he lost was even more surprising.
