Part XII
Differing Visions
The Bush administration had plenty to fear going into the 2002 midterms, the economic recession though receding was still felt by many Americans, combined with the Enron affair and residing hostilities from the 2000 election, Republican prospects were gloomy. However, the Republican party wasn’t the only incumbency that had to worry.
Australia
PM John Howard's center-right Liberal-National coalition government faced a tough election in November 2001. All through the year, the coalition was trailing the Labor party in the polls, due to the stuttering economy, high fuel prices, and the populist One Nation party. In the 1998 snap election, the coalition failed to gain a majority of the votes but still retained its parliamentary majority, and now in 2001 John Howard was set for a rematch against Labor leader Kim Beazley
Howard entered election mode, to claw back government support, announcing a set of policy reversals the greatest of all being the government's immigration policy. In August of 2001, a Norwegian freighter (The Tampa) carrying 433 rescued middle eastern refugees entered Australian waters. Rather than seek a political or diplomatic solution Howard opted for a military one and ordered Australian special forces to board the vessel to prevent it from landing. The government then attempted to enact the Border Protection Bill to retroactively make the action legal however the bill was defeated in the senate.
The Tampa Refugees and Prime Minister John Howard
The government’s motives were clear, to turn the election into one of national security and to gain support from working-class Labor and One Nation voters. Globally the actions were criticised as illegal and some accused Australia of shirking its human rights commitments. At home, the actions were more popular but still controversial, some questioned the PM’s decision to take military action or saw it as a cynical ploy to shift issues. The action lifted the coalition's prospects pulling support from the populist right, and the race narrowed.
The second issue that pervaded the election was the collapse of Australia’s second-largest airline Air Ansett. For years an airline boom boosted the competition of the industry but airlines struggled to compete for customers and cut costs, Ansett itself bought by Air New Zealand was unable to keep up and slowly began to collapse selling its assets and laying off its employees. By September 2001 it was clear that the company was in a death spiral and would require urgent state stimulus to avoid collapse. The Howard government refused, on the basis that the companies’ issues were its own fault, this argument fell on deaf ears to the thousands of remaining Ansett employees who, supported by labor unions and the Labor party staged popular demonstrations. The company continued its spiral for months attempting to find a buyer but the airline's debts made it unlikely.
By the time Australians did go to the polls on the 10th of November 2001 they had plenty to decide on, but in the end, the predictions bared out. A narrow victory for the Australian Labor Party. A half a percent swing in favour of Labor mean the party picked up 10 seats from the coalition granting it a narrow 2 seat majority and making Kim Beazley Australia’s 26th Prime Minister[1]
Prime Minister of Australia Kim Beazley
France
The 2002 French election was different than the Australian one, rather than an incumbent government trying to hold on to power through a bad economy. France was a nation of two men attempting to win the legacy of a strong economy. Since 1997 the conservative President Jacques Chirac had entered a power-sharing agreement with the left-wing Socialist party helmed by prime minister Lionel Jospin. The Cohabitation period angered both parties as they both jostled to take credit for the countries success and blame the opposition for its failures. It was clear that both sides needed the arrangement to come to an end and both men prepared for a presidential rematch to take the full reins of government.
The years of cohabitation convinced many in France that Chirac and Jospin had too much in common, and a vast slate of candidates arose to challenge them, in total 6 more candidates from across the political spectrum ran compared to 1995. turning the entire process into a strange affair, though still devoid of any suspense. Both Chirac and Jospin campaigned as if there was no 1st round and pitched directly for the center, it gave room for the extreme left and right to surge further forward. Neither campaign was especially gripping but Jospin clearly struggled more, the plethora of leftists including Greens, Trotskyists, and Eurosceptics combined with his austere persona and his unwillingness to bargain kept him a few percentage points behind Chirac in the first round polling. Chirac however was slowly accruing a list of financial scandals and championed a defence and foreign policy that energised nationalists.
President Chirac (left) and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (right)
The results of the first round were just as expected, Chirac placed first with 18% of the vote and Jospin came a close second with 17% followed by Jean-Marie Le Pen and the far-right National Front with 15% (the best performance for Le Pen yet)[2]. Polling for the second round had consistently placed Jospin and Chirac neck and neck as the left and right parties consolidated around them. The election became one of messaging Chirac ran a campaign of law and order following a few high-profile murders, while Jospin managed a traditional socialist campaign focused on inequality.
The final results were a thunderclap for the French government when on the 5th of May 2002, Prime Minister Lionel defeated President Chirac with 53% of the vote to Chirac’s 47% a difference of 1.8 million votes, the results were an upset given the poor campaign of Jospin but his victory was largely attributed to Chirac’s wavering popularity and a failure for the conservatives to turn thanks to the continuing rise of the Far Right. None the less Jospin the embodiment of French bureaucracy bested the charismatic Chirac.[3]
French President Jospin beside soon Prime Minister Francoise Hollande [3b]
Germany
The German elections were set to be a blowout, months of recession, anger at fuel taxes, and the introduction of the euro convinced most that the government's ship helmed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the left SPD was going down. The opposition certainly thought so when CDU/CSU chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber declared that
"this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2–0.” However, the outcome wasn’t as clear cut as Stoiber predicted, his personal popularity was far below that of Schröder and the infamous German coalition system meant that Stoiber would need a coalition partner in the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to perform well in the election and the FDP’s unusual decision not to announce its intention to form a coalition with the CDU endangered that.
Chancellor Schröder (right) debates CSU leader Edmund Stoiber (left)
Then came the floods, in august 2002 just weeks before the federal elections a week of heavy rain tore through Europe destroying thousands of homes, killing dozens, and causing billions in property damages Germany was hit hardest when a decade of infrastructure was wiped out in a single day. The government response was swift, the largest military action Germany had taken since the 2nd world war, the effect was a strong one for Schroder and his popularity spiked by 10 percent and government popularity by 8. After that, it was the debates, in two televised debates where Schröder and Stoiber went head-to-head pitting their issues and ideas. Schroeder a man of supreme confidence charmed the camera and was publicly seen as coming out on top, using the flooding issue, and accused Stoiber's vision as being unrealistic.
The results of the election were as follows, the CDU received a 5 percent boost, since the 1998 election 40% of the total vote (gaining 12 seats) compared to the SPD’s 37% (a drop of 4% and a loss of 53 seats).[4] It meant that the CDU had become the largest party in the Bundestag with 257 seats to the SPD 245. The FDP also received a moderate boost of 5 seats giving it 48 seats combined majority, paving the way for a return to the CDU-FDP coalition to return to power, though the majority was very narrow and analysts believed a swift collapse was possible.[5]
German Chancellor Edmund Stoiber
The United States
The 2002 midterm elections as ever would decide the future political landscape for the US and the Bush administration going forward, deciding the house and a third of the senate alongside a slate of state governorships. The election came at a critical time for the administration to boast its accomplishments (tax reductions and education reform) and to retain its hold on the house and retake the senate. It also gave an opportunity for the opposition to prove its dissatisfaction at the slow economic improvement and long-held grievances over Bush’s mandate to govern and to fully control the legislature, severely hamstringing the White House. For most of the campaign the Democrats were favoured given the midterm tradition as a check on the executive and they held a favourable map, but by mid-2002 the race began to tighten.
Starting with the senate, 34 seats were up for election with about a third being somewhat competitive, The Democrats held a single-seat majority following Jim Jeffords crossing of the floor but narrowing polls made the prospect of significant gains meet the reality of tough battles for both sides. The Republicans needed to defend a few open seats in the south where incumbents were retiring including 99yr old Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. And Democrats needed only to defend Georgia, that was until tragedy struck when Minnesota Senator and liberal stalwart Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash on the way to a steelworkers funeral, the crash killed Wellstone instantly along with seven others including his wife and one of his three children, 2 pilots, and 3 staffers. At the time Wellstone had been the favourite to win re-election and in his place, the party nominated former vice president Walter Mondale to hopefully succeed him.[6]
Walter Mondale campaigns for the open Minnesotan senate seat
The Democrats came out on top flipping 3 Republican senate seats and retaining all of theirs Giving them a 4 seat Senate majority. They won New Hampshire where Governor Jeanne Shaheen bested representative John E Sunuu despite a
dirty tricks campaign. Arkansas where incumbent Tim Hutchinson, facing a divorce scandal lost to Mark Pryor (son of former Governor/Senator David Prior) and Colorado where incumbent Senator Wayne Allard lost a rematch to attorney Tom Strickland. However, the Democrats were unsuccessful in unseating any southern Republicans and were forced into a narrow contest to retain Georgia where triple-amputee Max Cleland narrowly won a race that was swimming in dog whistles. However, the Democrats made decent inroads in Texas where Republican John Cornyn was under fire for taking money from Enron, winning by 3 points instead of the usual 10. Additionally, Walter Mondale defeated the Republicans and returned to the senate after a 26-year absence becoming the last vice president to do so since his friend and fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey.
The House elections also went well for the Democrats where they gained a 2.5% swing from 2000 however this translated to moderate gains 11 seats across the country, but it meant a large shift as control of the house shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats who now held a 5-seat majority, and preceded Dick Gephardt’s return as majority leader.
Republicans found a little solace in Gubernatorial elections where big-ticket elections such as Jeb Bush’s 2nd term and NY Governor Patakis third term bid were both successful, those races that drew national attention however that they failed to unseat perceived weak democrats such as Alabama and Georgia Governors Don Siegelman and Roy Barnes and though they made inroads in Democratic states winning Hawaii and Minnesota others such Maryland and Massachusetts alluded them despite extremely tight races allowing the Democrats to gain a majority of state governorships by winning a massive 8 states (6 Republican, 2 Independent)
(left) Senatorial election map, (right) Gubernatorial election map. Darker blue/red designates a flip
(left) Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Right debate between elected Governor Shannon O'Brien and Businessman Mitt Romney [7]
The aftermath placed the legislature firmly in the Democrats hands and clearly showed dissatisfaction with the Bush presidency Gephard marked the victory by mocking the Republicans
“We were outspent, but they were outvoted”, “This is a time for the President to reflect on how the country disapproves of his handling of the issues” Bush who hoped that a win would aid a rebound reacted coolly
“This one was a bumpy one for us, and that’s never good”[8]
Speaker of the House Dick Gephardt (left) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (right)
[1] The Australian election occurred in the direct aftermath of 9/11 and John Howard's swift support for Bush aided by his being in the US certainly aided him. In what was a narrow election anyway.
[2] The far-right and immigration policy will certainly shift without 9/11 and while Le Pens victory in the 1st round was shocking it was likely down more to leftist infighting than anything else. Still, this represents the psychological impact of 9/11 more than anything else.
[3] Calculating a Chirac vs Jospin victory is difficult would the left put its cares aside to vote for Jospin, where does the far-right stand we won't ever know. But polling consistently placed them neck and neck and given France's consistent tendency to dislike its incumbents given a viable alternative they go for it in a shock upset.
[3b] Following the tradition of most french legislative elections, the president's party wins a majority.
[4] The Iraq war has entered the fray now. The Bush team started moving on Iraq mid 02 but this hasn’t occurred ITTL, the German electorate was largely against the war providing a considerable boost to Schröder who was firmly anti-war compared to Stoiber. the German election was very close anyway so this outcome makes sense to me.
[5] PS does anyone actually understand German elections, I've been trying for days to figure them out but just couldn’t so I've kept it a little vague and stuck to the OTL Bundestag numbers
[6] I could have butterflied Wellstone’s death, but in a world without 9/11, planes don’t get any safer.
[7] Sorry Romney but the Olympics weren’t enough to win you this one
[8] The 02 US elections have greatly shifted from OTL, without 9/11, Afghanistan, the upcoming Iraq war to name the administration gets knocked by the electorate.