A Different 2004

Rove says the candidates they feared most were Lieberman and Gephardt. Halperin mentions "unnamed strategists" as saying Hillary.
 
Actually, 2003 in itself is for a separate thread. ;) I just put it out there because you'd have the state and local levels doing their job, depends if Brown does his. If you believe the theory that Bush failed because of Blanco and Nagin's pissing contest dating back to Nagin's 2003 Jindal endorsement, then things go somewhat differently.
 
Can anybody see this situation getting Hillary to run though? She was still very polarizing as of 2004. Every piece of mail - literally every piece that I received from the RNC and Republican fundraisers through 2004-6 or so mentioned her name. Run Hillary and that Christian conservative base definitely gets out there to vote.

To me she in 2004 represents Sarah Palin for 2012. More substance certainly, (I hate saying that, but "more substance than Sarah Palin" isn't much of a compliment) but very polarizing and hasn't successfully established herself as a DLC Senator*, particularly without the noted ability to side with Republicans on national security issues. I think if Hillary runs, she gets trashed by anybody and everybody. Those who in OTL '08 didn't want to see a return to Clinton power stab her in the back undercover. Her temper gets out there. Bill Clinton blows up on occasion and delays the ease of tense emotions surrounding his legacy that was at this time still ongoing. In short, a Clinton candidacy in 2004, particularly ITTL, reminds voters of the bad points of the Clinton years, not the good.

I think her political instincts keep her out for the same that I think Palin's will keep her away from 2012. She knows that she would get beat. In Clinton's case though, she still keeps her eyes on 2008, figuring on Republican fatigue and a more established moderate Senate record easing the tensions surrounding her name.



* This is one point where I differ with RB. He lists Hillary as DLC, where I see her as a solid ideological Liberal Establishmentarian who positioned herself as DLC expecting that to be her best means of winning the Presidency.
 
I think we need to know what would have happened in the first term. There was No Child Left Behind, but that was bipartisan and not received too badly in the first term. Without 9/11, would Bush have tried for Social Security reform in the first term? Does Sarbanes-Oxley get passed as in OTL? Or Medicare Part D?

Incidentally, the House would've flipped in '02 had the Democrats won 2% more of GOP voters across the board - they'd hold 219 seats (220 with Bernie Sanders) to the Republicans' 214. They'd also hold the Senate, with 50 (51 with Jeffords) to 49. Interesting that both houses are held by Vermonters - Dean may still get talked up a bit if he runs, and would be running a manifestly different campaign without the Iraq issue. I wonder if he might've emerged as the anti-Gephardt instead of Edwards? If Gore doesn't run, he probably endorses Lieberman - the Iraq war issue led him to endorse Dean. Dean would've had trouble gaining visibility, but he did get SEIU and AFSCME in November '03 in OTL - before the Gore endorsement in December - and had already been making news for his internet fundraising success. Would he have had the same expectations, and the same results?
 
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I think you guys are forgetting about the 2002 midterm elections. IOTL, Republicans were helped in a big way by the "rally round the president" mindset after 9/11. Max Cleland mainly lost his seat due to opposition to DHS - which won't exist in TTL. Thus, he'll keep his seat. MO, MN, even races which weren't incredibly close like CO and NC could have swung for the Dems given a more anti-Bush environment - meaning the Democrats should continue to have a narrow majority in the Senate.

As for the House, IOTL the Republicans went into the election with only a majority of nine, and ended up padding it with another eight seats. It's easy to see the election flipping the other way, with a narrow Democratic majority in the house.

I'd go so far as to say this is likely - first years are always full of stumbles, but it's hard to see Bush building his way out of the popularity hole between 9/1/01 and 10/5/02. Afterwords he admittedly could retool similar to how Clinton did of course, and the economy should be doing well (but not amazingly so) by 2004. Maybe Bush would embrace more of the "compassionate" side to his conservativism ITTL? For example, comprehensive immigration reform, in an attempt to woo Latino voters, as there may be enough Democrats in congress the plan could sail though?
 
Incidentally, polling in Georgia was apparently really shitty in 2002. Gallup, in an article published the day before the 2002 election, wrote:
Incumbent Democrat Max Cleland holds the advantage over Republican U.S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss.
Gallup had not polled this race, and was relying on publicly released polls. Cleland, incidentally, lost 53%-45% - a bit too much for a sudden shift.
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Applying the two-point shift to gubernatorial races, the Democrats hold onto Maryland, Alabama and Vermont. This butterflies away Michael Steele's political career after '02, for the most part, though Steele was the Maryland Republican Party chair.
 
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Bush's approval wasn't exactly terrible before 9/11 though. It was hovering around 55%. While it had shot up after 9/11, by election day '02, it normalization had brought it down to the mid 60s.

Though I doubt mid 60s would be the case ITTL, I don't necessarily know that he would enter the mid-terms with numbers that would suggest a real Republican rout. The GOP would probably lose Congress, but not by huge numbers. Especially if Democrats still embarrass themselves at the Wellstone memorial service.

Maybe a loss of 15-20 seats in the House. Allard and Sununu lose. Coleman still wins. Talent-Carnahan goes either way. Leaves the Senate with the narrow Democrat gain that they previously had. Both sides claim victory...
 
Given that security procedures presumably wouldn't have been changed after September 11, 2001 (since nothing happens that day ITTL), it's plausible that Wellstone's plane doesn't crash ITTL - those aren't obviously connected, but commercial airplane operations were affected by 9/11. Depends on how big a butterfly net we want to swing, though.
 
Given that security procedures presumably wouldn't have been changed after September 11, 2001 (since nothing happens that day ITTL), it's plausible that Wellstone's plane doesn't crash ITTL - those aren't obviously connected, but commercial airplane operations were affected by 9/11. Depends on how big a butterfly net we want to swing, though.

True, that's just a fair question of butterflies. Give the Democrats another seat (Wellstone) or two (Jean Carnahan) in the Senate if that doesn't happen. So the 108th Congress gives Dems around 222-225 in the House and maybe 51-53 in the Senate. Although, I haven't done extensive research to see if there were any Republicans who retired figuring their seats safe to stay in the party, that may have been pressured to seek reelection...
 
Democrats probably win the popular vote narrowly in 2002 - something like 47.5% to 47.1%, maybe. '98 becomes more of an aberration.
Fred Thompson and Phil Gramm (and Strom Thurmond, but he was getting really old and had already resigned from Chairing the Armed Services Committee) were the big retirements in the Senate.

I wonder if Connie Morella would've run for governor of Maryland in '06 if Ehrlich lost (as would've happened with a 2-point swing from Ehrlich voters to Townshend voters).

I do wonder how Bush will handle this Congress.
 
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Bush probably would have faced more opposition over his tax cuts with a still-Democratic Senate and House.

He might have been forced more to the middle on his domestic agenda, as was Clinton and most likely Obama now will be.

If Iraq does still happen, the question for the 2004 campaign on the Democratic side will be who to run that could be seen as ending the war effectively. In that event, Kerry might still be the nominee, but might win this time (and have Edwards as his VP with all that entails...)
 

bguy

Donor
What about Darfur? The conflict there will probably get a lot more attention without 9-11 and the Iraq War. Would Bush intervene to stop the fighting there?

I know he campaigned against nation building in the 2000 election, but he also showed a lot of interest in Africa during his presidency, and if US forces are not engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq then he has a lot more options available when Darfur explodes.

If the US does militarily intervene in the Sudan how successful will it be and what will be the reaction domestically and in international affairs?
 
What about Darfur? The conflict there will probably get a lot more attention without 9-11 and the Iraq War. Would Bush intervene to stop the fighting there?

I know he campaigned against nation building in the 2000 election, but he also showed a lot of interest in Africa during his presidency, and if US forces are not engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq then he has a lot more options available when Darfur explodes.

If the US does militarily intervene in the Sudan how successful will it be and what will be the reaction domestically and in international affairs?

If the US intervenes in Darfur, it will be primarily for humanitarian reasons, or at least that it how it will be sold. There will be people saying that it is a war for oil, and that might have some substance. It will be a hard war to oppose, since it is being waged for humanitarian purposes. There will almost certainly be UN support for it.

On the other hand, it would be really easy for there to be some kind of backlash to it questioning why we are there, if not for our own security, especially if it drags on for too long. Sudan's a big country, and it would take a lot of resources to pacify. It's also got a lot more issues than just Darfur; the south would jump at a chance to secede, taking their oil with them. It could get just as ugly as Iraq, if mismanaged.

So, it short, an intervention in Sudan would have a lot more international support than Iraq, but it could also get a lot uglier than Iraq as well.
 
What about Darfur? The conflict there will probably get a lot more attention without 9-11 and the Iraq War. Would Bush intervene to stop the fighting there?

Bush wanted to go into Darfur, but IIRC, it would have caused problems with China.
 
I also wonder, re Iraq, if Bush would have been more willing to wait for a United Nations Security Council resolution instead of taking preemptive action.

Also, if the Republicans lost in 2002, they might have regained a majority in 2004.

Walter Mondale was Paul Wellstone's replacement; assuming Wellstone still dies it's possible that Mondale might have gotten his seat.
 
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