...
Then came Super Tuesday, the day that would make or break campaigns. 20 states were up on this year's Super Tuesday and most of them were southern states. Biden, Gore and Gephardt focused their attention entirely on these states, while Dukakis focused on his home state and the few other states outside of the South. Simon was at this point running low on cash, and could barely campaign. Still he didn't withdraw, hoping he could pull off a victory in his native Illinois. Babbitt who had been in similarly bad shape had withdrawn in late February. All eyes were on the southern states, if one candidate could sweep them that candidate would instantly become the front runner.
Jackson did exactly that. Biden, Gephardt and Gore for all the effort they threw towards the Southern States, had only managed to weaken each other and let Jackson sweep the south. The only southern state up that day that didn't vote Jackson was Tennessee which narrowly went for its favorite son. Gephardt came in last of the three in most of the southern states and would withdraw the next day. Gore would suspend his campaign soon afterwards. Simon would lose Illinois later that month and drop out soon afterwards. At this point Biden and Dukakis still had a significant chance of winning, but then Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition were able to pull off an impressive victory in New York and by that point it was over. Biden and Dukakis still held out, but at this point they had no real chance. They would still trudge on through the rest of the primaries, slowly losing what remained of their momentum. Much to the chagrin of many in the party, Jesse Jackson would be their nominee...
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Hope this is plausible. I think it is, but I did rush it a bit and it was VERY difficult to find a way for Jackson to get the nod. Anyway, hope you guys like the TL
I'm afraid it makes no sense whatsoever.
To be sure, as I was editing and drawing my reply to a close, I did take a look at the Wikipedia article on the 1988 Democratic Primary, and I was shocked to realize that OTL, Jesse Jackson did win just shy of 30 percent of the total votes cast in the primary, and (by chance; the delegates awarded don't always line up very exactly with the popular vote received--Dukakis had just over 50 percent of the 85 percent of delegates left to the primary contest, but only under 43 percent of the votes; the three lesser candidates Gore, Gephardt and Simon had somewhat more (Gore) or somewhat fewer (Gephardt) delegates than their vote share while Simon at the bottom averaged about right) the same proportion of the delegates subject to popular vote. That is to say, Jackson did over 2/3 as well as Dukakis overall in votes polled. This shows pretty clearly that it would not take a tremendous boost in Jackson's performance to indeed put him ahead of Dukakis.
But what I bolded above seems clearly wrong to me, because Jackson was not a normal, mainstream candidate. The dynamics were different, and if he did pull ahead it would not be the result of some perceptual snowball momentum effect; that would be the result of Democratic primary voters going to the polls and voting about 40 percent more often than they did OTL
for Jackson. To lock the nomination, he'd have to get twice as many Democrats to support him. Pulling ahead relatively because of a divided field could benefit a mainstream candidate, but not an outsider like himself. To win, he has to win honestly, fully, with a solid majority all his own. (The really amazing thing is that he got halfway to doing that OTL!)
Consider what it means that having come in such a close second to Dukakis, and leaving the third runner up in the dust by nearly a factor of three, Jackson was bypassed for the Vice Presidential nomination.
Clearly in 1988 Jesse Jackson was not a "normal," "mainstream" candidate. Suppose Al Gore, or even say Paul Simon, stood in his position with almost half the votes needed to secure the nomination himself--can we imagine they would not be VP nominee if they asked to be? Jackson was different.
Therefore I would say that the normal rules about "momentum" and "front runner" don't apply in his case. Had he gotten the lead for a while by means of a fluke of a multitude of candidates spitting the "not-Jackson" vote, the narrative in the media and in the party would not focus on him standing ahead, but on the fact that his share is "only" a third or so of the total, and that "mainstream" still outnumbers "radical" 2 to one or so, therefore when one of these mainstream candidates would have ducked out, acknowledging defeat to someone ahead of them instead of sticking it out and pushing to come from behind in later races, they would not do this if Jackson were the one ahead of them. Just as Jackson himself did not drop out OTL! Jackson's campaign was an ideological challenge to the mainstream, and this is why he stuck it out to the end OTL, and why at least one of Dukakis or Biden would stick it out here.
Let's remember also that one reason the conventional wisdom about a front-runner, even one who has yet to achieve an actual majority, driving lesser contenders from the race works is that campaigns cost money. When several candidates are pretty similar in terms of their policy intentions, donors giving money to one who is trailing in the hope of their coming from behind later risk sending good money after bad. But in a case where there is a serious difference in the policy plans of two candidates, it makes sense to go on backing the guy you want in the hope that they will pull ahead--indeed to double down and pay them more, to help them out of their slump, since the ongoing costs if the other guy gets in seem likely to be seriously higher than otherwise. Therefore, in this TL's scenario, Jackson's apparent lead, if it is not a matter of deep substance with voters preferring him because they like him better, is a cause for unusual alarm in the corporate world. They will dig into their pockets and pay both Dukakis and Biden, perhaps eventually chiding the one of those two who is behind to drop out. But maybe not--if Biden is a spoiler for Dukakis, he is probably siphoning some votes off Jackson too. The important thing, from the corporate point of view, is that Jackson does not get in. And it doesn't matter if he comes in front, if he comes in front with a lot less than 50 percent of the total vote. As far as the fundraisers are concerned, the usual rules are out this year. Given available funding, why should Dukakis or Biden bow out? For that matter, Gore or Gephardt or even Simon might find the means to keep on playing.
And then the question is--with Dukakis, Biden, or both (not to mention others who stuck it out past Super Tuesday OTL) challenging the claim of Jackson to represent the Democratic party without, for a moment anyway, being in the lead, would the voters of the rank and file of that Party vote for Jackson (more than the remarkable amount they did OTL) just because he is in the "lead," or would the ones who had a chance to vote for Jackson OTL and decided instead to vote for Dukakis or someone else again do that ITTL?
I'd say that very few if any voters would waver from their OTL choice. OTL Jackson ran on every ballot, in every state, he did not quit and the campaign was energetic. So, a lot of people did vote for Jackson. But I will say right now that unless something were more objectively different than horse race statistics reporting him in the lead at the moment--unless either Jackson himself were somehow a stronger candidate, said or did something brilliant or was the benefit of a more powerful boost, or unless the American electorate, the registered Democrats who showed up to vote at the primary anyway, were different, more restless, more liable somehow or other to see Jackson as the right man to champion their interests, there is no reason to think the boost from being in the lead by virtue of the Democratic field being crowded would cause a lot more people to switch over from whoever other than Jackson they did vote for OTL. If anything, Biden being in the field gives people alternatives to Dukakis--other than Jackson. Probably some fraction of Jesse Jackson's primary votes were protest votes by people who didn't like the Dukakis steamroller and wanted to send a message--a message better sent by voting for Biden, unless one actually thinks Jackson is better than Biden, in which case we have someone who would have been a Jackson voter anyway!
I think it would be insane for Jackson to get more than 20 percent more votes just because of being the temporary leader of the horse race, overall. To go beyond that, people who had a chance to vote for him OTL and didn't need a stronger reason to like him. Conventional wisdom would never grant that he'd be a better bet to win in November than the mainstream candidates (though I would argue otherwise--but I'm a crazy outlier, doncha know...) so that reason to hold noses and vote for him is out.
If Jackson did get those 20 percent more, and we take those votes from Dukakis, and then split the remainder of those votes 2:1 between Dukakis and Biden, here is what we get: (copy-pasted from Wikipedia
here
- Jesse Jackson - 8,330,179 (35.21%)
- Michael Dukakis - 5,757,158 (24.33%)
- Al Gore - 3,190,992 (13.49%)
- Joe Biden - 2,878,579 (12.17%)
- Dick Gephardt - 1,452,331 (6.14%)
- Paul M. Simon - 1,107,692 (4.68%)
- Gary Hart - 390,200 (1.65%)
- Unpledged delegates - 252,285 (1.07%)
- Bruce Babbitt - 85,749 (0.36%)
- Lyndon LaRouche - 74,728 (0.32%)
- David Duke - 45,290 (0.19%)
- Other Candidates - 36,232 (0.15%)
- James Traficant - 30,879 (0.13%)
- Douglas Applegate - 25,068 (0.11%)
Now this isn't quite right because you have Gore doing more poorly, winning only Tennessee and not 6 other states he won. Again though, the narrative of "winning states" in a primary where one gets shares of votes translated into numbers of delegates roughly proportionally is pretty defective; I would think if he fell short of 50 percent or the lead in 6 states he still picked up a lot of delegates from them anyway. We might say that Gore stayed in the race longer and picked up enough votes to close the gap with OTL before he finally folded his hand.
Anyway, Jackson is clearly the leader in the end, if he can get this 20 percent boost at Dukakis's expense. But he doesn't hold enough votes to take the nomination! Gore has already bowed out; if Biden will do so as well and these two shift their delegates over to Dukakis, then that puts the latter at 50 percent of the delegates subject to popular vote. Now the entire Convention had some other delegates who do not appear in the tallys assigned by vote, the number of delegates needed to top 50 percent of the total was 2053. Maybe higher; another Wikipedia page asserts the total delegate count was 4162--but that does not add up to the total of the ones listed above it, which is just 4105. Picking half the higher number plus one, that is 2082, OTL Dukakis fell short by 290, but Gore's totals alone would cover that gap; he was the clear winner therefore! Now with the author's 1900 assigned to Jackson he is all the more a shoo-in, but again I say, the only way Jackson could get that many delegates would be if the Democratic primary voters really really liked him, and that undercuts the whole premise of Jackson being responsible for sinking the Democratic party. IMHO, if Jackson were truly that popular with the public, he could have beaten Bush in style in November too, and you'd be writing a TL about how Jackson is the next FDR.
So, sticking to my conservative 20% up bump, which does catapult Jesse to the top of the heap, we note that he'd therefore have 1228 delegates to his own name at the start. If Biden alone transfers his to Dukakis, Dukakis should only be 205 down from OTL (well, maybe worse, since OTL he got less than 43 percent of the popular vote yet somehow wound up with 50 percent of the delegates--but if I ding this 14 percent along with 205, that's a bunch of delegates who just disappear into the ether, which ITTL would be distributed between Jackson, Dukakis and perhaps Gore before Biden I suppose. Let's say Dukakis keeps those extra delegates somehow therefore!) which gives him then 1587--clearly ahead of Jackson. Suppose as frontrunner, Jackson is entitled to the delegates of Gore, Gephardt, and Simon; that brings him up to--1900!
But I would be quite amazed if the party rules simply allow him to appropriate those delegate seats without those three candidates being given a chance to express their preferences first.
The text at Wikipedia makes it clear that OTL the other candidates withdrew and asked their delegates all to vote for Dukakis, and the vast majority did so. As far as I can figure, in addition to the delegates assigned by the primary elections and caucuses, there were 675 others, presumably some kind of superdelegates. Putting all of these in play along with the 672 earned by the bottom three contenders Gore, Gephardt and Simon, to reach 2082 Jackson would need 853 or just over 63 percent, while Dukakis plus Biden would need 494 or 37 percent.
If Biden's 529 were in play alongside the rest, leaving the top two with only the delegates they got from the primary, Dukakis would need to win 1023 or 66 percent, while Jackson would need 853 or 55 percent.
I think that, given, as I cannot repeat too much, that Jackson was an outsider, a radical, and very much out of the mainstream of the party, that although by my grudging assignment of a 20 percent bump Jackson would clearly be the front runner if he were normal, his lead would be far enough from a clear majority that party machinery can deny him the nomination and throw it to Dukakis. And if OTL they dared to write off the support of almost a third of all the people who voted in their own primary (and need I mention that it looks like OTL, the same party will disregard the wishes of an even larger percentage of this year's primary voters as well) to support a candidate who also failed to get a clear majority of the total primary votes cast, it won't be so hard for them to do it in this ATL.
In order to make it impossible, it would be necessary to give Jackson, if not the 1900 delegates the author assigns, then at least say 1700 or more. 1700 is almost 40 percent more than my 20 percent bump, and nearly 2/3 more than he did get OTL, and I suspect 1700 is too low still. Basically, Jesse has to nearly double his OTL vote and get a clear, solid 50 percent plus one vote or more majority of the primary votes cast to become immune to being shunted aside, because he has no allies in the mainstream party.
If he can do that, it is because American Democrats of that year find him an acceptable, desirable, viable candidate despite their party bigwigs and every pundit on TV, in the newspapers, and in Time and Newsweek magazines shouting at them that he is no good. If that is the case, all bets are off as to whether he can win in November--with the party's support and not obstruction, he has an excellent chance, and with it, a chance to strengthen the Senate and House majorities as well.
To address yet another premise of this TL--that, having managed to capture the nomination of the Democratic Party against the will of its insiders, Jackson would then throw away the advantage of using its resources, such as they are, to help secure his own election. Specifically in the matter of spurning all the mainstream party heavyweights for the office of Vice President in order to bring in another outsider whose ideological appeal, such as it is, overlaps his own.
Now Lane Kirkland is not an entirely crazy choice. Jackson, in an ATL where a solid majority of Democratic primary voters will vote for him in 1988, will have got there by means of ideological integrity. People will respect that he is serious about what he stands for, and a lot of Democrats have decided both that what he stands for is close enough to what they do for government work, and that he has, with their support, what it takes to win. Sending the message that he stands with the unions is a message to a very large block of American workers and their families that he is on their side--but to a degree it is wasteful because most of these people were already backing him.
Looking at the playing field as you have laid it out, by bringing Biden back into play, I do think Jesse has three obvious candidates for his VP that he can and will consider seriously--the top three, Dukakis, Biden, and Gore. Each of them balances his ticket in ways he badly needs. Presumably his appeal, to get nominated in the first place, reaches beyond the ultra-progressive bastions and spreads far down American grassroots, even, necessarily, white ones. But he could definitely use some blue collar cred all the same--which is why Kirkland is good, but Al Gore is southern white, and had a reputation in the 80s as being pretty in the know on security and military issues. Not to hear a Republican tell it of course, but among Democrats he was considered a bit on the hawkish side. Not like Sam Nunn, perhaps, but anyway not ultra liberal either. I honestly have never given Biden enough attention to judge how he might look to Jackson. Dukakis--well, he's boring, but it is Jackson's job to bring pizzaz and excitement to the ticket; Dukakis might look like just the ballast he needs.
My gut feeling is he'd go with Gore. Or he'd do something like appeal to Sam Nunn to join him. Perhaps a Jewish candidate, one considered adequately moderate-to-conservative on issues such as policy toward Israel, might address the rash he has from being attacked for being allegedly anti-Semitic. (Note--in my opinion of course he wasn't anti-Jewish, and in my experience plenty of Jewish people supported him, but PR is a weird game). So maybe Dianne Feinstien?
One way or another, he's going to focus on some mainstream Democrat of some fame and influence, to balance the fact that he is an outsider and maverick, and get the best use he can out of the Democratic apparatus and name. Put it this way--if he thought he could win without the party backing him, why run within the party in the first place?
Come on guys, keep the politics in the chat come on
(though I personally agree with congressman here I mean how far-left can the dems go at this point?)
Actually yeah... before CalBear closes my thread
Um, gosh, this is a political POD, with political consequences. I'll freely admit right now that when I comment, I have a dog in the race and this election was one of the ones I was most active in in my life. Does that mean that anything I have to say is out of bounds, because I actually canvassed for one of these candidates? Or does it perhaps make points I might bring up perhaps more relevant, from an objective point of view? If I am fair to those whom I disagreed with at the time, is that not enough? May I not disclose what my own opinions at the time were, since people like me were in fact in play that year?
Anyway, the reasons I think the POD and outcome need a whole lot of explaining that I doubt can plausibly hold water is by no means a matter of my projecting my wishes. The candidate I worked for, knocked on doors for, made enemies in my then living situation over, was in fact none other than Jesse Jackson.
And I'm here to tell you, while I was dead serious about wanting him to win, and honestly believed his Presidency would be good for the nation and world, I also had no doubt whatsoever that he was not in fact going to be the front runner at the Convention. What I was pushing for in supporting Jackson was to open the door to the sort of progressive thinking that Jackson represented and encouraged, to bring a breath of fresh air to mainstream Democratic leadership that was paralyzed like deer in the headlights by the hegemony of Reaganism. I did not expect a radical like Jackson or myself to hold power; I did cherish the hope that if we turned out in enough numbers, the Party leadership would give us some consideration, and thereby find alternatives to attempting to look as much like Reagan Republicans as possible, and thereby win.
I'm also here to tell you, that when we of course did not get the nomination, and instead of reaching out to us the party sought to distance itself as much as possible, we did not sabotage our party in a fit of pique. I was there in the autumn, in October and November, to push for Dukakis, and about half the other people I saw at the Democratic HQ were from the Rainbow Coalition too. We showed up to help.
So when I say, "this ATL makes no sense," it is hardly because I'm hostile to the idea of Jackson winning.
I'd sure enjoy reading a Jackson wins in November 1988 timeline, but as a street fighter in that particular war, I'd be looking for a POD pretty far back and pretty deep, much deeper than some political dirty trick mudslinging, to get an American electorate so much closer to my own heart than I dared imagine it could be at the time.