A world without Sept. 11th, the little changes

Politically, Bush is probably just a one-term President. The economy was heading for a minor recession prior to 9/11, which led to a market downturn but not the recession itself. That probably becomes a bigger issue in 2002 than it was in OTL, thus leading to a bad midterm result for the Republicans. The Democrats gain between four and five seats in the Senate (possibly even Texas, which was very close in the polling between Big John Cornyn and Ron Kirk). They gain a majority which effectively blocks any major legislation passed between 2002 and 2004. The Democrats also retake the House, meaning that Dick Gephardt becomes Speaker (take away whatever you want from that).

In 2004, Bush campaigns largely on traditional Republican issues such as taxes, moral values, and Social Security reform. He also touches on immigration as an issues to woo Latino voters. The Democrats probably nominate a domestic policy candidate rather than Kerry, whose expertise was and still is foreign policy. Maybe Tom Daschle, Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd run. I doubt very much Hillary or Gore, as both had good reasons not to seek the Presidency (and Gore was in his crazy stage). If the Democrats nominate a strong candidate, than they can defeat Bush in a close election by attacking his proposals for Social Security and the weak economy. After that, it's anyone's guess as to what could happen.
 
hcallega, I strongly disagree.

I think Bush gets re-elected in 2004 with or without 9/11. People forget how hard it is to unseat a sitting President unless you have a) a top-notch challenger or b) truly awful underlying economic conditions (or preferably, both). Clinton managed to knock off Bush in '92 with both -- but only with some serious help from Ross Perot.

9/11 gave Bush a short-term boost in popularity, but by 2004, that had faded (particularly among independents). Meanwhile, the Iraq war seriously drove *up* Democratic turnout. If I had to guess, I'd say that 9/11 and its aftermath made Bush more vulnerable, not less, in 2004.

As for Republican turnout -- it strikes me that much of it (as you point out) was not driven by 9/11, but by typical Republican issues. Indeed, Rove had already begun to engineer the get-out-the-vote strategy pre-2001, getting ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage on the ballot in virtually every swing state. That remains the case with no 9/11.

I also think John Kerry is probably the nominee no matter what; you're forgetting that all of the Democratic party insiders rallied around Kerry as the "strategic" choice to stop Howard Dean (remember those "Dated Dean, Married Kerry" stickers?).

In retrospect, that was pretty stupid of those Democratic primary voters: Kerry was going to be tagged as more liberal than any other potential Democratic nominee, plus he's an awful campaigner with zero charisma. (Indeed, it's hard to imagine Dean doing worse than Kerry vs. Bush in OTL.) But the prevailing wisdom at the time was to the contrary -- as evidenced by what actually happened.

In any event, if Kerry doesn't win the nomination in 2004, it almost certainly would have gone to John Edwards, which would have been much, much worse for the Democrats given that he's banging Rielle Hunter at this point in time. I don't see much in the way of alternatives; Biden wasn't running in 2004 and Dodd is a 1% kind of guy. Maybe one of them winds up as Edwards' running mate?

To be fair, there is one counter-point in Kerry's favor in a world without 9/11: as part of his craven opportunism in the shadow of 9/11, Kerry voted for the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the USA*PATRIOT Act. Without 9/11, the last two votes don't come up, and maybe Kerry grows a bit of a spine on the first one. If so, then *maybe* he's a slightly stronger, less windsurf-y candidate in 2004.

But I still don't see that as being enough to unseat a sitting President.
 
Moore:
Moore was highly critical of Bush IOTL even before 9/11 in his books. Of course, since he was also highly critical of Clinton IOTL and a 2000 Nader-backer IOTL...
2000 Election aftermath:
There were still studies of the 2000 vote going on- and none would have looked good for Bush.
Iraq:
Bush did launch a minor bombing raid on Iraq in 2001 before 9/11. Meanwhile the Cheney Energy Task Force was discussing the amount of and location of oil in Iraq. He would have sought a way to go in sooner or later...perhaps without the excuse of looking for WMDs?
Dawkins:
Dawkins was already an outspoken atheist (Look up "Oolon Colluphid"...). He's likely have made "The God Delusion" without 9/11 (or 11/9 in his case...)
Country:
It's very likely that the Dixie Chicks would not have made their remark about George W. Bush had he not been so unpopular elsewhere thanks to invading Iraq. They could potentially still be around. Based on that, they might have listened to a song by a young up-and-coming songwriter and decided to put it on an album. The song was entitled "Teardrops on my Guitar", which helped launch the career of Taylor Swift...
 
No such luck, Chengar.

Even without 9/11, Michael Moore still makes Bowling for Columbine in response to Columbine (which happened in 1999) and becomes known as a lefty political activist.

Now, Moore will not be an invited guest to the DNC in 2004 without 9/11, of course....

Yeah, most likely. Which is a pity, since I actually thought Roger & Me and Canadia Bacon were decently watchable, compared to the "documentaries" which mostly consisted of blatant lies he started producing later on.
 
Bush's plan would have invested a small amount (1 percent if memory serves) in the private sector as an "experiment" to see if the program could be privatized in that manner. That's one program, and one he saw himself as making work better. Last I checked, good government =?= right wing.

He still doubled the size of the federal Department of Education, a government agency not seven years prior his party was trying to abolish. He sought passage of McCain-Feingold and signed it into law. He signed Sarbox, the business accounting law the Right loathed. Further, he added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in the largest expansion of that program since it became law.

But in now way does that make Bush particularly "right-wing" without rendering that term meaningless.



So Bush was a better Democrat than Obama?
 
Dawkins:
Dawkins was already an outspoken atheist (Look up "Oolon Colluphid"...). He's likely have made "The God Delusion" without 9/11 (or 11/9 in his case...)

No question that Dawkins is still an outspoken atheist ITTL; my point is just that the gateway for popular New Atheist books in OTL was Sam Harris' The End of Faith, and Harris has explicitly said that he wrote the book (and received the opportunity to publish it, which is of course equally important) in response to 9/11.

Absent 9/11, there's no Sam Harris, and thus no market for New Atheist books. Dawkins still writes The Greatest Show on Earth and remains as merciless to creationists as ever, of course.
 
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