AH challange: President Ron Paul

At some point prior to the campaign, Paul realizes that it's a bad idea to try to win Republican support using left-wing arguments like "our empire" or blaming the U.S. for 9/11.

(The latter point gravely injured his chances of victory)

Instead, he starts channeling Pat Buchanan--focusing on the national interest, etc.

Another POD could be that Barack Obama stays in Illinois or even in the U.S. Senate. One reason Paul didn't win the GOP primary in New Hampshire was the fact many "independents" went for Barack Obama.

Another POD could be McCain, burned by 2000, stays out. This frees up more independents for Paul.
 

NomadicSky

Banned
I would have voted for him if the republican primary hadn't been chosen for me by the time it came to Mississippi.
 

wormyguy

Banned
John McCain, in his senility, repeatedly calls Barack Obama "that negro" during a speech.

The press discovers Mitt Romney's second and third wives (and families) in their residences in Wyoming and New Hampshire.

Mike Huckabee is discovered to have consumed crystal meth with a male prostitute.

Barack Obama admits to being a Muslim, and it is also established that his birth certificate was forged and he was actually born in Kenya.

Hillary Clinton is indicted on charges of conspiracy and murder for ordering the killing of Vince Foster.

Joe Biden, after hearing about the aforementioned John McCain speech, calls him a "scumbag racist, like everyone else in Arizona."

That should do it.
 
Ron Paul had as much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination as Dennis Kuchinich had of being the Democratic nominee. Both are on the fringes of their respective parties, Paul being the uber-conservative (say, 1920s style) and Kuchinich being the ultra-liberal (someone who hasn't grown out of the 1960s). While those may appeal to certain elements of their respective parties' base constituents, running a general election campaign basically appealing to those elements is a recipe for electorial suicide. You have to appeal to the center, and even some in the other party, if you want to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
 
Nuclear war leaves America in ruins. Ron Paul is one of the last surviving politicians being out of Washington lecturing about the importance of the gold standard on the eave of a decapitation strike. The other canidates were not so lucky being vaporized in their respective campaign stops. In the aftermath, the military sees Ron Paul as a natural head for a civilian government.
 
He would win if...
-All the Republicans backed the Iraq War.
-The Democratic Nominee backed the Iraq War.
-Iraq was visibly seen as a disaster.
 
The military wouldn't recognize Paul as a candidate for civilian govt. after a decapitation strike. At least one of the Presidential successors is out of D.C. at any time, so that there would be a successor ready to take the oath, get aboard NEACP, and get on with retaliation. The surviving members of Congress would elect a new Speaker, who would be next in line, and the Senate survivors would elect a new President Pro Tem, who would follow the Speaker. Only if there is no surviving successor does the military take over government (the document has been mentioned in several books dealing with WW III, it's called PD-58, and it was issued by none other than Mr. Peanut in 1979).
 
Easy. All the other Republican candidates fall into a hole in time and space, and the Democrats for some reason nominate Rod Blagojevich.

On second thoughts, this one is pretty tricky.
 
I think there's actually a fairly sane Ron Paul TL around here.

It involved Giuliani winning Florida and dicing up the Republican vote even more finely, so we ended up with a Paul-Giuliani squeaker.

I think it was strongly implied the ticket would lose to Obama though.
 
I think there's actually a fairly sane Ron Paul TL around here.

It involved Giuliani winning Florida and dicing up the Republican vote even more finely, so we ended up with a Paul-Giuliani squeaker.

I think it was strongly implied the ticket would lose to Obama though.

basically follows my personal reasoning. I cant see the republican party actually nominating Ron Paul unless the primaries are very bitterly contested and/or all the other candidates are discredited or just hate each other so much that he emerges as the only real compromise pick. But if the republicans self-destruct in the primaries to that degree (at least as bad as Obama-Clinton was supposed to be), and Paul comes out on top (may or may not alientate sections of the party, the general election will probably be all but uwinnable (as if the GOP wasn't in a tough enough spot already).
 
John McCain confesses to being a Jew and a citizen of Panama, and Barrack Obama admits to being a Muslim terrorist like the right wing says and a Kenyan, and then suicide bombs the Republican convention. The only survivor...Ron Paul.
 
Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul combine into one conservative super hero, and Ron Paul become 1/4 of the president.
 
Top