AH Challenge: President Dennis Kucinich
- Thread starter Han
- Start date
Wow... hmm... not easy. 
2004, no 9/11, no Iraq war. Howard Dean's campaign is a non-starter. John Edwards is more openly exposed as a philanderer and a hypocrite for the couple of dozen people to whom it wasn't immediately obvious.
This leaves John Kerry, running his campaign mostly as OTL, only with less of an emphasis on foreign policy - his plan is to win the Presidency by "not being George W. Bush"
Dick Gephardt also has more of a following now, but with the reasonable popularity of Bush is trying to position himself as a moderate. It is proving to be a hard sell though, as the economy is doing reasonably well and independents are leaning toward reelecting Bush. He succeeds in taking a fair share of conservative Democrats away from Kerry.
Kucinich meanwhile is the only openly proud liberal in the group. Many other candidates, including Al Gore were driven away due to perceived invincibility of Bush in a good economy without any controversial foreign policy decisions ITTL.
Frustrated members of the hard left flock to Kucinich though. He is the hero of Moveon.org and DailyKos. These people still believe that Bush stole the 2000 election and are excited about having their chance to be rid of him. With no Howard Dean, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Kerry and Gephardt looking like they sold out, Dennis Kucinich is their man. Republicans and moderates find this odd, but the ideologue will win the nomination this year.
Kucinich uses his midwestern roots to edge out Gephardt in Iowa. Kerry wins New Hampshire, but not strongly - Kucinich places a close 2nd. Gephardt takes South Carolina. Kucinich wins narrowly in Michigan and Wisconsin, big in Washington, Hawaii, and D.C. The other early states are split between Gephardt and Kerry as they each take a share of the other's voters. With momentum showing Kucinich can realistically take this, liberals get excited giving him big Super Tuesday victories in CA, CT, MD, MA, NY, RI, and of course Ohio.
Okay, so that gets him the nomination. Just gotta figure out what ASB scandal gets Bush so that this doesn't end up being a 1984 style drubbing.
2004, no 9/11, no Iraq war. Howard Dean's campaign is a non-starter. John Edwards is more openly exposed as a philanderer and a hypocrite for the couple of dozen people to whom it wasn't immediately obvious.
This leaves John Kerry, running his campaign mostly as OTL, only with less of an emphasis on foreign policy - his plan is to win the Presidency by "not being George W. Bush"
Dick Gephardt also has more of a following now, but with the reasonable popularity of Bush is trying to position himself as a moderate. It is proving to be a hard sell though, as the economy is doing reasonably well and independents are leaning toward reelecting Bush. He succeeds in taking a fair share of conservative Democrats away from Kerry.
Kucinich meanwhile is the only openly proud liberal in the group. Many other candidates, including Al Gore were driven away due to perceived invincibility of Bush in a good economy without any controversial foreign policy decisions ITTL.
Frustrated members of the hard left flock to Kucinich though. He is the hero of Moveon.org and DailyKos. These people still believe that Bush stole the 2000 election and are excited about having their chance to be rid of him. With no Howard Dean, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Kerry and Gephardt looking like they sold out, Dennis Kucinich is their man. Republicans and moderates find this odd, but the ideologue will win the nomination this year.
Kucinich uses his midwestern roots to edge out Gephardt in Iowa. Kerry wins New Hampshire, but not strongly - Kucinich places a close 2nd. Gephardt takes South Carolina. Kucinich wins narrowly in Michigan and Wisconsin, big in Washington, Hawaii, and D.C. The other early states are split between Gephardt and Kerry as they each take a share of the other's voters. With momentum showing Kucinich can realistically take this, liberals get excited giving him big Super Tuesday victories in CA, CT, MD, MA, NY, RI, and of course Ohio.
Okay, so that gets him the nomination. Just gotta figure out what ASB scandal gets Bush so that this doesn't end up being a 1984 style drubbing.
Wow... hmm... not easy.
2004, no 9/11, no Iraq war. Howard Dean's campaign is a non-starter. John Edwards is more openly exposed as a philanderer and a hypocrite for the couple of dozen people to whom it wasn't immediately obvious.
This leaves John Kerry, running his campaign mostly as OTL, only with less of an emphasis on foreign policy - his plan is to win the Presidency by "not being George W. Bush"
Dick Gephardt also has more of a following now, but with the reasonable popularity of Bush is trying to position himself as a moderate. It is proving to be a hard sell though, as the economy is doing reasonably well and independents are leaning toward reelecting Bush. He succeeds in taking a fair share of conservative Democrats away from Kerry.
Kucinich meanwhile is the only openly proud liberal in the group. Many other candidates, including Al Gore were driven away due to perceived invincibility of Bush in a good economy without any controversial foreign policy decisions ITTL.
Frustrated members of the hard left flock to Kucinich though. He is the hero of Moveon.org and DailyKos. These people still believe that Bush stole the 2000 election and are excited about having their chance to be rid of him. With no Howard Dean, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Kerry and Gephardt looking like they sold out, Dennis Kucinich is their man. Republicans and moderates find this odd, but the ideologue will win the nomination this year.
Kucinich uses his midwestern roots to edge out Gephardt in Iowa. Kerry wins New Hampshire, but not strongly - Kucinich places a close 2nd. Gephardt takes South Carolina. Kucinich wins narrowly in Michigan and Wisconsin, big in Washington, Hawaii, and D.C. The other early states are split between Gephardt and Kerry as they each take a share of the other's voters. With momentum showing Kucinich can realistically take this, liberals get excited giving him big Super Tuesday victories in CA, CT, MD, MA, NY, RI, and of course Ohio.
Okay, so that gets him the nomination. Just gotta figure out what ASB scandal gets Bush so that this doesn't end up being a 1984 style drubbing.
Have Bush die accidentally late in the campaign season. You'd get Cheney vs. Kucinich. Who would moderates choose? Especially with no threats of war?
But without the war, is Cheney vilified as he grew to be IOTL? Plus you'd have the sympathy effect of the recent tragic death of who would be ITTL fairly popular President. Going up vs. a hard liberal... Suppose Kennedy had died in September of 1964, would Goldwater be any more viable?
Unless Republicans politicize everything terribly as was done by Democrats IOTL with Paul Wellstone I would think Cheney would win that. Jeb Bush meanwhile is set up for 2008.
Unless Republicans politicize everything terribly as was done by Democrats IOTL with Paul Wellstone I would think Cheney would win that. Jeb Bush meanwhile is set up for 2008.
IDK but Kucinich unless he does really well would be a one term against Jeb
It would help the project immensely to go back to the 1970s and wipe out his disastrous tenure as Mayor of Cleveland. One way to do this would be for him to win the 1974 Dem primary for the House that he narrowly lost to Ron Mottl. Glenn and Metzenbaum aren't going anywhere in the Senate, so his next chance to move up would have been to run for Governor in Ohio in 1982. He beats Celeste, Brown and Springer in the primary and runs for President in either 1988 or 1992, which might be plausible if his term was reasonably successful, as being a relatively popular governor from Ohio is a good credential for general election appeal. Assuming he's stayed on the side of reason policywise, it's not far-fetched to imagine him beating either Dukakis or Clinton in 1988 or 1992, respectively. With Ohio in his back pocket as a favorite son, either campaign will look quite different than the OTL version. Celeste, incidentally, wound up finished as a national candidate because of scandals in his administration as governor; otherwise, he might have been a candidate for national office.
An interesting corollary to this scenario is that if Celeste and Kucinich had split the Dem primary vote base in NE Ohio in 1982, you've created a possible path for Governor (and possibly future President) Jerry Springer.
An interesting corollary to this scenario is that if Celeste and Kucinich had split the Dem primary vote base in NE Ohio in 1982, you've created a possible path for Governor (and possibly future President) Jerry Springer.