AHC: Clinton not impeached, 1998

Let's say that when Lewinsky is revealed, Newt decides to not pursue impeachment but censure instead. Presumably without the voters getting fed up with Newt's vendetta (quite hypocritical as it turned out) with Clinton, the GOP make their expected gains in November '98 and Newt remains Speaker. Effects?
 
Gore's still a robot though, and there's also the two-term rule. Excepting Bush I in 1988 and Reagan in 1980, the WH has alternated every 8 years for the past 60 years. Gore and Clinton's relationship had been somewhat contentious since 1997 because Gore was semi-openly aiming for the presidency and sometimes going against Clinton. An example would be Gonzalez, which might've been to secure his Hispanic flank against Bush. Gore publicly disagreed with Clinton and Reno. Another, though unspoken factor was that he was competing with Hillary for the vice presidency, somewhat analogous to the Kennedy brothers and Lyndon Johnson, though much more... civil and sedate.
 
Still, had the Gore campaign accepted the offer to have Bill campaign in the South, he could have taken Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, etc. and win the presidency even while losing Florida.
 
Agreed on that one, though Gore's positions on several environmental and trade issues had helped Bush in the South. Bush was, after all, the first true Southerner to be nominated by the GOP. (I don't count his father as one)
 
At the very least, Clinton might have been able to tip his home state in Gore's favor. Given the closeness of the electoral map, that means Gore wins the election. If we presume a Gore victory in Arkansas thanks to Clinton, and everything else stays the same, I wonder what happens in Florida. With the election more or less decided, would there be any attention payed to the issues there that lead to the race being undecided for so long IOTL, or would Gore be content not to challenge Bush's victory there, having already won the Presidency.
 
Probably he'd leave it alone. For instance, McCain won Missouri in 2008 by fewer than 4,000 electoral votes. Obama could have legally asked for a recount, but he decided not to since it wouldn't really matter.
 
To be honest, if anything, Gore would lose by a larger margin in 2000. The GOP squandered alot of its political capital trying to get Clinton removed from office. Without that, the Republicans certainly would have gained seats in Congress in 1998, and once that happened, George W. Bush may not have even been the canidate in 2000.
 
So Newt remains as Speaker, which should have interesting butterflies in itself. Again, the winner of SC in 2000 is the nominee. If it's a McCain-Voinovich ticket against Gore, then the EV count might be closer to 2008 D than OTL 2000 or 2004 R. Ditto for Bush-Cheney without the DUI being revealed.
 
To be honest, if anything, Gore would lose by a larger margin in 2000. The GOP squandered alot of its political capital trying to get Clinton removed from office. Without that, the Republicans certainly would have gained seats in Congress in 1998, and once that happened, George W. Bush may not have even been the canidate in 2000.

I think this is a very fair point. Gingrich's pursuit of the impeachment really derailed the House leadership, and hurt the Republicans in the eyes of the public. This is evident in the poor GOP performance in the '98 midterms. The year should have seen some moderate gains as Clinton suffered from the 6 year itch. When I can be bothered, maybe tomorrow, I might look into the close races of '98 and see how many more Senators the GOP could have had. Don't know if D'Amato could have held, but Faircloth would have and Matt Fong may have done better against Boxer.

As for 2000, Bush made much of his early campaign about character. Without that being such a pressing edge, it could butterfly away his advantage over McCain, or possibly encourage him to listen to Rove and get the DUI information out earlier when it would be less damaging. The latter reportedly involved Bush's personal views as to how his daughters would react, so I can't say that would happen for certain.

By the way, I expect most agree that this wouldn't change much for Gingrich's career. Even without impeachment proceedings, the ethics violations and own extramarital affair still happens. Gingrich looks like less of a hypocrite on the latter, if he doesn't pursue Clinton as hard, but he still remains a polarizing liability. Although he doesn't suffer the indignity of losing seats in the House, the plans to drop him as Speaker were well underway before then.
 
Top