AHC: Elect Al Gore President..In 1988

Gore, instead of our modern image of 2000 "wooden robot", was seen as a strong attack dog. Bush was very quiet and robotic in comparison, the reason OTL "read my lips, no new taxes" stuck on him was the force with which he said it, it's probably the most forceful thing he ever said during a speech; it should have been his version of "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall"... except, well, we know what happened. If he had not "broken" the promise, he probably would have been able to run on that against Clinton in 1992 with "sure it's the economy, but I'm not stupid and that guy wants to raise your taxes during a bad economic time, I've held the line and kept my promise". If Gore's son had not been in a car accident in '92 it's likely he would have run, and probably would have beaten Clinton (since Clinton did not win Iowa or NH, a Gore that did better than Clinton in both states would have won SC instead of Clinton).

For a VP I think a Gore in '88 might choose Cuomo of NY, who remember was considered the potential front runner" before he chose not to run. This is MUCH more realistic than Moynihan, he worked for Nixon for pete's sake, had a bad policy quote about "needing to ignore race for awhile", and wasn't exactly as pro-choice as a Dem should be.

This idea of needing to "balance geography" was proven a falacy in politics when Clinton chose Gore; a necessity for Democrats after the Reagan revolution created a solid South for Republicans. Bush didn't exactly have much a geographic "home", he was seen as being from MA, NH, CT, TX, DC... Haha, how fun would it be to have a Gore/Clinton '88 ticket! Clinton would've been Arkansas governor at the time for the second non-consecutive time; he was well-known enough to have been considered as a natural candidate after Cuomo and Hart declined. You could see a '88 primary of Clinton and Gore where Gore ends up respecting how Clinton campaigns hard and is "likeable" and just as Kerry picked Edwards in 2000 after having having campaigned against him in the primaries (or Reagan picking Bush in 1980 after running in a primary against him). No matter how likely it could be, I like the fun of seeing a Gore/Clinton '88 against Bush/Quayle campaign. But most of all it is more likely than a Moynihan as VP candidate. That's never going to happen in the Democratic Party of '88.

I doubt anyone who had a good vetting process was going to pick Bill Clinton as their running mate. While I do think a lot of the attacks on Clinton in the 90s were politically motivated, he still had too much dirt on him.
 
I actually agree with you, for the most part. Moynihan was more of the best Northerner who fit the profile, who wouldn't turn it down as I suspect Cuomo would. I think Wendell Ford of Kentucky would probably be a better fit for Gore in 1988.
 
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