AHC: Have Reagan lose in 1984
- Thread starter Halv Cyra
- Start date
The easy solution is a delayed economic recovery. Having the POD after the recovery is much tougher.
But here goes:
But here goes:
- Reagan's budding Alzheimers becomes even more noticeable in the second debate - there is no "youth/experience" quip.
- Mondale picks someone like Dale Bumpers as VP, rather than Geraldine Ferraro.
- No "I will raise your taxes" line at the Convention.
- Less identity politics during the campaign.
In January, 1983 Reagan's job approval ratings were quite low--35 percent. https://news.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx This is quite understandable, in that unemployment had peaked at 10.8 percent in November-December 1982. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/UNRATE.txt The only way I can see to have Reagan lose "after the recovery" is to have only a nominal recovery--GDP increases but unemployment goes down only very slowly. This probably requires a Federal Reserve Board much more worried about inflation (even after it had been drastically cut) than the one of OTL.
I don't see any plausible way for Reagan to lose after the recovery of OTL. Joking about Mondale's "youth and inexperience" was apparently a sufficient response to the "senility issue" for most voters...
Easiest way to have him lose is if he's caught in bed with the proverbial dead girl or live boy.
Reagan did terribly in the first debate with Mondale. In OTL, his second debate performance was a big improvement, but if he stumbles a second time, Mondale has a shot.
I'm trying to find my SHWI post in which Reagan manages to recite "The Man from Nantucket" limerick on live TV*, narrowly loses to Mondale, and a bitter racist old coot takes out President Mondale and several other people with a grenade to make Geraldine Ferraro the forty-first president. It's just as well that I can't find it, as it obviously contains bad words, racial language in the thoughts of the assassin, looks like a political wank when (for me) it definitely isn't... And is wildly implausible in any case.
But, yeah, it would probably take something silly if it's a post-1980 POD.
*=I didn't even know about "We begin bombing in five minutes" when I wrote it.
But, yeah, it would probably take something silly if it's a post-1980 POD.
*=I didn't even know about "We begin bombing in five minutes" when I wrote it.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
And even in Feb. ‘84 when we had the Iowa Caucus (Feb. 20th) and the New Hampshire Primary (Feb. 28th), unemployment was 7.8%. And continued:
March 1984: 7.8% unemployment
April 1984: 7.7% 〃
May 1984: 7.4% 〃
* and if we add in people working part-time who are seeking full-time, the unemployment rate is a couple of full percentage points higher
November 1984: 7.2% unemployment
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It is the direction in which unemployment is moving, not the actual rate, that is decisive for a president's re-election. After all, unemployment was still pretty high when FDR won by a landslide in November 1936.
And in any event, while the 7.2% rate of November 1984 may not look like "morning in America" it was not only an improvement over the 1982 recession but over the 7.5% when Reagan was elected in November 1980.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
Maybe if Gary Hart’s “new ideas” actually had some substance to them! 
I’m sorry, but he was kind of like a novel with a promising beginning, but with a middle with not much meat. And Americans wanted new ideas on how to improve the economy, and also ideas with enough familiarity that they’d be comfortable actually trying.
Maybe Hart comes out easy confidence about being pro-union. Maybe he talks about infrastructure and takes the high road and gets credit for taking the high road. I mean, people believe in infrastructure so much, you’ve got to point out that there might not be as many jobs as you think and these are going to be more in the nature of temporary jobs, that’s the high road. And give me several more.
possibility 3: _________________________
possibility 4: ____________________________________________
possibility 5: ___________________________________
I’m sorry, but he was kind of like a novel with a promising beginning, but with a middle with not much meat. And Americans wanted new ideas on how to improve the economy, and also ideas with enough familiarity that they’d be comfortable actually trying.
Maybe Hart comes out easy confidence about being pro-union. Maybe he talks about infrastructure and takes the high road and gets credit for taking the high road. I mean, people believe in infrastructure so much, you’ve got to point out that there might not be as many jobs as you think and these are going to be more in the nature of temporary jobs, that’s the high road. And give me several more.
possibility 3: _________________________
possibility 4: ____________________________________________
possibility 5: ___________________________________
I suspect that Reagan could/would have won even if the unemployment rate had remained around that level in 1984. I despise most of what he stands for, but he was simply one of the best campaigners that the United States has ever produced - his response (that you refer to) to the age issue remains the greatest zinger in presidential debate history IMO.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
I agree that voters are very attune to the direction in which things are moving. Voters are going to compare election day Nov. ‘84 to the depths of the 1982 recession (at the time, worse downturn since the great depression).
In addition, humans in general believe in “strong medicine” which is why earlier peoples believed in bleeding the patient and giving freezing baths to mentally ill persons. So, people are predisposed to believe in such things as “wringing” excess inflation out of the economy. Or, they want to believe their sacrifice amounts to something,
rather than simply the missed opportunity of an underperforming economy.
The economy happened to peak exactly at the time of the election. If you keep that, you have to go with the obviously senile Reagan route. Though I think Mondale could have chosen an better VP and promise not to raise taxes, reversing these would far from give him the election (and could even hurt with the VP, since polls showed that Ferraro was not really that bad) and there was really nothing the Mondale campaign could have done to change the outcome.
Interestingly, recent Senatorial elections have provided some tests of the "Reagan obviously senile" scenario, where Republican candidates in good positions to win turned out to be either too old or too wacky. A few of these won anyway. A more common scenario was the 2017 Senate election in Alabama, where most voters really wanted to vote for the Republican candidate, but the judge who got the nomination was just too far out there, meaning the fairly inoffensive Democrat won.
Now if Reagan's dementia set in in 1984, what would probably have happened is that the Reagans would have agreed to not run for a second term or drop out of the race (Nancy would have been fine with this decision in these circumstances) with Bush being the nominee. If it happened during the fall campaign it would have been messy. Also the 25th Amendment probably would have been invoked. Bush lacked Reagan's personal popularity. I think Bush wins, but its a closer race, look at the 1988 results where Dukakis arguably ran a worse campaign than Mondale, and you can maybe get some lucky butterfly bounces for Mondale if you are doing a scenario.
The problem with Hart is that something would have come our or been ginned up to get his campaign to collapse eventually.
Interestingly, recent Senatorial elections have provided some tests of the "Reagan obviously senile" scenario, where Republican candidates in good positions to win turned out to be either too old or too wacky. A few of these won anyway. A more common scenario was the 2017 Senate election in Alabama, where most voters really wanted to vote for the Republican candidate, but the judge who got the nomination was just too far out there, meaning the fairly inoffensive Democrat won.
Now if Reagan's dementia set in in 1984, what would probably have happened is that the Reagans would have agreed to not run for a second term or drop out of the race (Nancy would have been fine with this decision in these circumstances) with Bush being the nominee. If it happened during the fall campaign it would have been messy. Also the 25th Amendment probably would have been invoked. Bush lacked Reagan's personal popularity. I think Bush wins, but its a closer race, look at the 1988 results where Dukakis arguably ran a worse campaign than Mondale, and you can maybe get some lucky butterfly bounces for Mondale if you are doing a scenario.
The problem with Hart is that something would have come our or been ginned up to get his campaign to collapse eventually.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
Was improving, but didn’t peak till later.
Things didn’t start to get good until Dec. ‘86 when the unemployment rate dropped to 6.6%.
And continued to steadily improve with unemployment at 5.3% in Nov. and Dec. ‘88.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/UNRATE.txt
(and Reagan’s first year out of office was pretty good, too
)The only plausible scenario after 1983 is having Iran-Contra or something similar break during the campaign. This might require an earlier POD depending on whether you believe arms shipments to Iran began in 1985 or ealier.
I would agree with all of this as being a very possible(if stretching plausibility just a tad!), though I feel that I should correct you on that last bit, for realism's sake: it really should be more, not less, identity politics(or what passed for a right-wing type of such in the '80s)-less of it actually might help Reagan, if anything(not that he really needed extra help IOTL, but.....). More of it, OTOH, would run the risk of alienating moderate voters.
Good point, David. So maybe a notably delayed economic recovery, some notable mistakes on Reagan's part(like going harder on the conservative version of identity politics), and perhaps worsened Alzheimer's early on could make things rather tougher for Reagan in '84, at least compared to the monumental landslide of OTL.