AHC : Make Obama a modern Cleveland

[galileo-034]

That's just an idea that propped up in head.
WI Obama had been defeated for reelection in 2012, losing in the electoral college but winning in the popular vote, perhaps massively like OTL 2016, then would run in 2016 to reclaim the presidency like Cleveland in 1892.

How could that happen?

 

[Abradolf Lincler]

It depends on who else is running if its trump then he'll probably sweep the floor with him

 

[20thCenturyBoy]

Well I don’t think he’d run in 2016, he’d be too unpopular still. I think he should stay behind the scenes like Nixon did and he would be campaigning for democrats all over the nation and build up his cards. Then he runs in 2020 where Romney overreach occurs. Obama wins again and his VP choice probably wins in 2024. Maybe in 2016 If a massive recession occurs or some social injustice like less gay rights.

 

[creighton]

This is semantics, but I don't really consider 2016 to be an electoral college blowout, since 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012 were wider EC margins. So Obama could suffer that size loss without being a Mondale type figure.

If he kept it close, he'd be a unique figure in time where he's young enough that he'd have 5ish more election cycles where he could plausibly run, and he was scandal free enough that it's plausible people would look back on the Romney economic gains as something he helped create a foundation for.

Edit: This isn't related to the OP question, but I just wanted to go back and see how close we could get to an Obama loss without major PODs. On election day 2012, Romney's voter turnout program, Narwhal, crashed and left them unable to do a decent amount of GOTV calls. Now, if you flip it, and crash OFA's VAN GOTV, you could probably suppress the Obama unlikely voters in Florida, Ohio and Virginia enough to flip them to Romney-- every other state was outside of the 4ish percent that field generally makes a difference in. In that event, Obama still wins with 272, so we'd need a few more PODs than a fluke event to get an Obama loss.

 

[samcster94]

This is semantics, but I don't really consider 2016 to be an electoral college blowout, since 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012 were wider EC margins. So Obama could suffer that size loss without being a Mondale type figure.

If he kept it close, he'd be a unique figure in time where he's young enough that he'd have 5ish more election cycles where he could plausibly run, and he was scandal free enough that it's plausible people would look back on the Romney economic gains as something he helped create a foundation for.

Edit: This isn't related to the OP question, but I just wanted to go back and see how close we could get to an Obama loss without major PODs. On election day 2012, Romney's voter turnout program, Narwhal, crashed and left them unable to do a decent amount of GOTV calls. Now, if you flip it, and crash OFA's VAN GOTV, you could probably suppress the Obama unlikely voters in Florida, Ohio and Virginia enough to flip them to Romney-- every other state was outside of the 4ish percent that field generally makes a difference in. In that event, Obama still wins with 272, so we'd need a few more PODs than a fluke event to get an Obama loss.

The ONLY modern Pres that could probably pull it off would be Gerald Ford. Imagine him running in 1980, but he runs a good campaign and have something improbable like the Iran hostage deal have dead hostages or something. Obama, not really. I can imagine Obama as a Supreme Court justice under a different Democrat though.

 

[creighton]

The ONLY modern Pres that could probably pull it off would be Gerald Ford. Imagine him running in 1980, but he runs a good campaign and have something improbable like the Iran hostage deal have dead hostages or something. Obama, not really. I can imagine Obama as a Supreme Court justice under a different Democrat though.

Eh, I don't know, you could give me the right conditions for Bush to do it in 1996. Maybe Clinton goes into Rwanda and it goes worst case scenario situation where we can't pull out without risking genocide again, but it's starting to bleed American troops, in a similar manner to how the country felt about Iraq in 2006 (subbing in risk of terrorism for genocide), and the conditions were favorable for a Bush mulligan because of his foreign policy expertise. Also, I'm curious about the dismissal of Obama's youth in a close loss, assuming economic growth picks up. My thought is that if the economy picked up, the retrospective view on Obama would be good president; bad timing, not dissimilar to how people view HW now--except he'd be young enough to capitalize on it.

 

[samcster94]

Eh, I don't know, you could give me the right conditions for Bush to do it in 1996. Maybe Clinton goes into Rwanda and it goes worst case scenario situation where we can't pull out without risking genocide again, but it's starting to bleed American troops, in a similar manner to how the country felt about Iraq in 2006, and the conditions were favorable for a Bush mulligan because of his foreign policy expertise. Also, I'm curious about the dismissal of Obama's youth in a close loss, assuming economic growth picks up. My thought is that if the economy picked up, the retrospective view on Obama would be good president; bad timing, not dissimilar to how people view HW now--except he'd be young enough to capitalize on it.

Bush 96 might be possible, especially with the sexual harassment stuff coming out in 94(and an even worse midterm).

 

[creighton]

Oh yeah, you could totally do the worst-case scenario Carter in 79, Bush in 91 to Clinton in 94-95.

 

[SamuraisShadow]

I do think the Race issue makes Obama a more likely candidate than most. An Obama who narrowly lost in 2012, but then has a much more positive view by history, might be seen as “A good president at the wrong time”, and could come back quite strongly in 2020, if not 2016, thanks to his age I think

 

[Octosteel]

Should we also include the economic meltdown in that second term that leads to him being despised, almost destroy his party, and completely repudiate his legacy? Because that's the other part of pulling a Cleveland

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

The two unique things about Cleveland was the electoral college/ popular vote reversal, and he actually ran the next time and voters made sure the reversal didn't happen again.

No other Prez running for re-election has won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college. I think any time this happens, the defeated Prez has an excellent chance of returning to the White House in four years if he wants to. There are a number of cases where the defeated Prez would simply be too old to run four years later, or even not alive four years later.

Now many instances where a Prez ran for re-election the result wasn't close, usually when the Prez is re-elected in a landslide, but also for Hoover and Taft among defeats. So to get the reversal you have to start changing the timeline of the administration to make the re-election close. In fact Obama's re-election in 2012 was fairly unusual (its happened two or three other times) in the President being elected in a close election.

Some political scientists think Nixon won the popular vote in 1960 and lost in the electoral college, at least it was super close, and he came back and was elected later, like Cleveland. I think Tilden and Gore would have done the same if they had run. We will see about Hillary Clinton, though her age will be a problem, but then the same factor will affect Trump if he runs for re-election.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

In other countries there are more instances of a nominated candidate losing a race for the chief executive and running and winning later, also with state governors in the US. But the only instances I can think of with the US presidency are with Andrew Jackson, William Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and Richard Nixon, though there have been a few other instances (Pickney, Clay, Bryan, Dewey, and Stevenson) of multiple nominations of defeated candidates. This is probably the luck of the draw more than anything, since in the modern era runners up in the nomination contest getting the nomination later is quite common.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

Romney wins Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The election is a 269-269 tie and it goes to a house which the GOP only controls because of gerrymandering. Romney wins but is seen as illegitimate.

Obama comes back in 2016 and wins handily.

 

[Derek Jackson]

Well at some point in the next 10-20 years there is a Democrat President, and a vacancy for VP with less than 2 years to run. A hard right Congress refuses to approve 1st two choices fearing them as candidates at the following election. Then Agree Obama because he is NOT allowed to run. The President dies, Obama serves for maybe a furthe 18 months

 

[TwisterAce]

The two unique things about Cleveland was the electoral college/ popular vote reversal, and he actually ran the next time and voters made sure the reversal didn't happen again.

No other Prez running for re-election has won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college. I think any time this happens, the defeated Prez has an excellent chance of returning to the White House in four years if he wants to. There are a number of cases where the defeated Prez would simply be too old to run four years later, or even not alive four years later.

Now many instances where a Prez ran for re-election the result wasn't close, usually when the Prez is re-elected in a landslide, but also for Hoover and Taft among defeats. So to get the reversal you have to start changing the timeline of the administration to make the re-election close. In fact Obama's re-election in 2012 was fairly unusual (its happened two or three other times) in the President being elected in a close election.

Some political scientists think Nixon won the popular vote in 1960 and lost in the electoral college, at least it was super close, and he came back and was elected later, like Cleveland. I think Tilden and Gore would have done the same if they had run. We will see about Hillary Clinton, though her age will be a problem, but then the same factor will affect Trump if he runs for re-election.

So if in 2012 Obama won the popular vote while losing the electoral vote (and the presidency) to Romney (or another Republican nominee), how likely would it be that he would run for president again in 2016? Things to keep in mind would be the circumstances that led to Obama's reelection defeat in 2012, his overall presidential legacy, the performance of the Republican POTUS who succeeds him, and whether or not Hillary Clinton and/or Joe Biden decide to run for president in 2016 (I think Biden would step aside and perhaps offer to serve as Obama's running mate again, but Clinton may be willing to compete against the president whose administration she served in, especially if Obama's first term didn't go so well for whatever reasons).

 

[DAv]

What if something happens to Obama personally, the death of Michelle or his children in the run up to the election, that makes him feel as if he has to step down to handle the grief? Hilary goes for the nomination, balls it up IOTL and four years later, Obama comes back to get his second term?

 

[creighton]

Romney wins Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The election is a 269-269 tie and it goes to a house which the GOP only controls because of gerrymandering. Romney wins but is seen as illegitimate.

Obama comes back in 2016 and wins handily.

There would need to be another POD. Obama won a majority outright in Iowa and did nearly 55% in Wisconsin.

Edit: If it rained in Ohio and Florida, he could have lost them, though.

 

[galileo-034]

I have to admit that when I had that idea, I was thinking in a way of Trump in 2012 with such a presidency that Obama would come into 2016 to play the second round as in Cleveland vs Harrison, but I didn't want to restrict this thread to that narrow perspective. But would this be plausible with some remote pod, possibly no earlier than 2006 (but with Obama still winning 2008)?

 

[Deleted member 109224]

There would need to be another POD. Obama won a majority outright in Iowa and did nearly 55% in Wisconsin.

Edit: If it rained in Ohio and Florida, he could have lost them, though.

Have Romney pick Rob Portman. Paul Ryan's agenda scared old people in Florida and Portman is very popular in Ohio. Have Romney hammer the immigration issue more to win Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa too.

Immigration could lead to Romney losing by bigger margins in New York, New Mexico, California, etc and winning by a smaller margin in Texas.

 

[Puzzle]

Obama Ohio would have to do a lot of work to be as bad as Cleveland. ASB I think.