Shift the Fed induced depression one year back. If the election had been held in 1983 Reagan would have lost Carter bad.
AHC: Mondale wins in 1984
- Thread starter Bomster
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1. You have to find a way to make the Carter administration seem more positive in retrospect. If it's still deemed a failure four years later, which it was in reality, I don't see, even with a more rocky recovery, that Jimmy Carter's Vice President wins the White House. That would be like the Republicans winning Cheney in 2012.
2. If the recovery is much messier, and unemployment remains at, or above, ten-percent heading into 1984, Mondale has a fighter's chance.
3. Only have one debate. That first debate was disasterious for Reagan. It led to many people speculating about his cognitive abilities and whether he was mentally fit for the job. It was a bad debate - maybe one of the worst by any incumbent ever (even worse than Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate). The only reason it isn't as known for being awful is Reagan killed it in the second debate with his famous 'youth and inexperience' line lobbed at Mondale. But if there's just one debate, and it's a mess of a debate like in real life, with no chance to actually rebound, coupled with high unemployment and a lingering recession, I think Mondale could eke out a win.
Maybe. But he can't pick Geraldine Ferraro. That was a bad pick. She had too many personal issues with her husband's taxes. If he was set on a woman, the governor of Kentucky, Martha Layne Collins, might've been a better choice. On edit: I actually think Collins had some issues with her husband, too, so shit I don't know.
2. If the recovery is much messier, and unemployment remains at, or above, ten-percent heading into 1984, Mondale has a fighter's chance.
3. Only have one debate. That first debate was disasterious for Reagan. It led to many people speculating about his cognitive abilities and whether he was mentally fit for the job. It was a bad debate - maybe one of the worst by any incumbent ever (even worse than Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate). The only reason it isn't as known for being awful is Reagan killed it in the second debate with his famous 'youth and inexperience' line lobbed at Mondale. But if there's just one debate, and it's a mess of a debate like in real life, with no chance to actually rebound, coupled with high unemployment and a lingering recession, I think Mondale could eke out a win.
Maybe. But he can't pick Geraldine Ferraro. That was a bad pick. She had too many personal issues with her husband's taxes. If he was set on a woman, the governor of Kentucky, Martha Layne Collins, might've been a better choice. On edit: I actually think Collins had some issues with her husband, too, so shit I don't know.
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For Mondale to win, both Reagan and Bush Sr. need to die soon before the 1984 election. The Republicans would have no candidate and no time to nominate one. The president would be Tip O'Neil, a Democrat. The Republicans were not positioned to re-organize so fast. Maybe Gerald Ford would step out. But the ballots would not have his name.
It was the second debate that sealed the deal for Reagan's Re-election as the expectations for him were lowered to not drooling during the debate.
If you took out his response to the opening question which was about his ability to serve as President at his advanced age, Reagan was during that debate was worse then the first debate if and Reagan blew his answer to the question everyone knew that was coming AND actually drooling very visibility on stage then Mondale had a chance, a very slim one but still a chance.
If you took out his response to the opening question which was about his ability to serve as President at his advanced age, Reagan was during that debate was worse then the first debate if and Reagan blew his answer to the question everyone knew that was coming AND actually drooling very visibility on stage then Mondale had a chance, a very slim one but still a chance.
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The problem with Mondale was that a) he was running against a popular incumbent while b) having zero charisma or gravitas and c) running a campaign with no distinct message. The first one alone has always pretty much been a death knell in the campaigns of challengers; it led to the landslide defeats of McGovern, of Stevenson, of Landon, and of Davis (back in 24). Even if we enable Mondale to run a "strong" campaign (as strong as can be in 1984), at most he'd pick up a few close states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The reason he ended up losing in a 49-state landslide was because his image was that of an out of touch New Deal-esque liberal; when Mondale tried to play conservative by railing against the deficit, he not only did so in the worst way possible (promising to raise taxes) but also reminded everyone of Carter (who was on the conservative end of the party, hence why he was faced a major challenge from EMK).
Even if Mondale improves his image, at most he'll take Massachusetts and Rhode Island while improving his margin of victory in Minnesota. For a Mondale victory, you need a major economic recession while scandals rock the White House (and things really need to be seeming like they're getting worse; remember the economy is absolute terms wasn't all that good), all while Reagan's 'senility' is exposed and people want Mondale's brand of liberalism back.
Even if Mondale improves his image, at most he'll take Massachusetts and Rhode Island while improving his margin of victory in Minnesota. For a Mondale victory, you need a major economic recession while scandals rock the White House (and things really need to be seeming like they're getting worse; remember the economy is absolute terms wasn't all that good), all while Reagan's 'senility' is exposed and people want Mondale's brand of liberalism back.
I am not sure that would hold in the general. After all, Hart's brand of 'Atari Democrat' was the same thing Dukakis touted in 1988, and until he abandoned that (in favor of populist rhetoric) it seriously looked that 1988 was going to be a 1984-level disaster.
I remember there was a lot of anger toward Carter while Iran held American hostages from Nov. 4, 1979 — Jan. 20, 1981.
I was 16 and 17 at the time. People supported President Carter at first. But as it dragged on and Carter showed himself as a complicator, a lot of the anger focused on him as well.
But during the ‘80s, I don’t remember Carter being discussed hardly at all.
Of course Reagan would have won decisively. I don't think being an Atari Democrat hurt Dukakis: if anything it was an advantage that gave him an initial polling lead. Rather Dukakis lost due to the good economy and his own missteps in the general election. Hart being a more moderate Democrat would prevent Reagan from tying him to the Carter era, I also doubt that Hart would open his campaign by promising to raise taxes as Mondale did. However Hart would still lose.
Why would he be? He was gone. Most people I know who lived during the Carter Years (including Democrats) think of him as a president who wrecked the economy and did nothing about the hostage crisis.
I think he was discussed quite a bit in the context of Mondale's '84 run. There were the ads, of course, with "Why would we want to go back to where we were four years ago?", and I remember Gerald Ford giving a speech at the GOP convention where he kept repeating "Carter and Mondale", and the connection was mentioned in a lot of other places as well.
But yeah, he wasn't a major focus of attention apart from that. When people generally talked about the Reagan era being a big emotional comeback for America, I think they meant in comparison to the whole era from 11/22/63 to the hostage crisis, not just to Carter's term.
Bomster
Banned
Perhaps a Reagan assassination would shatter that... it would be a shocking blow to the nation and its psyche.
Rivercat893
Banned
The only other timeline I can name that has a Walter Mondale presidency is Kentucky Fried Politics and even then his campaign didn't have to contend with the ultra-popularity of Ronald Reagan.
Didn't Dukakis tail off in the final weeks of the campaign, due to the Willie Horton ads, the tank photo-op and the ghastly response to the death penalty question in one of the debates? Without all of that it might have actually been close.
I'm not exactly a fan of Reagan's policies but I for one am glad he survived. Not just because his death, like any murder, would have been an atrocity but also because I don't think the country would have recovered emotionally. You go from JFK's death, to Vietnam, MLK and RFK being killed in the same year, Watergate, malaise, the Hostage Crisis, to the smiling President cut down by a man who saw "Taxi Driver" one too many times*. I think Bush would probably have had a successful Presidency from 1981-1989, but Reagan's assassination would have devastated America's faith in itself.
*As a big fan of Scorsese's movies I've always felt that a successful Reagan assassination would have severely damaged his career since many people would blame him for Reagan's death. Jodie Foster might have quit acting altogether out of guilt, since Hinckley claimed to have shot Reagan in order to impress her.
Unless conspiracy theories gained traction and enough people suspected HW of being behind the assassination.
Not sure how to make that a widely held belief but it would make Mondale, rather than Bush, the beneficiary.
The timing would make it even trickier, since if the conspiracy theories gain traction early it means Bush gets primaried. So it would have to happen in the spring or summer of 1984.
This. Bush would probably have done most of the things Reagan did (tax cuts, though not to the same extent most likely), appointing the first female Supreme Court Justice (something Reagan had promised to do in 1980), ramping up military spending, compromising with Democrats on Social Security in 1983, etc. Though Bush wouldn't have called the USSR an "evil empire," and he most certainly did not have Reagan's charisma. But he'd win in 1984 unless he screws up badly.