AHC: No "Red States", "Blue States"

Mid-2000: Gore picks anyone other than Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential running mate and embraces (rather than rejects) President Clinton. Clinton then campaigns enthusiastically for Gore, who wins 325+ EV. Since the election isn't a nailbiter, Tim Russert isn't on at 2 am with his whiteboard talking about "blue states" and "red states."
 
Would McCain getting the GOP nomination also do the trick?

I'm not trying to make a political argument here, just a strategic one. The reality is that in 2000, Clinton's approval ratings were in the low 60s and the economy was fundamentally sound.

Had Gore ran as "Clinton's Third Term," he would have, IMO, won rather easily. For some reason -- perhaps he believed the stories being pushed by idiots like Peggy Noonan and Rush Limbaugh about 'Clinton fatigue?' -- Gore decided to run away from Bill Clinton and his 62% approval rating. He even picked the one Democrat to openly side with the Republicans over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, dipshit Joe Lieberman, and then forbade Clinton from campaigning for him.

Replace Lieberman with any other hominid on earth, and run on Clinton's record, and Gore beats any Republican candidate you can throw out there in 2000, including a time-travelling duo of Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower in their respective primes.
 
I'm not trying to make a political argument here, just a strategic one. The reality is that in 2000, Clinton's approval ratings were in the low 60s and the economy was fundamentally sound.
Yeah.

Had Gore ran as "Clinton's Third Term," he would have, IMO, won rather easily. For some reason -- perhaps he believed the stories being pushed by idiots like Peggy Noonan and Rush Limbaugh about 'Clinton fatigue?' -- Gore decided to run away from Bill Clinton and his 62% approval rating. He even picked the one Democrat to openly side with the Republicans over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, dipshit Joe Lieberman, and then forbade Clinton from campaigning for him.
Yeah.

Replace Lieberman with any other hominid on earth, and run on Clinton's record, and Gore beats any Republican candidate you can throw out there in 2000,
Yeah.

including a time-travelling duo of Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower in their respective primes.
Nah. It's still Candidate Gore :p

But basically have 2000 not be a nailbiter.
 

d32123

Banned
Easy PoD: They decide to use different colors besides red and blue for some reason during the 2000 election.
 
Nah. It's still Candidate Gore :p

Well, he is the same buffoon who hired Naomi Wolf as a campaign adviser, so that's a pretty strong argument.

Still, Gore basically did everything he could to sabotage his own campaign in 2000 IOTL and he still got a half a million more votes than Bush, and 'lost' the Electoral College through a series of events that, if written in any timeline on this site, would be instantly labeled ASB. (Forget Florida; if Gore picks up another 7,300 votes in New Hampshire -- or holds West Virginia, a state so reliably Democratic it voted for Michael Dukakis!, or holds his home state of Tennessee, or, well, you know -- then he's President despite trying his best to lose.)
 
Easy PoD: They decide to use different colors besides red and blue for some reason during the 2000 election.

Maybe, for some reason, they decide to abandon American exceptionalism, and use red and blue as having the same political symbolism that they do elsewhere in the English-speaking world.

Not that the GOP really has to worry about being mistaken for left-wing as a result of misunderstood colour coding.
 
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d32123

Banned
Maybe, for some reason, they decide to abandon American exceptionalism, and use red and blue as having the same political symbolism that they do elsewhere in the English-speaking world.

Not that the GOP really has to worry about being mistaken for left-wing as a result of misunderstood colour coding.

The thing is that the Democrats aren't a left-wing or labor party, which is why they have never used the color red.
 
The thing is that the Democrats aren't a left-wing or labor party, which is why they have never used the color red.

Yeah, I know, but they're relatively on the left of the spectrum in the USA.

The Liberals in Canada(who are to the left of the Dems, but not a labour or socialist party) use red as well(it also has some overlap with the modern Canadian flag, which the Liberals introduced.)

Interestingly the NDP in Canada, the official socialist party, has NEVER used red as far as I know. Maybe genuine leftists worry more about negative symbolism.

If the networks had wanted to go with neutral symbolism, they coulda used orange and purple. Green would be too associated with Nader and company.
 

d32123

Banned
The Liberals in Canada(who are to the left of the Dems, but not a labour or socialist party) use red as well(it also has some overlap with the modern Canadian flag, which the Liberals introduced.)

Interestingly the NDP in Canada, the official socialist party, has NEVER used red as far as I know. Maybe genuine leftists worry more about negative symbolism.

Yeah, notice how they don't even call themselves a Social Democratic Party, instead it's New Democratic Party. They have a real socialist wing to be sure but their new leader Thomas Mulcair seems to be doing away with references to social democracy and socialism in an attempt to win over disaffected Liberals. And I don't think the Liberals of Canada use red to symbolize that they're a left-wing party so much as they do it to counter Tory blue.
 
I'm not trying to make a political argument here, just a strategic one. The reality is that in 2000, Clinton's approval ratings were in the low 60s and the economy was fundamentally sound.

Not exactly. The 2000-2002 recession was about to happen and GDP growth was falling off in 2000.

800px-Recession2001.PNG
 
Easy PoD: They decide to use different colors besides red and blue for some reason during the 2000 election.

Alternately, have the networks use red and blue, but use them inconsistently. Maybe have NBC (Russert's station) use red for Republicans and blue for Democrats, but have ABC and CBS use blue for Republicans and red for Democrats.

If there's no consensus which party is "red" and which is "blue," then there can be no consensus as to which states are which colors.
 
No electoral college. The view then shifts to popular vote instead of states and there isn't near the emphasis on red & blue states and instead on the collective whole of the U.S. electorate. Sure, it might result in campaigning in heavily-populated states, but let's be honest, a great deal of the electoral college is flyover country anyway. Romney won't be campaigning in Illinois & Obama won't be campaigning in Utah.

While there will be Democratic & Republican states, the media focus on each state won't be nearly as dominant under a popular vote outcome because winning states now becomes meaningless.
 
Isn't the basic problem that you need to use primary colours to make it easy to distingush between them - especially on the US NTSC TV system :D


Depending upon which version of colour theory you subscribe to, that pretty much leaves you with 3 or 4 choices.

I suppose you could have gone with yellow and green...
 
This is a pretty early PoD...

It could come out of 2000. Maybe Bush wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college. Republicans, who seem to be better than Democrats at pushing a major issue, go nuclear on the electoral college and force a massive change in the system.

Even if Gore destroys Bush in '00, it only temporarily holds off the divided electoral college. We were bound to have a close, contested election after five consecutive blowouts. The second that happens, we're back to square one.
 
Even if Gore destroys Bush in '00, it only temporarily holds off the divided electoral college. We were bound to have a close, contested election after five consecutive blowouts. The second that happens, we're back to square one.

Well, bear in mind I'm not necessarily looking for this kind of thing to be held off indefinitely, just to present day -- and even then, there's a huge difference between the media available in 2000 (primarily TV) and now (internet reporting plays a huge role)...
 
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