AHC: Pat Buchanan as Republican Nominee

With the paleoconservative crowd, little else being wild up by him. Buchanan was sort of the alt-right before the alt-right was really a thing:

>Obsessed with showing the supposed superiority of white Western society

>Questioned facts on the Holocaust and called survivors of the genocide liars

>Said that Jews pushed abortion to kill millions of Americans (a common belief among "white genocide" loons)

>Bashed black America for being, in polite terms, "uppity"

>Ranted since the early 90s about how all forms of immigration would lead to the death of America

>Said whites were more deserving of immigrating to America than other races

>Outright said that "not all ethnicities are equal"

>Called immigration along the Southern border a plot by the Mexican government

>Said Jim Crow wasn't a big deal and that segregation benefited black Americans

>Called feminism a threat to world democracy

>Extreme homophobia, said that gays deserved AIDS during the early days of the HIV crisis

>Believed that America was a "Christian country" and that the government should reflect this in public schools


Just to know, his wikipedia says that he is against american imperialism. How would his presidency reflect the Washington consensus? In OTL this crused most of the latim american economies and allowed for the rise of left wing figures like Chavez, Lula, Mujica and Morales.
 
How would his presidency reflect the Washington consensus?

Nothing in Buchanan's foreign policy would. Had he somehow become President, the entire foreign policy establishment would oppose him. Not to mention the majority of the country. Thankfully, that man had no chance of becoming President.
 
The notion that large numbers of Republican voters in other states are going to support Buchanan because he won both Iowa and New Hampshire (which after all are small, not terribly representative states--and the first one isn't even a primary) who would not have done so simply out of the "momentum" he got from NH alone seems to me dubious. And even if--as I doubt--Buchanan does win AZ, don't forget that Dole will almost certainly win two other primaries the same day--ND and SD.

Since 1976, only 2012 has seen the GOP select a candidate who didn't carry two out of the three early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Asking why he didn't get momentum out of just New Hampshire IOTL should be blatantly obvious; he only carried it narrowly and failed to replicate the success elsewhere. Winning a comfortable victory in Iowa, then a closer one in New Hampshire followed by another victory in Arizona as a result of his earlier victories would dramatically change the equation. I'm also not sure why you're attempting the argument about Iowa and New Hampshire being small given the position they've held in the primaries for decades now, nor do I get why, after making the aforementioned argument, you cite the Dakotas (which have less population than Arizona combined) to undermine a hypothetical Buchanan victory in Arizona.
 
1992 with President Dukakis may have presented an opportunity for Buchanan or someone similar to win the GOP nod.

By 1996, things were going too smoothly for a insurgent to do well, hence the decline in the Perot vote compared to 1992.
 
1992 with President Dukakis may have presented an opportunity for Buchanan or someone similar to win the GOP nod.

But Buchanan would still lose the election nonetheless. The early 1990s recession, which was caused by the Fed raising interest rates, may be butterflied away under a Democrat and President Dukakis would be very popular after the intervention in the Persian Gulf. But even under poor circumstances for the Dems, Buchanan would still lose.
 
Since 1976, only 2012 has seen the GOP select a candidate who didn't carry two out of the three early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

As they pointed out in 1988, no sitting vice-president since Martin Van Buren had been elected president...

First of all, of the eleven races since 1976, four--1976, 1984, 1992, 2004--involve incumbent GOP presidents. (True, Ford faced a serious challenge in 1976, but he was well ahead of Reagan in the polls; and of course GHW Bush was always well ahead of Buchanan in 1992.) A fifth, 2012, as you noted, was an exception to the "two out of three" rule: the party nominated Romney who (very narrowly) lost Iowa and decisively lost SC--he did win in NH, but after all he was from neighboring MA.

Of the remaining six, Reagan in 1980, GHW Bush in 1988 , Dole in 1996, GW Bush in 2000, McCain in 2008, and yes, Trump in 2016 could all be described as front-runners based on the polls of the previous several months--i.e., before any of these three early electoral events:

(1) Reagan in 1980: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/25/...an-ahead-of-republican-nomination-rivals.html

(2) GHW Bush in 1988: "1988: Vice President George H.W. Bush enjoyed strong front-runner status for his party's nomination throughout 1987. In January 1987, Bush led his most serious competitor, Dole, by 33% to 14%, and maintained a roughly 2-to-1 lead over Dole the rest of the year." https://news.gallup.com/poll/146489/lack-gop-front-runner-2012-atypical.aspx

(3) Dole in 1996: "1996: Bob Dole led former Vice President Dan Quayle 38% to 17% in February 1995. Then in April, after Quayle had removed himself from consideration, Gallup showed Dole leading second-place contender Phil Gramm 46% to 13%. And although Gallup's Republican test elections expanded to contain up to nine candidates, Dole faced no significant competition throughout 1995." Ibid.

(4) GW Bush in 2000: "2000: George W. Bush dominated the potential Republican presidential field throughout 1999, leading Elizabeth Dole 42% to 22% in a January party preference test, by 52% to 20% in March, and by even wider margins later in the year until Dole dropped out in the fall. McCain ran second to Bush for the remainder of 1999, but continuously trailed by more than 3 to 1." Ibid.

(5) McCain in 2008: This may seem to be an exception in that Giuliani was the front-runner for much of 2007. But by January 2008, before the Iowa caucus, McCain had overtaken him in major states. http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2008/01/he-has-his-opponents-just-where-he.html

(6) Trump in 2016: I don't think it is necessary to point out here that Trump was leading in the polls for the GOP nomination all along (except for a brief period when Carson overtook him), however certain many pundits were that he would fade.

So I look at the fact that winners of the early GOP events usually go on to win the nomination differently from you. My view is that they won the early events because Republicans favored them, not that Republicans favored them because they won the early events.
 
The best scenario for him is some kind of war in the Korean peninsula under Clinton from which his anti-war politics take hold.
 
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