AHC: President enters office 16 or more years before or 12 or more after he does OTL

The Ron Paul thread in post-1900 got me to thinking - he was eligible to run in 1972 if he'd been involved in politics earlier. Which got me to thinking of a challenge.

Now, I had John Quincy Adams elected in 1812 in "Created Equal," so you could only tie that if you go 12 years, and there are actually other ways to do it. (Hughes wins in 1916, FDR a compromise in 1920, or he's VP and the President is assassinated by random anarchist in 1921, for instance.) And yet, 16 seemed too far after since quite a few of our Presidents have been older and didn't even live that long.

So, the challenge is to go 16 years before or 12 years after a President first was elected for them to enter office. Since I say "enters thsi includes as VP. He need not serve out a full term, and yes, the wording means he could pull a Cleveland, but while Cleveland in OTL or Grant, TR, maybe Van Buren could hve, it's hard to imagine going 8 years and then going back to someone from that long ago. Although some do say TR might have tried in 1920. (Edit: Just realized Grand's and TR's would be 12 years after the start of their first, so the challenge is to have someone at least 8 years after their 2nd term ends.)

And, of course, the further the better.

Extra bonus points if you have this president enter office younger than 40 years old or older then 75.
 
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The Ron Paul thread in post-1900 got me to thinking - he was eligible to run in 1972 if he'd been involved in politics earlier. Which got me to thinking of a challenge.

Now, I had John Quincy Adams elected in 1812 in "Created Equal," so you could only tie that if you go 12 years, and there are actually other ways to do it. (Hughes wins in 1916, FDR a compromise in 1920, or he's VP and the President is assassinated by random anarchist in 1921, for instance.) And yet, 16 seemed too far after since quite a few of our Presidents have been older and didn't even live that long.

So, the challenge is to go 16 years before or 12 years after a President first was elected for them to enter office. Since I say "enters thsi includes as VP. He need not serve out a full term, and yes, the wording means he could pull a Cleveland, but while Cleveland in OTL or Grant, TR, maybe Van Buren could hve, it's hard to imagine going 8 years and then going back to someone from that long ago. Although some do say TR might have tried in 1920. (Edit: Just realized Grand's and TR's would be 12 years after the start of their first, so the challenge is to have someone at least 8 years after their 2nd term ends.)

And, of course, the further the better.

Extra bonus points if you have this president enter office younger than 40 years old or older then 75.

Teddy Roosevelt doesn't break away from the Republican Party. In 1916, he successfully gets the Republican nomination, and wins.
 
JFK was young, if he can be prevented from winning the nomination in 1960, it's possible that his nomination could come much later. For example, if he was nominated in 1976, he would not even be 60 yet. In 1984 he would be 67, younger than Reagan was when he entered office, so by having him get elected then, you would delay his presidency 24 years.

Theodore Roosevelt was also very young. If he is not given the VP nomination in 1900, his political career could be delayed. I once searched through old DBWIs and found one where he stayed in the military after the Spanish-American War, rising to be the leader of the American Army in WW1 and returning as a war hero to win the 1920 Presidential Election.

Herbert Hoover's also a possibility. He was a candidate in the 1940 Presidential Election in OTL, so if he was prevented from being elected as POTUS in 1928 by losing the GOP primary, he could be a viable candidate in 1936, 1940, or even 1944 where he would be 70 years old. A Not-as-great Depression could give him an opening to be elected in one of these elections.

Bill Clinton was young too. Have someone else win the Democratic nomination in 1992, serve eight years, and then give the GOP four after the eight Democratic years like OTL, and the 58 year old former governor (and possibly a senator or something) Bill Clinton could be a viable candidate. Or even in 2008, 2012, or even 2016 perhaps.

Meanwhile, on the other topic of Presidents serving earlier than OTL:

Have Eisenhower die in his first term, and that gives you a President Nixon more than 12 years before OTL.

It would not have been impossible for Reagan to win in 1968 either, 12 years ahead of schedule.

Have Gerald Ford choose George Bush as his Vice President then die, and Bush gets in 12 years earlier.

A bit of FH involved, but if Biden wins in 2016, that's 28 years after his 1988 run, a huge amount of time afterwards.
 
President Wilson loses to Charles E Hughes in 1916. Hughes takes the country into WW!, and by 1920 wartime problems and sacrifices have made him so unpopular that he is defeated by James M Cox, who as OTL has Franklin D Roosevelt as his running-mate.

President Cox dies in office, and we get FDR in the early 1920s.
 
Ronald Reagan, as a conservative Republican actor, spoke at the 1964 RNC in support of Goldwater. This was his jumping off port to the California Governor's race in 2 years and eventually his Presidential runs in 4 (1968), 12 (1976) and 16 years (1980).

If he had, for some strange reason, strongly supported fellow Californian Richard Nixon in 1960 (enough to make the RNC that year?), then the whole thing can be moved up. Nixon becomes President in 1960, so the now popular-in-Republican-circles Reagan runs for CA Governor in 1962. He parlays that into a win (instead of OTL Nixon's loss) and in 1964 successfully challenges a scandal-prone Nixon from the right. Winning the primary and the Presidency at the age of 53.

Candidates old enough to run in Election Year -16 or before:
* 4. James Madison - 1789 (aged 37), 1793 (aged 41)
* 5. James Monroe - 1797 (aged 38), 1801 (aged 42)
* 6. John Quincy Adams - 1805 (aged 37), 1809 (aged 41)
* 7. Andrew Jackson - 1805 (aged 37), 1809 (aged 41), 1813 (aged 45)
* 8. Martin Van Buren - 1821 (aged 38)
* 9. William Henry Harrison - 1809 (aged 36), 1813 (aged 40), 1817 (aged 44), 1821 (aged 48), 1825 (aged 52)
* 12. Zachary Taylor - 1821 (aged 36), 1825 (aged 40), 1829 (aged 44), 1833 (aged 48)
* 15. James Buchanan - 1829 (aged 37), 1833 (aged 41), 1837 (aged 45), 1841 (aged 49)
* 16. Abraham Lincoln - 1845 (aged 36)
* 17. Andrew Johnson - 1845 (aged 36), 1849 (aged 40)
* 19. Rutherford B. Hayes - 1861 (aged 38)
* 21. Chester A. Arthur - 1865 (aged 35)
* 23. Benjamin Harrison - 1869 (aged 35), 1873 (aged 39)
* 24. Grover Cleveland - 1873 (aged 35), 1877 (aged 39)16 years before his second non-consecutive term
* 25. William McKinley - 1881 (aged 38)
* 27. William Howard Taft - 1893 (aged 35)
* 28. Woodrow Wilson - 1893 (aged 36), 1897 (aged 40)
* 29. Warren G. Harding - 1901 (aged 35), 1905 (aged 39)
* 31. Herbert Hoover - 1913 (aged 38)
* 32. Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1917 (aged 35)
* 33. Harry S. Truman - 1921 (aged 36), 1925 (aged 40), 1929 (aged 44)
* 34. Dwight D. Eisenhower - 1929 (aged 38), 1933 (aged 42), 1937 (aged 46)
* 36. Lyndon B. Johnson - 1945 (aged 36)
* 37. Richard Nixon - 1949 (aged 36), 1953 (aged 40)
* 38. Gerald Ford - 1949 (aged 35), 1953 (aged 39), 1957 (aged 43)
* 39. Jimmy Carter - 1961 (aged 36)
* 40. Ronald Reagan - 1949 (aged 37), 1953 (aged 41), 1957 (aged 45), 1961 (aged 49), 1965 (aged 53)
* 41. George H. W. Bush - 1961 (aged 36), 1965 (aged 40), 1969 (aged 44), 1973 (aged 48)
* 43. George W. Bush - 1985 (aged 38)

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Looking at the above list I made, the only other one that stands out to me is George H. W. Bush. If we assume an earlier Watergate/Agnew resignation, Bush, as RNC Chair and loose Nixon advisor, is one of the frontrunners for Nixon's VP, and would thus be President about 16 years before he was in OTL.
 
G Washington dies shortly before the meeting of the first Electoral College. Given his prominent role at the Convention, and in the writing of the Federalist Papers, could Madison get the nod 20 years ahead of time?
 
G Washington dies shortly before the meeting of the first Electoral College. Given his prominent role at the Convention, and in the writing of the Federalist Papers, could Madison get the nod 20 years ahead of time?
I would probably bet on Adams or Jefferson instead.
 
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