I had a day off, and the next update will take some time to research, so here's Part 7 up front. Enjoy!
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Going into the last month of the United States presidential election of 1988, Republican nominee George Bush looked unstoppable. As Vice President to popular President Ronald Reagan, Bush had successfully portrayed his Democratic opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis, as an elitist “Massachusetts liberal” who was soft on crime, ignorant of military matters and out of touch with the hopes and dreams of average, everyday Americans. As September turned to October, Bush seemed assured of a decisive victory. But, when events south of the border began to spiral into crisis, Bush’s lead shrank and the election was thrown into doubt.
Bush’s running mate, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, had been selected more for his youth than for his intelligence. This became embarrassingly evident at the vice-presidential debate on October 5, when, after being asked how he would deal with the Mexican situation if called on to serve as President, Quayle responded that he would “go into a close cooperation with President Sevillas” (referring to Mexican President-elect Carlos Salinas) to combat the “rebels and radicals” that had shaken up Mexico City. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen swiftly pounced on Quayle, pointing out the mistake and arguing that it proved Quayle was oblivious to world events. Though Republicans emphasized that Bush himself had vast foreign policy experience, some voters became nervous about putting a man as ill-informed as Quayle so close to the Presidency.
“How do you expect to negotiate with President Salinas, Senator,” Bentsen asked his gaffe-prone opponent, “when you can’t even call him by his name?”
In addition to botching Salinas’s name, Quayle was chastised for seemingly taking the side of the Mexican government over that of the protesters. It was well-known by this point that the PRI had fraudulently robbed Cárdenas of victory, and most Americans sympathized with the Mexican civilians who were protesting the fraud. Yet, here was Quayle calling them “rebels and radicals” and promising to help repress them if he became President, drawing heavy criticism from Dukakis’s campaign. Vice President Bush managed to deflect much of the heat in the second presidential debate on October 13, toeing a moderate line by lending his “moral support” to the protesters while claiming that the most important thing was to restore order and stability by backing the PRI government. Bush was widely seen as having won the debate, using the burgeoning Mexican crisis to flaunt his foreign policy prowess in front of the inexperienced Dukakis. Still, Quayle’s (and, by extension, Bush’s) credibility had been dented.
Shortly after the presidential debate, President Reagan announced that he had agreed to loan Mexico $2.6 billion, drawing criticism from Democrats for his failure to consult Congress about the bailout. But this issue was rapidly overshadowed by the sudden economic downturn. Days after Mexico’s petroleum workers went on strike, gas prices shot up by over forty cents a gallon, slashing consumer confidence and aggregate demand as shopping trips and family vacations were canceled. The oil shock pushed the economy into a sudden decline which, as election day neared, was growing increasingly steep and showed no signs of slowing down, forming the beginning of what economists now refer to as the Late 1980s Recession. When election day came on November 8, the same pollsters who had predicted a safe Bush victory one month before no longer felt particularly comfortable predicting anything.
By the next morning, it was clear that Bush had won, albeit by a narrow margin. The historical consensus is that Michael Dukakis was simply not a compelling enough candidate to woo enough voters away from Bush. If Dukakis had gone on the offensive in the last month of the campaign, attacking Reagan’s administration for supporting the authoritarian PRI and creating the necessary conditions for economic uncertainty, he may well have had a chance at victory. But, instead, he hung back while Bush deftly handled these true October surprises [1]. Bush’s 2.5% margin of victory in the popular vote was narrow, but he had secured a conclusive majority of 97 in the electoral college [2], and while the Democrats had slightly increased their majorities in the House and Senate, the Presidency would remain in Republican hands for another four years.
The United States wasn’t the only North American country to hold an election in November of 1988. On November 21, just thirteen days after George Bush was elected President of the United States, Canada would go to the polls to deliver a verdict on the four-year premiership of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
In the 1984 federal election, Mulroney had led his Progressive Conservative Party to a landslide victory, winning the largest parliamentary majority in Canadian history. Mulroney did not want to compromise this majority with another election, but the Canadian Senate refused ratify Mulroney’s historic Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) without a fresh mandate. So, in September of 1988, Parliament was dissolved and a new federal election was declared.
The election campaign was initially dominated by the single issue of free trade. John Turner, leader of the opposition Liberal Party and former Prime Minister, led a fiery campaign against the FTA, vowing to “tear it up” if he ever became Prime Minister again. This stance won Turner an early lead in the polls as most Canadians did not support free trade with the United States; Mulroney recognized this problem, but hoped that the center-left New Democratic Party (which was also opposed to the FTA) would split the anti-free trade vote and allow the Progressive Conservatives to retain their majority. Following the advice of pundit Allan Gregg, Mulroney decided to fight the election by attacking Turner’s credibility, criticizing him for decisions made during his brief stint as Prime Minister and his contentious leadership elections. This, combined with a $6 million pro-FTA advertising campaign, swung the lead to the Tories in October, seemingly assuring them of victory.
And then, the economy began to sputter. The Mexican oil workers’ strike in mid-October did not have an exorbitant direct effect on Canada, as Canada’s high domestic petroleum production managed to keep prices at the pump from rising by more than fourteen cents in most places. But, by November, as America’s economy tumbled, it became increasingly clear that Canada was being dragged down by its southern neighbor. While George Bush had had the advantage of being elected before it became obvious that a recession was coming, by late November, the economy had been in decline for long enough to convince many Canadians that difficult times lay ahead. This gave Turner and Broadbent the perfect opportunity to blame Progressive Conservative policies for the downturn, arguing that Canada would have been less vulnerable to American market fluctuations if not for Mulroney’s gradual lessening of trade restrictions with the U.S. To combat this, Mulroney doubled down on the personal attacks on Turner, but this only drew criticism for trying to distract the public from the serious issues. By the time Canadians went to the polls on November 21, free trade had become highly unpopular, and only the prospect of an even split between the Liberals and the NDP comforted Mulroney on that stressful night.
The result was a Tory landslide—in Alberta, at least. The bump in gas prices was good news for the province’s bustling petroleum industry, and the Progressive Conservatives retained all twenty of the province's federal ridings. Outside of Alberta, though, it was a bad day for Mulroney: the Tories held only 134 seats, losing 65 ridings and, with them, their majority. The Liberals, meanwhile, increased their representation from 38 to 109 seats, a very large profit but still not enough to form a majority government. Fortunately for Turner, the NDP enjoyed a 20-seat gain from 32 to 52 seats (Broadbent’s moderate socialist agenda attracting increased support in times of looming economic uncertainty), more than enough seats to form a coalition government with the Liberals. Talks between the two parties began the day after the election, and on December 10, John Turner returned to Sussex Drive for his second term as Prime Minister. [3]
Shortly after the new Parliament sat, Mulroney resigned as party leader. The PC backbench lambasted Mulroney for squandering the largest electoral majority in Canadian history, blaming him for his failure to retain the support of the diverse alliance of interest groups that had delivered a landslide in 1984. The Progressive Conservative Party set out to find a leader who could unite those blocs once more into a winning coalition, and after a heated leadership contest, the party settled on moderate Quebec nationalist Marcel Masse, the former Minister for Energy. Though he had only first been elected to the House of Commons in 1984, Masse’s anti-free trade credentials were strong, and he had a bedrock of support in his native Québec (which had seen a significant swing against the Tories in the election but which, PC leaders believed, could still be a promising groundswell of PC support in future elections). As 1989 dawned, Prime Minister Turner was faced with the gloomy task of abandoning the FTA, and thus damaging relations with one of Canada's largest trading partners just as a recession dawned.
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[1] lord caedus, where u at?
[2] In OTL, Dukakis only won 10 states and 111 electoral votes. Here, Bush's margin of victory is reduced by over 5%, enough to swing California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vermont (all of which went to Bush by narrow margins in OTL) to Dukakis, almost doubling his electoral vote total to 220. It's not enough to win him the election, but it's something.
[3] In OTL, the PCs retained 169 seats, the Liberals were left with 83, and the NDP with 43. Mulroney kept his majority and stayed on as Prime Minister. Here, his luck is worse and he is voted out.
