Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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I dont think Reagan is utterly doomed. Gerald Ford has handled things abit more competently than Carter and Reagan has enough of a talent on his own that he could make a very spirited go of it, especially if Carey makes the mistake all of Reagans principal opponets made throughout his Career: Underestimating him. It could turn into a Truman beats Dewey situation.
Except that besides 12 years of the GOP, there's also the economic rammifications that came with the Panama Canal thing...
This is something I plan to touch on in terms of Carey’s “war room” - the strategy to define Reagan according to the themes they want to emphasize in favor of Carey, rather than the “can you believe him?!” strategy Democrats have tried and failed at for decades.
Because you’re absolutely right, though in these economic conditions and after 12 years (that still include the Watergate stain) Reagan has an uphill battle ahead
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
Dixy Lee Ray is one of the most underrated badasses of her time. I forgot that she was still Governor ITTL.
The Gubernatorial elections of ‘76 went more or less as they did OTL with the big exception of Kit Bond being re-elected in Missouri, if I recall correctly
imo reagan gets cocky and runs a campaign well to the right of otl economically, socially and racially[1]
[1] Expect ads promising to draft american boys to protect south africa and rhodesia from godless bolshevism, along with reviving "local options" on domestic race laws
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
That seems like a bit of a caricature of Reagan more than the reality of Reagan. What makes you think Reagan gets cocky in such challenging circumstances?
Reagan tacking harder to the right to outmaneuver Connally in the primary will make it harder for him to pivot to the middle, though that’s not really cockiness so much as a tougher primary battle than he had expected to wage when he jumped in late in ‘79
GOP pulling off a win at all in 1976 is enough to do it imo.
Yes, we know how close it was OTL/ATL but Ford in '76 imo makes the thought process go "Well we won narrowly in 1976 despite watergate, we can win in 1980 running the campaigns George Wallace and Barry Goldwater both wished they could do."
Why would the GOP want to run a campaign that a currently active Democrat wishes too? 🤔
Worse than either. Imagine Wallace turned up to 11 or 12 on race/social conservatism and "back to thw 1890s" on economics with a foreign policy even more militant than Goldwater's. As I said, a campaign on crack.
Mayhem in Madrid
Mayhem in Madrid
Spain's nascent democratic transition was centered in large part on the efforts and energies of two men - King Juan Carlos I, who had emerged as the Generalissimo's successor and surprised the world by committing fully to democracy, and his handpicked Prime Minister, the young and previously quite obscure Adolfo Suarez, who formed a centrist grab-bag grand coalition of parties called the Union of the Democratic Centre to prepare Spain for the end of the Francoist era and a new, democratic constitution that was passed in 1978. Elections under the new constitution in the spring of 1979 had returned Suarez to power, albeit with a reduced minority government [1], and though the process continued (most notably with the creation of the Autonomous Communities for Spain's ethnic and linguistic minorities) piecemeal the Spanish public began growing restive as terrorist attacks by the Basque separatist ETA escalated, the economy sank into a deeper depression with rising inflation and unemployment (Spain was perhaps hit harder by the late 1970s economic crisis than most other Western European countries) and the Suarez government was beset by aggressive attacks not only by the left-wing alliance of Felipe Gonzalez's socialist PSOE and the fading Communists, but also far-right agitators both in the Cortes and in the pages of El Alcazar, a ferociously and nakedly Francoist and pro-military newspaper regarded as the mouthpiece of El Bunker, the common name for the hardened core of Falangist opposition to democracy.
The UCD's greatest issue was that it had no single natural constituency or program; it had been formed by Suarez almost purely for the purpose of giving him a party to run in order for him to rule Spain at the King's nomination. It was an awkward combination of social democrats, liberal, Christian democrats and reformist conservatives; Suarez himself was from the Francoist camp but had been unknown enough to satisfy reformers and activists and Falangists alike. Despite delivering a new Constitution, Suarez seemed utterly lost, politically isolated and deeply unpopular; it was in this context that Gonzalez rolled the dice late in May of 1980 and called a no-confidence vote against the government. A tremendous parliamentary debate ensued; Suarez aggressively defended his party program but Gonzalez used the televised arguments to his advantage, portraying himself as youthful, energetic and charismatic (he was only 38 years of age) and assuring Spain that the PSOE was a party of reform, not a party of revolution, eschewing comparisons to the United Front of the Spanish Civil War. In the end, only UCD deputies voted with the government, which lost its confidence vote by a single fateful vote. Suarez's defeat, despite the confidence vote not carrying a majority of deputies due to abstentions, resulted in the immediate resignation of the Prime Minister and his entire government, despite efforts by the King to persuade fellow UCD official Agustin Sahagun to form a caretaker government of the UCD and PSOE with equal ministries. Snap elections were called for early July, and the UCD seemed to disintegrate in real time around Suarez as it became clear he could not command even the full support of the party created by and for him. Gonzalez's performance in the parliamentary debate shot the PSOE up snap opinion polls and suggested the party would command a majority of the Cortes on its own; the scene seemed ripe for chaos in Spain as political mayhem unfolded in Madrid and Spain headed to the polls for the second time in just over a year and Falangist military officials appalled at the idea of a Socialist Cortes began to dust off their plans for action that they had already been developing in opposition to the anodyne Suarez...
[1] IOTL he very slightly increased the UCD's seats, but was still in a minority
A prelude to the Second Spanish war? Or a soon to be failed coup d'état?
Not quite that severe, but definitely moreso than OTL’s 23F affair
Took the liberty of creating a pair of Wikiboxes for the Primary races of this excellent TL. Though a minor quibble
Scoop Jackson wouldn't have invested early in Iowa, for the same reason he didn't in 76', his campaign manager, Bob Keefe stated that they knew he'd lose the state and he'd lose badly. The early map is tough for Jackson, but he'd probably camp out in New Hampshire/New England and hope a strong performance there can carry him to Florida and onwards. Of course, running to Ford's right on the Cold War isn't going to do him any favors, but Iowa isn't where his stand will be made.
Otherwise, I think Reagan's goose is cooked in 1980. He'll make it a fight, put a good showing in the debates, but Carey is solid enough that he can command the loyalty of what would've become the "Reagan Democrats" and can't easily be tarred as a "tax and spend liberal". Plus partisan Dem turnout will be through the roof, and Ford's administration is hanging like an albatross around Reagan's neck. @Yes posts on the 1980s Democratic Revolution thread I think are particularly instructive here
Scoop Jackson wouldn't have invested early in Iowa, for the same reason he didn't in 76', his campaign manager, Bob Keefe stated that they knew he'd lose the state and he'd lose badly. The early map is tough for Jackson, but he'd probably camp out in New Hampshire/New England and hope a strong performance there can carry him to Florida and onwards. Of course, running to Ford's right on the Cold War isn't going to do him any favors, but Iowa isn't where his stand will be made.
Otherwise, I think Reagan's goose is cooked in 1980. He'll make it a fight, put a good showing in the debates, but Carey is solid enough that he can command the loyalty of what would've become the "Reagan Democrats" and can't easily be tarred as a "tax and spend liberal". Plus partisan Dem turnout will be through the roof, and Ford's administration is hanging like an albatross around Reagan's neck. @Yes posts on the 1980s Democratic Revolution thread I think are particularly instructive here
Thank you so much for doing this! Looks amazing! Kind of amazing to think that Dole held on so long. Just one thing though, I think Reagan would have a different headshot. The one used here is a presidential photo.
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This is great!!
Yeah I hadn’t boned up on the Scoop ‘76 campaign too much but the result would have been the same I’m sure. He was a candidate who would have made sense in a different cycle/context but by 1980 his time was definitively past