Bill Clinton dies of a heart attack circa 1998-1999

I know random heart attacks are a bit of a cliche,, but considering the precarious nature of his heart health, and the stress Clinton was undoubtedly under during the Lewinsky Scandal, in this case, such a turn of events is at least a possibility. So, what happens if Clinton dies either in the middle of the Lewinsky Scandal/Impeachment drama, or shortly after his acquittal in the Senate? What does President Gore do, if anything, between becoming President and the 2000 election. What happens to Hillary Clinton? What impact if any does this have on the Republicans in the period following the abrupt end of the Clinton era, and how are they viewed? What kind of reputation does Clinton have here?
Given the way he was horking down fast food I would not be at all suprised at him having a heart attack.
 
Presidency: Gore wins in 2000, Loses to Guliani in 2004. Could go either way in 08 betwen Guilaini and Hillary.

Congress: GOP wouldn't suffer as much as it could with Newt Ginrich resigning, and they can pin the impeachment ordeal on him, as per OTL. Dems make gains in 98/00, and GOP takes them right with more back in 02/04.

I find this doubtful. IOTL, Giuliani was a dead-end candidate in the primaries, and the only reason why anyone took him seriously was because he was mayor of NYC during 9/11. Even with a more moderate GOP this time around, I seriously doubt that he would actually be able to win the nomination. Also, W was able to win re-election despite having a thoroughly unpopular war going on and being the poster child of mediocrity. Rally 'round the flag effect from 9/11, residual sympathy from Clinton's death, and lack of an unpopular war in Iraq would make Gore '04 a better bet than Bush '04. Probably the GOP nominee would be McCain anyway.


Also, I think that the GOP would be somewhat disorganized for the first half of the noughties, the republican playbook centered around increasingly nasty attacks and vitriol(rove/gingrich). This would have been discredited by clinton's death, so you'd be looking at a GOP that would be reshuffling its roster of heavy hitters and reworking its strategies. Chances are they would't be fully ready to retake the dems on a full scale basis until '04 or '06.
 
i like to see how this affects the next couple of elections will more Democrats win office?
Before Clinton the g.o.p had a 12 year hold of the white house. then there was Carter between two in a half full term President Nixon,then half a term President Ford. wii there be more Democratic presidents?
 
I find this doubtful. IOTL, Giuliani was a dead-end candidate in the primaries, and the only reason why anyone took him seriously was because he was mayor of NYC during 9/11. Even with a more moderate GOP this time around, I seriously doubt that he would actually be able to win the nomination. Also, W was able to win re-election despite having a thoroughly unpopular war going on and being the poster child of mediocrity. Rally 'round the flag effect from 9/11, residual sympathy from Clinton's death, and lack of an unpopular war in Iraq would make Gore '04 a better bet than Bush '04. Probably the GOP nominee would be McCain anyway.


Also, I think that the GOP would be somewhat disorganized for the first half of the noughties, the republican playbook centered around increasingly nasty attacks and vitriol(rove/gingrich). This would have been discredited by clinton's death, so you'd be looking at a GOP that would be reshuffling its roster of heavy hitters and reworking its strategies. Chances are they would't be fully ready to retake the dems on a full scale basis until '04 or '06.

Unless of course, Gore is blamed for September 11th, having been commander in chief since 1998 or 1999. I can easily see Republicans trying to actively blame the disaster on Gore's "weak" foreign policy, though it is of course unpredictable how popular that idea becomes. Also, no Iraq war is far from a sure thing, given the actions taken by the Clinton administration towards Iraq.

On Giuliani, I agree that he's probably not going to be the nominee in 2004, given his lack of skill at running a national campaign. But I could see him being handed the Vice Presidential slot in 2004. Normally this would be an impossibility due to the Mayor's stances on the social issues. But given the proximity of September 11th, and given that he's still seen at least to an extent as "America's Mayor" at that point, it might be a possibility.

Of course, who the Republicans nominate in 2004 is unpredictable if I'm correct about Bush and McCain staying out of it due to the seeming inevitability of President Gore's victory. If they stay out, I don't know who would win the nomination in 2000, let alone who the next in line guy would be.
 
If Clinton dies in 1998....

I see Gore continuing his foreign policy in the Balkans and elsewhere. Gore will win the 2000 election, and with a different running mate. 9/11 still happens, and there is still something like the USA PATRIOT ACT, but this version might also focus on gun control. There will be the war in Afghanistan. A war in Iraq is a possibility given Al Gore's track record on the issue. Gore will be ineligible to stand in the 2004 election, producing a very interesting situation on both sides.

Something to consider too is that Bush might not have run in 2000 if Gore was the incumbent and relatively popular.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I think not I think she'd still want to strike out on her own and make her own name, plus I think she'd feel that HHS was to under the ray-dar and womanly

She will want to be Senator, but without Bill Clinton guiding the campaign, she likely fails if she tries in New York. She has not roots in New York, and I think it is a bit of a stretch for a persons non-home state to vote in a widow on sympathy alone.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Unless of course, Gore is blamed for September 11th, having been commander in chief since 1998 or 1999. I can easily see Republicans trying to actively blame the disaster on Gore's "weak" foreign policy, though it is of course unpredictable how popular that idea becomes. Also, no Iraq war is far from a sure thing, given the actions taken by the Clinton administration towards Iraq.

The Republicans would be talking only about the Clinton/Gore defense policy, and would claim it was the decade of disarmament that allowed 9/11 to happen. We, of course, know that a Republican would not have stopped the attack, but I think this message works with the American people. Basically, the Gipper kept us safe, but the draft dodgers allowed the second Pearl Harbor. Then if the message gets going, the Republicans will talk about how the Democrats leave us unprepared for wars or start wars we can't win. Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Gore. And the the Republicans keep us safe/strong. TR, Ike, Kissenger(can't use Nixon name can we ;) ) Bush I.

Bush II or McCain as nominee. I go with McCain. And this close to 9/11 type event, Gulliani as VP. Republicans have a real shot at carrying NJ, NY, Conn.
 
The Republicans would be talking only about the Clinton/Gore defense policy, and would claim it was the decade of disarmament that allowed 9/11 to happen. We, of course, know that a Republican would not have stopped the attack, but I think this message works with the American people. Basically, the Gipper kept us safe, but the draft dodgers allowed the second Pearl Harbor. Then if the message gets going, the Republicans will talk about how the Democrats leave us unprepared for wars or start wars we can't win. Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Gore. And the the Republicans keep us safe/strong. TR, Ike, Kissenger(can't use Nixon name can we ;) ) Bush I.

Bush II or McCain as nominee. I go with McCain. And this close to 9/11 type event, Gulliani as VP. Republicans have a real shot at carrying NJ, NY, Conn.

I think this is accurate, but still depends on who runs in 2000 on the GOP side.
 
She will want to be Senator, but without Bill Clinton guiding the campaign, she likely fails if she tries in New York. She has not roots in New York, and I think it is a bit of a stretch for a persons non-home state to vote in a widow on sympathy alone.

no way, she was 10 points up in early 1999 over Giuliani, who's marriage would still blow up and he'd still have cancer and I see no reason why those two things wouldn't still drive him from the race as they did in OTL
 
Interesting question. Let's look at the economy and economic decisions in the last 2 years of Clinton's adminstration:

Al Gore had been heavily involved in the Internet and this is when the Dot-Com bust occurs with flimsy internet-based firms losing billions and the world fiber optic network overbuilt to demand by 500% (Fortune) by 1999 so it'd turn into a political liability a smart opponent could make a lot of hay out of in the 2000 election while it was still unfolding and a very big deal (even to the media as it had allowed America Online to buy one of the largest media companies, TimeWarner for free as it's stock fell after the stock-paid acquisition embittering many TW journalists over their own 401k's and layoffs.)

This is also when the repeal of the Glass-Steagall banking regulations, the avoidance of regulating financial derivatives/securitization, and the commodities regulations were done, mostly under Phil Gramm, Robert Rubin, and some others. Clinton's grasp of economics (considerable) let him buy into the free markets arguments, what would have happened under Gore is hard to figure. Easy assumption is it would have happened anyway, but hard to tell. NOT having those extremely destructive choices slid through would have made this decade far less miserable, especially after 2007.

Gore was a big China fan too, remember the Chinese donations he accepted at the Buddhist Temple and that had been a significant factor in Clinton's campaigns (so expecting big bucks for a 2000 run would be logical) so China's unilateral access to U.S. markets, resources, technology (this is around the time of the Loral missile technology getting there and other defense technology transfer issues) so China would have a freer hand than they did while Wal-mart, their biggest U.S. customer, would lose a lot of clout that they'd had with their long-time friend and investment in the Clintons.

Gore doesn't make (well, be credited with making as "Waiting for Superman" tells us how much of the skill was the actual director/writer's work) "An Inconvenient Truth" or spend years trying to make a fortune from "Global Warming/Climate Change" campaigning, making that a far less significant movement with endless butterflies. If he's defeated in 2000, he probably still does as "Earth in the Balance" had been out for awhile by then and he needed something to do on the big stage.

While we're assuming Clinton dies flagrante delecto (like Nelson Rockefeller) or perhaps poisoned by Hillary (like Warren Harding probably was over his mistress) or has a stroke like Wilson or resigned after losing physical capacity to congestive heart failure like FDR should have (Thomas Fleming's book "The New Dealers' War" finds he was able to work only an hour or two a day during most of WWII), we're ignoring that Al Gore apparently had his own sex scandals in the wings given his divorce for long and multiple infidelities, assuming that blew up in 1998 instead of a decade later isn't much of a POD. Tipper had still ticked off much of the media and entertainment industry with her years of trying to clean up and further regulate their products so both donations and favorable coverage of Gore at this point would be far less likely and that would hurt a lot in the 2000 election.

Enron, Worldcom/MCI etc. are unraveling at this point and California's energy meltdown thanks to Enron's manipulations is just starting so running on the Clinton economy/economic policies going forward gets much tougher for 2000, especially depending on who the opponent was (McCain was pretty clueless about the economy, Gingrich or Lamar Alexander or Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney etc could have been very effective at this wedge.

Al Quaida's Sept. 11 attack really depends on who's President and how much of a priority they put into rebuilding human intelligence assets and making other big changes. Gore is unknown on that, I'm thinking he'd served on the Senate Intelligence Committee but could well be wrong. I suspect a President Gore would be far less likely to send in the Army or Marines than either Clinton or Bush II as Gore had seen combat firsthand as an Army reporter in Vietnam (Presidents who've seen friends die messily are always far more cautious about sending in the troops than the guys who do all their fighting inside the beltway.) So I'd suspect the Taliban would get much more of the Bosnian approach that Clinton used and Iraq would continue to get a "no fly zone", economic sanctions, and WMD inspectors as it had under Clinton.

I think we're mistaking the halo effect of dying while still iin office Presidents with JFK and FDR for a general effect (think about Harrison's, Lincoln's, Garfield's, McKinley's, Harding's VP's political capital from those deaths or how much the stature grew of VP's where the President was nearly killed/died (Ford/Rockefeller, Reagan/Bush, Truman (Puerto Rican nationalists shootout), FDR (Chicago Mayor died instead), TR (when shot making the speech)...) Dying of a heart attack in peacetime, much less from either during illicit sex or unhealth lifestyle, regardless of attempts to blame the Republicans or Gingrich for hounding him to death, just doesn't resonate (if you have Clinton get crushed by debris in the basement parking garage of the World Trade Center in the first Al Quaida attack, much different story.)

I think Hillary could just as readily turned away from politics after Bill's death, moved back to Chicago to a million dollar a year law partnership and resumed working on the child-defense causes that clearly spoke to her while raising Chelsea. Many more leave DC after a few intense years than stay forever.
 
no way, she was 10 points up in early 1999 over Giuliani, who's marriage would still blow up and he'd still have cancer and I see no reason why those two things wouldn't still drive him from the race as they did in OTL

Yeah Giuliani is really really overestimated as a politician on both the state, and national scale.
 
Unless of course, Gore is blamed for September 11th, having been commander in chief since 1998 or 1999. I can easily see Republicans trying to actively blame the disaster on Gore's "weak" foreign policy, though it is of course unpredictable how popular that idea becomes. Also, no Iraq war is far from a sure thing, given the actions taken by the Clinton administration towards Iraq.

On Giuliani, I agree that he's probably not going to be the nominee in 2004, given his lack of skill at running a national campaign. But I could see him being handed the Vice Presidential slot in 2004. Normally this would be an impossibility due to the Mayor's stances on the social issues. But given the proximity of September 11th, and given that he's still seen at least to an extent as "America's Mayor" at that point, it might be a possibility.

Of course, who the Republicans nominate in 2004 is unpredictable if I'm correct about Bush and McCain staying out of it due to the seeming inevitability of President Gore's victory. If they stay out, I don't know who would win the nomination in 2000, let alone who the next in line guy would be.

Blaming the current sitting president without some serious corroborating evidence is far too risky. If the public buys it, it works out and kills the chances of gore winning re-election, however as every politician on the right and left will do everything in their power to distance themselves from Gore in such an event, there could still be a viable candidate on the democratic side come 2004, which means that the Republicans only evened the odds at best. However, if it doesn't take, it would become political suicide for anyone associated with the accusations. I think that so soon after getting stung by the impeachment clusterfuck and the Gore victory in 2000, the GOP would be very wary of attempting that line of attack.



The Republicans would be talking only about the Clinton/Gore defense policy, and would claim it was the decade of disarmament that allowed 9/11 to happen. We, of course, know that a Republican would not have stopped the attack, but I think this message works with the American people. Basically, the Gipper kept us safe, but the draft dodgers allowed the second Pearl Harbor. Then if the message gets going, the Republicans will talk about how the Democrats leave us unprepared for wars or start wars we can't win. Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Gore. And the the Republicans keep us safe/strong. TR, Ike, Kissenger(can't use Nixon name can we ;) ) Bush I.

Bush II or McCain as nominee. I go with McCain. And this close to 9/11 type event, Gulliani as VP. Republicans have a real shot at carrying NJ, NY, Conn.

See above.

Also; look at Kennedy, people still don't make too many connections between him and the fuck ups in Vietnam(justified or not) and he died half a century ago. Less than five years after Clinton died, and you would hardly get a peep out of the GOP on that. The systemic problems of the US intelligence gathering apparatus is not the fault of any one president and the democrats would make this point, and the whole tactic of wrapping yourself in the flag and calling everyone who disagrees with you a terrorist sympathizer can be used by the dems just as effectively as it was used by the republicans.
 
Last edited:

BlondieBC

Banned
Blaming the current sitting president without some serious corroborating evidence is far too risky. If the public buys it, it works out and kills the chances of gore winning re-election, however as every politician on the right and left will do everything in their power to distance themselves from Gore in such an event, there could still be a viable candidate on the democratic side come 2004, which means that the Republicans only evened the odds at best. However, if it doesn't take, it would become political suicide for anyone associated with the accusations. I think that so soon after getting stung by the impeachment clusterfuck and the Gore victory in 2000, the GOP would be very wary of attempting that line of attack.

The evidence will not be a conspiracy theory.

1) Reagan/Bush I had high defense spending. No attacks on USA soil.

2) Clinton cut the defense budget by a lot. Gore did the same. They Republicans will find some funding cut to some part of the CIA/DoD, and say, look, this $50 million dollar cut to the the CIA Arab division.

3) Therefore, Republicans keep you safe, Democrats leave us vulnerable.

Now all this will not be said by the main Republicans, but the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the like. The main candidate will stay on a positive message of I am competent to run the security function, built on a base of what the talk radio people have built. Then whenever the Democrat talks about how he will be big on security, the Republican machine will show pictures and quotes of him with Gore.
 
The evidence will not be a conspiracy theory.

1) Reagan/Bush I had high defense spending. No attacks on USA soil.

2) Clinton cut the defense budget by a lot. Gore did the same. They Republicans will find some funding cut to some part of the CIA/DoD, and say, look, this $50 million dollar cut to the the CIA Arab division.

3) Therefore, Republicans keep you safe, Democrats leave us vulnerable.

Now all this will not be said by the main Republicans, but the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the like. The main candidate will stay on a positive message of I am competent to run the security function, built on a base of what the talk radio people have built. Then whenever the Democrat talks about how he will be big on security, the Republican machine will show pictures and quotes of him with Gore.

unlikely, as few people were willing to say that Bush was asleep at the wheel, over looking President's Daily Briefs on Bin Ladin, few people will point out this, which are more subtle than say "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" Rush doesn't seem to me to be the type to dig around budgets to pick out lines, and I doubt any one else would have the taste for it, and the public reaction would be bad to any one trying to tar the President at a time of war
 

BlondieBC

Banned
unlikely, as few people were willing to say that Bush was asleep at the wheel, over looking President's Daily Briefs on Bin Ladin, few people will point out this, which are more subtle than say "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" Rush doesn't seem to me to be the type to dig around budgets to pick out lines, and I doubt any one else would have the taste for it, and the public reaction would be bad to any one trying to tar the President at a time of war

Many people said Bush was asleep at the wheel. It did not take traction because of his small amount of time in office. IMO, if he had been in office over 6 years, he would have been widely blamed for incompetence that allowed the attack. Bushes counter argument was he had not been in office enough to transform the security apparatus. Go read the news articles for the 2004 campaign, especially places like MSNBC.

And LBJ would like to talk to you about how we don't "tar the President at a time of war"
 
Many people said Bush was asleep at the wheel. It did not take traction because of his small amount of time in office. IMO, if he had been in office over 6 years, he would have been widely blamed for incompetence that allowed the attack. Bushes counter argument was he had not been in office enough to transform the security apparatus. Go read the news articles for the 2004 campaign, especially places like MSNBC.

And LBJ would like to talk to you about how we don't "tar the President at a time of war"

I think it was because it left a bad taste in most people's mouth to try and blame people for 9/11, people didn't want to blame some one in our government thats why it didn't take off, if people wanted blood Bush's rather lame "I hadn't been in office long enough" wouldn't have helped, though maybe with Gore being in office longer he would have taken some action, I remember him noting that he'd only seen a few President's Daily Briefs as blunt as "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" while he was VP, and each time Clinton took action (I believe they were about the Atlanta Olympics and the millenium bombing) hind sight is 20/20 but it's not unlikely that a daily brief in Gore's hands leads to more bombings
 
Many people said Bush was asleep at the wheel. It did not take traction because of his small amount of time in office. IMO, if he had been in office over 6 years, he would have been widely blamed for incompetence that allowed the attack. Bushes counter argument was he had not been in office enough to transform the security apparatus. Go read the news articles for the 2004 campaign, especially places like MSNBC.

And LBJ would like to talk to you about how we don't "tar the President at a time of war"

The attacks against bush didn't gain traction because it was viewed in bad taste to attack the president in a time of war, partisan attacks were viewed as "letting the terrorists divide us."

I mean, look at the Dixie Chicks, their 'ashamed to be from texas' quote came after Iraq over two years after 9/11, and it cost them a lot.

Also, don't forget that there was evidence that Bush was warned that 'attack is imminent' before the attacks came. While this is hardly enough to to really implicate him, it could have been easily used as political ammunition by his enemies, and that never came to fruition.

And I can't believe that you would make the comparison between Gulf of Tonkin/Vietnam War and 9-11/Afghanistan. The two are so different that one could be forgiven for thinking that you're making a joke.
 
Top