Bill Clinton heart attack earlier

Not long after his presidency ended, Bill Clinton was diagnosed with severe coronary artery disease and was just weeks away from a massive, and probably fatal, heart attack.

Lets say he has that fatal heart attack a few years earlier... in the middle of Monicagate.

As Al Gore has served more than two years of Clinton's unexpired term, he can only run for one elected term of his own.
 
Gore wins in 2000 for sure and the GOP probably faces more backlash than OTL and that backlash probably carries into 2000, meaning Bush and McCain sit 2000 out and a weaker candidate (Liddy Dole, Lamar Alexander, Dan Quayle perhaps) is put up as a sacrificial lamb and loses to Gore in a landslide. 2004 could also go Democratic in this scenario depending on how the early 2000s in this TL go, and Gore would be kingmaker for the Democrats.
 
Gore wins in 2000 for sure and the GOP probably faces more backlash than OTL and that backlash probably carries into 2000, meaning Bush and McCain sit 2000 out and a weaker candidate (Liddy Dole, Lamar Alexander, Dan Quayle perhaps) is put up as a sacrificial lamb and loses to Gore in a landslide. 2004 could also go Democratic in this scenario depending on how the early 2000s in this TL go, and Gore would be kingmaker for the Democrats.

2004 would simply be an almost exact replay of 1992, just with the Democrats and Republicans reversed.
 
2004 would simply be an almost exact replay of 1992, just with the Democrats and Republicans reversed.
If Dubya was able to eek it out on the "War on Terror" by itself, certainly a Democrat could to. In most "Gore wins 2000" scenarios, I'd agree that 2004 would be '92 in reverse, but this scenario could make 2004 different.
 
If Dubya was able to eek it out on the "War on Terror" by itself, certainly a Democrat could to. In most "Gore wins 2000" scenarios, I'd agree that 2004 would be '92 in reverse, but this scenario could make 2004 different.

But the problem is that Bush didn't have party fatigue like Gore would have here after 12 years of Democratic rule, and it should be noted Bush won by the skin of his teeth even with all the same advantages Gore would have in such a scenario.
 
If Gore wins 2000, keep in mind he's president during 9/11 (or at least it's attempt.) It could go a number of ways. But it probably turns more on the economy and who runs for the Dems in '04. If Hillary runs, she has the Clinton name, but it's a scandal-plagued one, she'll be dogged by rumors she was involved in Bill's death (Warren Harding's wife was long rumored to have poisoned her husband) and if the GOP runs anyone halfway competent, they win.

However, 2004 may have been a poison pill. If the economy sours as it did IOTL in late 2007 (and with the housing bubble, no amount of tax cuts will stop at least a significant downturn even if it's not a severe recession) then expect the '04 winner to be a one-term president and the Dems to be swept right back into office. This would hurt the GOP severely, as they go from being a viable alternative to the party that gets blamed when it all goes to hell.
 
A lot depends on exactly when in the timeline of the scandal ot happens - before or after Clinton's initial perjury, before or after his admission, before or after Starr recommends impeachment, before or after the Iraq Liberation Act, before or after the impeachment vote...

Be careful about making assuptions that anything after the POD occurs as OTL - the House and Senate balance and Bush winning reelection in 98, Gore standing in 2000, Bush getting the 2000 nomination, 9/11 might all happen, but with increasing unlikeliness.
 
A vice president has to be wary about accepting the transference of power even temporarily, because every second of it constitutionally counts towards the "if you've served more than two years of someone else's term, you can't serve more than one of your own".
 
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