Bush/Baker

In 1992 there was a strong Dump Quayle movement inside the Republican Party. It failed partly because nobody wanted to give the vice president the bad news and partly because Dan Quayle and Bill Kristol made it look to the public like Bush backed Quayle. There were 2 big candidates for running mate: Colin Powell, who wasn't too excited about it but would have obeyed the president, and Jim Baker.

WI the movement had been successful and Baker was picked as vice presidential candidate?
 
Bush was really on the nose with the conservative wing of the GOP in 91/92--mostly because of the breaking of the 'no new taxes' pledge, but also because he'd never been a creature of the Right, at least not to the extent they wanted. Buchanan's insurgency in the primaries was the most famous result of that dissatisfaction.

Sure, he fixed some of the damage with his conservative allies by running a hardcore culture warrior convention, and by aggressively going after Clinton/Gore, but I just don't see how he could have dumped Quayle. Getting rid of his VP could only have been done by replacing him with someone who gave every impression of being a serious Rightwinger. We're talking Jesse Helms Rightwinger, not some guy who would look too moderate--which is Baker, probably, and Powell certainly.
 
Nobody really thought of Bush as a Texan.

This is irrelevant to the simple fact that Bush's voting registration was in Texas, he'd been a Texan for decades, and it was his home state.

And as everyone knows, the constitution forbids electors casting their votes for both a President and a VP from the same state. For Baker to be on the ticket, you either have to have him or Bush change their home state simply for transparent electoral purposes. One of them would have to flip the bird to Texas (Presumably Bush, who would move his registration back to Connecticut) in a pretty major and possibly election-ruining way otherwise it's a constitutional nonsense.

Combined with the factors that Magniac outlined, it's far too much trouble than it's worth.
 
This is irrelevant to the simple fact that Bush's voting registration was in Texas, he'd been a Texan for decades, and it was his home state.

And as everyone knows, the constitution forbids electors casting their votes for both a President and a VP from the same state. For Baker to be on the ticket, you either have to have him or Bush change their home state simply for transparent electoral purposes. One of them would have to flip the bird to Texas (Presumably Bush, who would move his registration back to Connecticut) in a pretty major and possibly election-ruining way otherwise it's a constitutional nonsense.

Combined with the factors that Magniac outlined, it's far too much trouble than it's worth.

That's sort of what Cheney did in OTL - after living for years as a Texan, he had to make a few changes to plausibly demonstrate that he was a Wyomingian. I wonder if anyone would really notice, though. I didn't know about Cheney for years afterward.
 
That's sort of what Cheney did in OTL - after living for years as a Texan, he had to make a few changes to plausibly demonstrate that he was a Wyomingian.

Yeah, but Cheney had only been a resident of Texas for, what? Eight years? Maybe less? By 1992 Bush has been a Texan for several decades, and is firmly established there.

Bush actually played on the fact that he was an adoptive Texan in the run up to '88 with the whole cowboy boots routine. I really don't think him abandoning Texas as his home state would do him any favours. Remember, Clinton nearly took Texas in '92. Baker on the ticket is really just too much trouble.
 
Also, I might add that I don't think this would come off in any case, because Baker was much too valuable to Bush at State. They were huge friends, and Bush had a high opinion of Baker's work. I really can't see Bush wanting to shunt him off into the Vice Presidency.
 
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