Carter Reelected?

Noticing an earlier thread on the 1980 US Presidential Election, I was reminded of a question I have been pondering lately regarding Jimmy Carter. Anyway, how plausible is a scenario where Carter is reelected against Reagan in 1980? Also what would be the implications for the United States without Reagan? How would 1984 look with a recovering economy?
 
Carter winning under OTL conditions is nearly ASB.

However, as discussed on several other threads, had the Iranian Revolution been delayed or butterflied, then the economy heading into 1980 is substantially better and Carter sails to an easy reelection. That said, that creates enormous butterflies and it's tough to say how the following years would have played out.

If the Iranian Revolution occurs as it did but something else improves conditions - say the hostage crisis doesn't occur or Eagle Claw succeeds - then Carter *might* be able to claw to reelection, esp. if Carter is able to avoid debating Reagan.

In this scenario, a Carter second term would have actually played out not unlike a softer version of Reagan's. Carter had already begun a defense build-up, detente had already ended, and Carter was mostly pushing budget cuts, deregulation, and more modest tax cuts. You might get a big tax reform effort in his first term - so think the '86 tax reform effort instead of Reagan's OTL cuts. Top rates still get lowered, but the end result is more progressive than OTL. You'd also see continued renewable energy investments and a focus on fuel economy.

With the 1981 double-dip recession, the GOP might take Congress in '82. Volcker's efforts still succeed in snuffing out inflation, so that a sharp recovery occurs in '84 as OTL. Mondale would be the beneficiary, although he'd still be no better than a 50/50 favorite against the GOP nominee, who'd probably be Bob Dole or Jack Kemp. (Bush, Sr. would be a non-factor - in this scenario he'd be a failed VP nominee whose highest position had been CIA director eight years prior.)
 
Carter winning under OTL conditions is nearly ASB.

Not necessarily.

There are reasons to think that there was a secret deal made between the Iranian government and the Republican leadership to keep the hostage crisis going on for as long as possible to ensure a victory for Reagan in 1980, though it should be noted of course that there are also reasons to believe that such a deal did not take place and that fmr. Pres. Carter himself has publicly refused to engage in such speculation.

However, let's just, for the purposes of alternate history speculation assume that such a deal did take place. What we are discussing then is Watergate 2.0, however it is much bigger than the original Watergate, as we now are dealing with hostage-taking of American citizens by a hostile Islamic dictatorial regime that has just ousted an American ally. For extreme funsies let's assume that the revelation takes place just a day or so after the first Carter-Reagan debate. I can completely see the scenario. The attacks on the Republicans in the Senate, while President Carter is unsure what to do. Reagan completely disappears from the public eye and journalists try to find him everywhere. Carter wants there to be more substance to the allegations before he accepts them as fact, but he feels which way the winds are blowing. Finally he holds a press conference condemning the Republican campaign. Senator Goldwater (who in OTL would condemn Iran-Contra scandal as the "god-damned stupidest foreign policy blunder this country's ever made!") is the first big Reagan-ally to angrily retract his endorsement and call for Reagan to resign his candidature for the US Presidency. Then comes a press conference from 10 Downing Street where Thatcher too condemns the antics of the GOP shadow leadership. Support for the President sky-rockets in simple disgust for what the Republican campaign has done, and many Republican candidates for state offices and Congress finds it necessary to declare that they have had no idea what has gone on higher up the pyramid. Finally, Reagan declares that he is not running for the Presidency any longer, but it is too late for the GOP to find another nominee: Carter wins in a landslide with 74% of the votes and a sweeping 538 votes in the electoral college while John Anderson wins a respectable 18% of the votes cast and Ed Clark of the Libertarian Party secures 8% himself. Needless to say, ridiculous majorities are guaranteed for the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

Can the Republicans ever recover? What will happen to John Anderson and what will happen to the Libertarians? Any possibility of them taking the place as the centre-right party in the US á the Canadian Reform Party? The possibilities are endless.
 
To interject, it would be more apt to link such a thing to Nixon's secret talks with the Vietnamese which sabotaged peace negotiations.
 
If the operation to rescue the hostages had somehow succeeded then Carter would have been re elected. Reagan got 8.5 million more votes than Carter in 1980. Rescuing the hostages only has to take 4.3 million votes from Reagan to win the popular vote.
 
Not necessarily.

There are reasons to think that there was a secret deal made between the Iranian government and the Republican leadership to keep the hostage crisis going on for as long as possible to ensure a victory for Reagan in 1980, though it should be noted of course that there are also reasons to believe that such a deal did not take place and that fmr. Pres. Carter himself has publicly refused to engage in such speculation.

However, let's just, for the purposes of alternate history speculation assume that such a deal did take place. What we are discussing then is Watergate 2.0, however it is much bigger than the original Watergate, as we now are dealing with hostage-taking of American citizens by a hostile Islamic dictatorial regime that has just ousted an American ally. For extreme funsies let's assume that the revelation takes place just a day or so after the first Carter-Reagan debate. I can completely see the scenario. The attacks on the Republicans in the Senate, while President Carter is unsure what to do. Reagan completely disappears from the public eye and journalists try to find him everywhere. Carter wants there to be more substance to the allegations before he accepts them as fact, but he feels which way the winds are blowing. Finally he holds a press conference condemning the Republican campaign. Senator Goldwater (who in OTL would condemn Iran-Contra scandal as the "god-damned stupidest foreign policy blunder this country's ever made!") is the first big Reagan-ally to angrily retract his endorsement and call for Reagan to resign his candidature for the US Presidency. Then comes a press conference from 10 Downing Street where Thatcher too condemns the antics of the GOP shadow leadership. Support for the President sky-rockets in simple disgust for what the Republican campaign has done, and many Republican candidates for state offices and Congress finds it necessary to declare that they have had no idea what has gone on higher up the pyramid. Finally, Reagan declares that he is not running for the Presidency any longer, but it is too late for the GOP to find another nominee: Carter wins in a landslide with 74% of the votes and a sweeping 538 votes in the electoral college while John Anderson wins a respectable 18% of the votes cast and Ed Clark of the Libertarian Party secures 8% himself. Needless to say, ridiculous majorities are guaranteed for the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

Can the Republicans ever recover? What will happen to John Anderson and what will happen to the Libertarians? Any possibility of them taking the place as the centre-right party in the US á the Canadian Reform Party? The possibilities are endless.

hmmm....this means that no B-1s.....therefore, B-52s armed with cruise missiles.....much more worry for the USSR.
 
Actually, what if Reagan blows the debate? I know he's a good debater and a good speaker, but let's assume that he has a "No Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" moment. It's not ASB, he just has a really bad moment on the stage and gives Carter some juicy ad fodder.

Actually, a good choice would be a flub in the Anderson debate that somehow gets compounded in the Carter debate (i.e. Reagan says something wrong and neither he nor Anderson catch it, and Carter somehow pounces in their debate). I suspect that all you need is to deny Reagan his debate moment and/or give the moment to Carter on dumb luck instead to give Carter an outside shot. Not that it makes a Carter victory the most likely thing in the world, but if Reagan looks like he's having a senior moment in '80...
 
There are reasons to think that there was a secret deal made between the Iranian government and the Republican leadership to keep the hostage crisis going on for as long as possible to ensure a victory for Reagan in 1980,

??? I thought that was established fact [Robert Parry's Trick or Treason]. Just like Iran-Contra (a clearly impeachable action) the news media swept it under the rug because they were avoiding another Watergate.

I like Reagan a great deal (Iceland went against his whole party for instance) but either he was out of the loop or he sanctioned all kinds of things that were clearly illegal that should have had him strung up on charges.


On the thread topic certainly you can see Carter win re-election. If one rolls back to his "malaise" speech (he never said the word, and his poll numbers bumped up quite a bit) and avoid Carter asking for his cabinet to resign (which killed his poll numbers a few days later) that helps a lot. If Reagan is more hurt in the primaries or someone else takes him out that probably helps. If Kennedy doesn't crush Carter (rhetorically) that alone might give you a second Carter term.

There's plenty of ways for it to be President Carter, 1977-1985.
 
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From what I've heard the best case scenario for Carter is some situation in which the Iran Hostage Crisis happens, but ends at just the right moment for him, and then the debates are somehow avoided. That is, perhaps I have my facts wrong, but I seem to recall that the crisis, at least initially, helped Carter. That is, the rally around the flag effect it engendered initially favored the incumbent. The crisis helped Carter avoid losing renomination to Edward Kennedy. However, as the crisis wore on, it accentuated the sense that he was a politically impotent figure, and helped Reagan defeat him in the general. So you might need there to be a crisis that lasts long enough for there to be an incumbent boosting rally around the flag effect, but not long enough for Carter to look woefully incompetent and impotent. Unfortunately for Carter's chances, I have no idea how to pull off that scenario. Avoiding the debates is easy enough, as I recall reading/hearing, they were only barely agreed to historically. If I have the record straight, Reagan wanted Andersen on the stage, Carter did not. So it's easy enough to imagine a situation in which the two don't reach any agreement.

Given these two conditions, I think it's at least slightly within the realm of possibility that Carter pulls off a narrow victory.
 
We probably have threads on AH.com about the nuclear war that certainly would have followed had the madman Reagan been elected.

Also a few on how the USSR would have fallen for real if Reagan had been elected.
 
We probably have threads on AH.com about the nuclear war that certainly would have followed had the madman Reagan been elected.

Also a few on how the USSR would have fallen for real if Reagan had been elected.

Them's fighting words around here, son.
 
Them's fighting words around here, son.

Oh, yeah, the "inevitable nuclear war" DBWIs would be a lot more popular.

And the response that no way the USSR would have fallen if Reagan had gotten in would probably be pretty popular. :)
 
If Kennedy did not run in the Primaries against Carter that really helps the president. Or he helps President Carter in his re election attempt. The polls were close until the last minute and a lot of democrats stayed at home. But what helps President Carter most is another attempt that succeeds in getting the hostages out of Iran. How all this happens is the story though.
 
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