Change a few votes

If in the 2000 US presidential election, Pat Buchanan had not gotten on the ballot in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico, I assume Bush instead of Gore would have won those states. If there was a better ballot design in Palm Beach County, I assume Gore would have won Florida. If those things happened the electoral college would have tied 269 to 269. On January 6, 2001, the Republican controlled House would have elected George W Bush president. Presuming that Zell Miller stays loyal, the Senate ties 50 to 50. Vice President Gore casts the tie breaking vote for his running mate and Joe Lieberman becomes Vice President. I assume Vice President Lieberman does not get an office in the White House and spends his time on capitol hill trying to act as leader of the Democratic Party. In 2003, relations between Bush and Lieberman warm up as he becomes an important supporter of the Iraq war. In 2004, Vice President Lieberman runs for Democratic nomination for President and does as poorly as OTL. I would imagine the 2004 presidential election goes as OTL.
Bush wins a narrow majority and his running mate, probably Dick Cheney, is elected vice president. I see Lieberman running for Senate in 2006, I am not sure if he wins.
 
If those things happened the electoral college would have tied 269 to 269. On January 6, 2001, the Republican controlled House would have elected George W Bush president. Presuming that Zell Miller stays loyal, the Senate ties 50 to 50. Vice President Gore casts the tie breaking vote for his running mate and Joe Lieberman becomes Vice President.

There is another possibility. I think there would be a feeling that the Senate should elect Cheney, to match Bush and avoid the potential pitfalls of a divided adminstration.

In fact I would not be surprised if Lieberman himself took this view and cast a deciding vote for Cheney.

That would certainly give Lieberman a remarkable reputation for selflessness.

Also, would Lieberman really want to be VP on a double tie breaker? That's a dubious honor.

Alternately, Bush might suggest the election of Lieberman as a sort of grand compromise, at least symbolically, to give effect to the tied election.

But I have forgotten the substantive issue - that with the Senate split 50/50, the VP casts the deciding vote to organize the Senate and control the committees. Maybe that overrides the sentiments I considered above.

Another possibiility is that Jim Jeffords turns his coat right then. But that could backfire: some Democrats might consider that an improper way to elect the VP. Also, with Jeffords' vote, they don't need the VP to organize the Senate, so it's cheaper to give Bush his own VP.
 
There is another possibility. I think there would be a feeling that the Senate should elect Cheney, to match Bush and avoid the potential pitfalls of a divided administration.
There is another possibility. I think there would be a feeling that the House should elect Gore, to match the popular vote and Lieberman and avoid the potential pitfalls of a divided administration.

Yeah, right.
 
And another possibility would be that the Senate re-elects Gore as VP, keeping him in the national limelight and giving him a platform to be a sort of Leader of the Opposition come Iraq.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
On January 6, 2001, the Republican controlled House would have elected George W Bush president.

Would it? In such a case, the House votes by state delegation, not in a simple up-or-down vote on the floor. You'd have to look into the breakdown by state delegation.

But it's even more complicated than that. Would members of the House vote for their party's nominee if their state had voted for the other party's nominee? Delaware was represented by a single Republican and North Dakota and South Dakota were represented by single Democrats; would they have voted the party lines or would they have voted the way the people of their state voted.

In any case, you need to do some checking before concluding that the House would have elected Bush simply because it had a majority of Republicans.
 
But I have forgotten the substantive issue - that with the Senate split 50/50, the VP casts the deciding vote to organize the Senate and control the committees. Maybe that overrides the sentiments I considered above.

Another possibiility is that Jim Jeffords turns his coat right then. But that could backfire: some Democrats might consider that an improper way to elect the VP. Also, with Jeffords' vote, they don't need the VP to organize the Senate, so it's cheaper to give Bush his own VP.

Don't forget that if Lieberman becomes VP his Senate seat vacancy would be filled by a Republican Governor. That would make the Senate 50R-49D until a replacement is named, and 51R-49D after. If Jeffords flips, then it would be a tie with VP Lieberman becoming the deciding vote, but that wasn't certain to happen in January 2001.

I think in such an Electoral College tie scenario some Democrats in the Senate would rather have Lieberman among their caucus to keep things 50-50, rather than make him a powerless VP just to send a "F You" to the Republicans. So all it would take is one of them to vote for Cheney to ruin this VP Lieberman plan. Then if Jeffords flips later, the Democrats get the majority as in OTL.
 
I am pretty sure the Republicans controlled a majority of house state delagations.

Republicans controlled 29 delegations: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming.

Democrats controlled 17 delegations: Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

Four delegations were split evenly: Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada.
 
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