DBWI: JC Watts does not run for the Senate in 2004

TheAllTimeGreatest

In 2004, former Congressman JC Watts entered the open race for United States Senator of Oklahoma after coming out of a brief retirement. He ended up winning the seat and was subsequently re-elected in 2010.

After he gave a passionate and fiery keynote address at the 2012 Republican National Convention, the Republican Party began propping up Watts as a front runner for the Presidency. In 2016, he decided to run for President, and decided to run on a platform of “pragmatic conservatism,” a platform that encouraged more minority voters to join the GOP.

He was able to upset perceived front runners Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, going up against Senator Bernie Sanders in the general election, who was coming off a bruising primary that ended in a brokered convention at the DNC, where enough delegates for Hillary flipped to Sanders, resulting in him winning the nomination despite losing the nationwide contest in both delegate and popular vote count.

Watts was able to capitalize on how Hillary voters were upset at the fact their candidate lost due to a technicality, and most flocked to support Watts. In the end, Watts ended up defeating Sanders in the general election 355-183.

What would have happened had Watts not considered to run for Senate all the way back in 2004?
 

thekingsguard

Watts/Haley really was a facinating thing in modern politics, even with the oddball 2016 election, to say nothing of the first two years of the Watts Presidency.

For one thing, we lose one of the most iconic moments in American history - you know the one, where President Obama met with President-elect Watts, shaking hands in the rose garden. One black President passing the baton to another.

Watts has certainly moved the GOP into a much more civil libertarian position. Decriminilizing weed on the federal level, criminal justice reform, rolling back domestic surviellence and phasing out the TSA... not sure if he or Attorney General Rand Paul deserves most of the credit for that, but credit where it's due.

Any bets if his appointment of Janice Rogers Brown to replace Ginsberg on the Supreme Court passes?
 

TheAllTimeGreatest

thekingsguard said:
Watts/Haley really was a facinating thing in modern politics, even with the oddball 2016 election, to say nothing of the first two years of the Watts Presidency.

For one thing, we lose one of the most iconic moments in American history - you know the one, where President Obama met with President-elect Watts, shaking hands in the rose garden. One black President passing the baton to another.

Watts has certainly moved the GOP into a much more civil libertarian position. Decriminilizing weed on the federal level, criminal justice reform, rolling back domestic surviellence and phasing out the TSA... not sure if he or Attorney General Rand Paul deserves most of the credit for that, but credit where it's due.

Any bets if his appointment of Janice Rogers Brown to replace Ginsberg on the Supreme Court passes?
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The credit lies with the administration, so I feel both of them will.

As it comes to Brown, that, my friend, I feel is going to be a dogfight in the Senate. With these past midterms, Republicans now have a 58-42 majority in then Senate, so it’s likely it will pass. However, being as how a strongly liberal Justice like Ginsburg is being replaced by a strongly conservative person like Brown, the Democrats are going to do everything in their power, I feel, to stop it. Think about this: the last two Supreme Court nominations by Watts, Neil Gorsuch and Raymond Kethledge, were pretty brutal, but I feel this one may be the nastiest yet.

They say his choice to appoint Brown was for two reasons: to have a more diverse court, and because she is 68, so it is likely she will not remain on the court for too long.
 

thekingsguard

TheAllTimeGreatest said:
The credit lies with the administration, so I feel both of them will.

As it comes to Brown, that, my friend, I feel is going to be a dogfight in the Senate. With these past midterms, Republicans now have a 58-42 majority in then Senate, so it’s likely it will pass. However, being as how a strongly liberal Justice like Ginsburg is being replaced by a strongly conservative person like Brown, the Democrats are going to do everything in their power, I feel, to stop it. Think about this: the last two Supreme Court nominations by Watts, Neil Gorsuch and Raymond Kethledge, were pretty brutal, but I feel this one may be the nastiest yet.

They say his choice to appoint Brown was for two reasons: to have a more diverse court, and because she is 68, so it is likely she will not remain on the court for too long.
Click to expand...

It will likely help that Brown and Gorsuch are both, while admitedly right wing, more of the libertarian stripe. Those two, along with Sotomayor may kill civil assest forfiture next court session.

Without the rise of Watts, would we have seen the rise of other Black Republicans? Senator Tim Scott in South Carolina, Governor Alveda King in Georgia, Senator Mia Love in Utah, Senator John James in Michigan... hell, just in the US Senate alone, we went from 3 black Senators to 7, and 5 of them are Republicans.

Some attribute that to the rise of Watts, but with or without him, I don't see the GOP giving up the chance to beat the Dems at thier own diversity game.
 

TheAllTimeGreatest

thekingsguard said:
Without the rise of Watts, would we have seen the rise of other Black Republicans? Senator Tim Scott in South Carolina, Governor Alveda King in Georgia, Senator Mia Love in Utah, Senator John James in Michigan... hell, just in the US Senate alone, we went from 3 black Senators to 7, and 5 of them are Republicans.

Some attribute that to the rise of Watts, but with or without him, I don't see the GOP giving up the chance to beat the Dems at thier own diversity game.
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Don’t forgot the formation of the Congressional African American Republican Caucus. Many Republican incumbents decided to retire this past election cycle, but luckily, their seats were saved by many African American Republicans who were motivated by President Watts’ dedication to the country and how well he was doing in his first two years, 5 out of the 7 new Senators being Republicans, such as John James or Mia Love.

Out of the 248 Republican members of the House of Representatives that were elected, 38 of them were black Republicans hoping to make an impact in the party. Many contribute this feat to the relationship between President Watts and newly elected RNC Chairman Michael Steele, an African American Republican in his own right, whom Watts endorsed for the seat after his election win. Tons of media outlets, from big news networks like CNN and MSNBC, to online newspapers such as Daily Beast and HuffPost were all talking about how the Republican Party was able to attract so many ambitious African American Representatives.
 

TheAllTimeGreatest

glenn67 said:
Don't forget Governors Boyd Rutherford (R-MD) and Allen West (R-FL).
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Oh yeah, but Allen West is seen by some as a bit too much. He always employs terminology like “leading blacks away from the Democratic plantation,” and that he’s like “the Harriet Tubman ferrying these souls to freedom.” Stuff like that makes me wonder exactly how he was elected, you know?

But Boyd Rutherford and Lieutenant Governor Larry Hogan are a dynamic pair together. There’s talks of Rutherford running for Senate in 2022, and there’s a good chance he could win.
 
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