DBWI: Mondale loses in 1984

As we all know, Reagan was a historically unpopular president, often considered to be the worst of the 20th century. In fact, his unpopularity was so enormously large that former vice president Mondale ran and beat Reagan in a 49 state landslide, with Reagan only winning Utah with 49.72 percent of the vote to Mondale's 49.54 percent. In the popular vote, it was just as lopsided, with Mondale taking 60.89 percent of the vote, to Reagan only taking 38.97 percent.

But let's just imagine that never happened. Can we imagine a case, as ASB as it may sound, where Reagan even barely manages to win in that election. What would America be like?
 
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Continued deterioration of relations with the UK, which Mondale was barely able to patch back together. Reagan made a HUGE mistake in pronouncing the US neutral during the Falklands Crisis. Yes, he reversed himself in short order, but the fact that he even held that stance for a few days basically indicated to the whole world he had no freaking clue how alliances worked. Even normally anglo-skeptical Americans held him at least partly to blame for the trashing of the London embassy.

Goddam Kirkpatrick.
 
We wouldn't experience the wild ride that was 1988, when Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole narrowly upset President Mondale to become America's 42nd Commander in Chief. Despite his 1984 landslide, Mondale proved an incompetent President and the 1987 stock market crash opened the door for the GOP to critique the Democrats on economic issues. Further, the failure of the INF Treaty to pass the Senate diminished Mondale's record on foreign policy. Polls showed a dead heat, but in the end Dole pulled through. Despite the 1990 recession he was re-elected in 1992, although the Democrats would return to power in 2000 after once again losing in 1996 to Dole's VP.

If Reagan had won in 1984, I imagine that 1988 would be a Democratic year instead of a Republican one. A likely scenario is Gary Hart or Mario Cuomo defeating Vice President Bush.
 
So are we just butterflying the Falklands “mishap”, ‘83 economic recession, the famously unpopular Iranian war, and North Dakota disaster?
Because without all those, Reagan may have stood a chance
 
So are we just butterflying the Falklands “mishap”, ‘83 economic recession, the famously unpopular Iranian war, and North Dakota disaster?
Because without all those, Reagan may have stood a chance

As far as North Dakota goes, I don't think you neccessarily have to buttefly it away, just get Reagan to do a better job of blaming the whole thing on James Watt.
 
The problem with reversing these historically lopsided elections is that you have to make changes in events prior to the elections, which themselves may have greater consequences than the election themselves.

To do the simplest change, how about Reagan decides (or his handlers decide for him) not to run again, or delay the onset of his dementia by two years? Dole might have beaten Mondale in 1984 and taken office four years earlier. Even with the events of his administration, Reagan was a pretty effective politician when mentally healthy and I think he could have eked out a win. An earlier Dole administration or a second Reagan turn with Reagan pretty much a figurehead once the dementia set in would have gone roughly the same.
 
As far as North Dakota goes, I don't think you neccessarily have to buttefly it away, just get Reagan to do a better job of blaming the whole thing on James Watt.

How is a 10 megaton warhead going off in the silo any of Interior Secretary James Watts fault? Or did you mean SecDef Cappy Weinberger?
 
Another thing that was missing was professionalism. During the vice president debates and even the entire term, vice president Bush was an idiot, and could barely iterate his points properly to save his life. It's hard to watch his performance in the 84 debate without cringing. He even made the dumb mistake of saying the cold war was a false fear people had

Easily the worst vice president since world war 2. Even with him on the ticket, Texas still voted for Mondale by 18 percent. But to be completely fair, that might have been due to Mondale being smart and picking Lloyd Bentsen, a popular Texas senator for his running mate, who historically knew how to beat Bush due to the 1970 Senate race
 
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