DBWI: What would have happened if Obama had won the 2008 elections?

As you know, the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the closest in history, with Hillary Clinton winning Democratic domination of the presidency by defeating candidate Barack Obama by just 3%. Later, Clinton would win the election and be the 44th president of the United States.
 
Obama lacked the experience to get the nomination. He was extremely lucky to get as close as he did.

In the unlikely event of him getting the nomination, I think he would be far more vulnerable to attacks from McCain than Clinton was. It might well have made a comfortable Democratic victory into a toss-up.
 
As you know, the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the closest in history, with Hillary Clinton winning Democratic domination of the presidency by defeating candidate Barack Obama by just 3%. Later, Clinton would win the election and be the 44th president of the United States.

Obama might have focused on healthcare whereas HRC avoided that before the 2010 midterms. Her mostly focusing on the collapsed economy and having taken out Bin Ladin enabled the Democrats to sweep further in 2010.

I don't think Obama would have intervened in the 2010 Florida Senate Race for Crist the way HRC did. The pickups in Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, and New Hampshire weren't too shabby either. Flipping Murkowski into the fold was a genius move too.


You wouldn't have seen Mike Gravel breaking 3% and setting the stage for Johnson-Goldwater in 2012 to get 7% and block Huckabee from beating HRC either.

I doubt Obama could win West Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, and Montana the way Clinton-Vilsack did.
 
I'm going to bite my tongue here, as we all know my (exceedingly low) opinions of Mrs. Clinton and her disastrous Presidency. I don't think Obama is quite the savior this site and the left in general have made him out to be (I've read far, far too many TLs where he's a messiah who single-handedly saves America and the rest of the world), but perhaps it would have been better.

Anyway, we might not go into Libya and Syria guns blazing like we did OTL, seeing how Obama was much more anti-intervention than Hillary was. As a result, we might avoid a nuclear Iran - both Obama and Hillary supported a nuclear deal, but the latter's actions in toppling Assad and her management of the Persian Gulf Incident destroyed pretty much all the goodwill we had in Tehran. Noninterventionism in the region might have also prevented the ongoing migrant crisis, as well as the Wave of Terror. As a result, we might not see a Pence presidency in 2016; as you recall, one of the main reasons he was able to make it as far as he did was because of public anxiety over mass migration after the attacks in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Nice, and the Mall of America; not to mention the riots in Hamburg and Stockholm.

We might also avoid the Long Hot Summer of 2013. For all his faults, and despite his association with that crazy pastor, Obama gives me the impression that he would have been a unifying figure after the incidents in Raleigh and Atlanta. Hillary, on the other hand, wasn't trusted on either side of the racial divide, and her attempts at calming one side would only infuriate the other, and we saw how bad things got before it was over.

However, I still feel like we'd see things like the attempts at gun control and healthcare reform, with the same results. I also think you would still have seen the Russo-Ukrainian War like IOTL; a revolution against the pro-Russian government was bound to happen, Hillary or not (regardless of what RT says), and I doubt Putin would have responded any differently. Obama might have avoided the Black Sea Missile Crisis, though.
 
Last edited:
Oh god the Black Sea Crisis, I really thought that we were living in the end times there.

Trump would probably have sniped at Obama just as constantly, albeit without the accusations of trying to start WW3 like he made against Hillary. There's a reason why Pence ran on a platform of isolationism.

Let's face it though, she was a dreadful president. Obama would have been far from perfect, but he'd have been at least infinity times better.

Mind you, Putin might still be in power in Russia, as he was removed and replaced with Medvedev shortly after the Black Sea Crisis; it appears that the Russians were not happy with his rashness nearly bringing the world to ruin.
 
Hilary Clinton was the single best thing that happened to the republican party.

With out her as a unifying figure the republicans spend a longer period of time in the political wilderness and don't end up controling the house, the senante, most of the state legislatorships and governorships and then the presidency itself.
 
Obama took a lot of criticism in the primary for voting present in the state legislature. He also never published a scholarly article as a law professor.

The pattern is that he's not capable of bold leadership. Too afraid to take a stand.

Once the GOP got the inevitable midterm boost, Congress would have filled the void and we basically would have ended up with Bush on steroids.
 

ASUKIRIK

Banned
But could Obama handled the Ukrainian Crisis without causing the same mess? Look, for all the ruckus and removal of Putin afterwards, Russia strategically won that conflict. With entire East Ukraine and Crimean peninsula absorbed into Russia wholesale, and the NATO withdrawal from bases at Baltic States... you can arguably said it was an utter disaster for the west.
 
But could Obama handled the Ukrainian Crisis without causing the same mess? Look, for all the ruckus and removal of Putin afterwards, Russia strategically won that conflict. With entire East Ukraine and Crimean peninsula absorbed into Russia wholesale, and the NATO withdrawal from bases at Baltic States... you can arguably said it was an utter disaster for the west.

Establishing such a strong Western influence so close to the Russian core was always a strategically tenuous situation that pressed really close to the vital heart of their national interest. You'd need a leader with a spine of steel and willingness to go to the edge and a basically suicidal Russia to win that game of chicken. You can't blame HRC for not working a miracle
 
Hilary Clinton was the single best thing that happened to the republican party.

With out her as a unifying figure the republicans spend a longer period of time in the political wilderness and don't end up controling the house, the senante, most of the state legislatorships and governorships and then the presidency itself.

Hillary may have been a unifying Force for the GOP, but the fact that she was only a one-term President was the best thing that could have happened to the Dems. Yes, she’s a shrewd negotiator and had a sound foreign policy, but her own husband’s words came back to bite her - it’s the economy, stupid. Romney trounced her on that note.

Buuuuuuut Romney couldn’t get it done either, and without a crack team of foreign policy wizards to make up for his shortcomings there, he got the boot in 2016 and as divided as the parties and the people are and as wishy-washy as undecided voters are, I get the feeling we’re looking at a long string of one-term Presidents.
 
I imagine the arepublicans would work hard to get someone to stand against him. Rice? Powell? Actually, forget about that. It reminds me too much of some people using charts to decide how to balance party tickets by pigmentation. It still makes me twitch from when some talk shows talked about how the ticket was only a quarter Black. I did enjoy the Daily Show's number crunching and charts on how to technically make two people three-fifths Black or White, though. I can't check the Daily Show archives from where I am to see exactly what the figures were. Think it also had numbers related to how people said Bill Clinton was our first Black president.
 
For starters, Obama wouldnt have endorsed Donald Trump in the race for the Democratic nomination in 2016. The split that happened in the Democrats allowed the republicans to take the presidency with the disaster we see now.
 
For starters, Obama wouldnt have endorsed Donald Trump in the race for the Democratic nomination in 2016. The split that happened in the Democrats allowed the republicans to take the presidency with the disaster we see now.
President Oprah is doing a fine job, thank you very much.
 
President Oprah is doing a fine job, thank you very much.

Im honestly surprised she was able to get the Kim's to Step down.

I mean getting China to agree to help us with the santions was one thing getting the North Korean leadership to peacefully step down and leave the country? Quite another. Sure we had to agree that the chinese would be in charge of helping hash out the new leadership but who ever takes over next is sure to be a whole lot less crazy.
 
Im honestly surprised she was able to get the Kim's to Step down.

I mean getting China to agree to help us with the santions was one thing getting the North Korean leadership to peacefully step down and leave the country? Quite another. Sure we had to agree that the chinese would be in charge of helping hash out the new leadership but who ever takes over next is sure to be a whole lot less crazy.

The Chicoms were sick of Fatboy's antics. But they had to get rid of him without looking weak. Oprah took advantage of the opportunity. Played it perfectly.
 
Top