Clark's political inexperience makes him less likely to win the 2004 presidential election; unless you wish to butterfly in some random series of events that derail the Bush-Cheney campaign.
You might consider a POD where Howard Dean comes in 1st or 2nd in the Iowa Caucuses and does not scream at the conclusion of his post-caucus rally speech and then wins either the Wisconsin or new Hampshire primary. Dean was, I believe, the strongest candidate in the Democratic Party field that year.
Was it the scream that killed Dean?
Kind of. He (and Gephardt) really slipped to Kerry and Edwards going into Iowa, and he never really regained his momentum. He fell by 20 percentage points in the polling in New Hampshire from december to january, for instance. The dean scream was a major effect, but not necessarily the killer. A win in Iowa, NH, or Wisconsin was needed to keep things running. but if dean gets the primary wins early on, he probably takes the nomination and quite possibly the white house.
So he wins in Iowa and NH, Kerry would be second, who would be a better VP candidate then?
My favorite route to victory is Dean not going extreme. He governed moderately and well in Vermont, and then went extreme during the early primary season, doing things like The Scream, bwaha. If he hadn't, I think he would've won.
I can't help wondering if one Rove had anything to do with it. There's no proof, but, after all, one McCain went downhill after quite publically losing his cool after a nasty Bush attack on his anger, a well-documented weakness. And Rove had opportunity to see this kind of MO, of sending the best opposition around the bend and effectively throwing the primaries to somebody bad, in use in the Nixon Administration campaign he was in. See one Ed Muskie, whose campaign also ended in an emotional outbreak, though tears instead of screams.
So, my ATL is to have Rove's try fail; a letter with some upsetting thing gets lost in a Fedex bin. Dean keeps his cool and beats Bush by seven in 04. After all, the WMD was a problem by then, and Mr. Bush hardly had kept HIS cool.
I disagree. The economic situation, specifically the subprime crisis, if addressed in 2005 when Dean would take office could be softened considerably. However, if he had not dealt with it, then the Republican party would not currently be self destructing and possibly in power right now. Howard Dean woke me up to politics and that he lost in the primaries was one of the worst things to happen to this country. I think he would have been an even better candidate than Obama and could have gotten us a hell of a lot farther earlier.
But if he was elected, the Obama doesn't ever get elected, or at least not for several decades. A black president may not occur for years then.
The Republicans would still be somewhat coherent without the remaining Bush term truly exposing the ugly side of the conservative movement (the neocons).
I disagree. The economic situation, specifically the subprime crisis, if addressed in 2005 when Dean would take office could be softened considerably. However, if he had not dealt with it, then the Republican party would not currently be self destructing and possibly in power right now. Howard Dean woke me up to politics and that he lost in the primaries was one of the worst things to happen to this country. I think he would have been an even better candidate than Obama and could have gotten us a hell of a lot farther earlier. But if he was elected, the Obama doesn't ever get elected, or at least not for several decades. A black president may not occur for years then. The Republicans would still be somewhat coherent without the remaining Bush term truly exposing the ugly side of the conservative movement (the neocons).
I don't really know how things would play out, because I doubt he would have a democratic congress to work with, so much of his agenda might not even get implimented.
Sounds about Right, at Least to me ...I disagree. The economic situation, specifically the subprime crisis, if addressed in 2005 when Dean would take office could be softened considerably. However, if he had not dealt with it, then the Republican party would not currently be self destructing and possibly in power right now. Howard Dean woke me up to politics and that he lost in the primaries was one of the worst things to happen to this country. I think he would have been an even better candidate than Obama and could have gotten us a hell of a lot farther earlier. But if he was elected, the Obama doesn't ever get elected, or at least not for several decades. A black president may not occur for years then. The Republicans would still be somewhat coherent without the remaining Bush term truly exposing the ugly side of the conservative movement (the neocons).
I don't really know how things would play out, because I doubt he would have a democratic congress to work with, so much of his agenda might not even get implimented.
You know I have a fantasy where Reagan dealt with the Social Security mess. Of course I know it's a fantasy...
Catch my drift?
Encouraging home ownership has been a bi-partisan goal of goverment since WWII!
If you want a TL with Dean dealing with it, we need some historical evidence that he was even aware of it as an issue, even if later when he was out of the campaign, but before it hit.
THen explain how he got Congress to stop helping poor people buy houses.
Also if you want a Dean TL, the big question is what does he do with Iraq?
And actually a Dean president gets Rice out of there before it gets ugly. Hell, she could have had her down time and been ready to get back in the Game, if a Black President is so important to you.![]()
I did note in my post that if Dean got elected he would still be dealing with a Republican Congress as per OTL and that would hamstring him considerably. But without Paulson and Bernanke, anyone else would not have made it policy to inflate the economy with the real estate bubble. There was a concerted effort to make the economy appear healthy by the fed by directing money into housing because things never picked up after the tech bubble burst. The structural problems of the economy were then becoming obvious and the Bush administration wanted to give a rosy picture by boosting the only thriving business, the financial industry.
Dean would have to choose whether or not to let the economy start to go down and deal with the fact that the nation no longer has enough industry.
He is likely to be a one term president because Iraq is going to still be a mess. As much as Bush gets ragged on for Iraq, once he bungled the initial occupation, no matter who gets in in 2004 is to have to deal with situation going south.
I think if Kerry want after Bush the way he did in the first debate and spent less time talking about Vietnam, or how about Katrina coming two or maybe one year earlier.