Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72

[Plumber]

It's amazing (and hilarious) how well those 1980 pictures fit the results of the election - Rumsfeld is smug, Carey is resigned, and Dellums is dismayed at Rumsfeld's inauguration speech.

Excellent work on the infoboxes, Plumber.

I'm wondering if Galtieri would be included in '80 because of the volume of his popular vote even though he didn't win any electoral votes (like how John Anderson and Ross Perot are included in OTL infoboxes). On the other hand, in TTL it may become more commonplace later for third parties to win electoral votes, seeing the way this is going, so perhaps they wouldn't do that. (And of course I know the real reason is that there isn't a photo of Ronald Galtieri because it's just a name Drew got off an old Libertarian website ).

Thanks, I'm proud of that one particularly.

They have a policy of including candidates who broke 5% (Henry Wallace is excluded from 1948, even though he got more attention than Eugene Debs in 1912), so Galtieri qualifies (he also go one faithless electoral vote). It was ultimately the lack of a picture that drove him out.

 

[Makemakean]

So, I finally did find this timeline, and I am still in the process of getting my way through it. I've admittedly just started (read up to Gavin's taking of the oath) but I've also jumped around a little to see what was true of what I had heard, and...

Oh, Gods...

I recall a story about the English director, Roland Joffe, who set out many years later to make a film of this period, which he called The Killing Fields. It drove him to being confined for six months in a hospital due to the deep depression caused by reviewing the materials of the period.

This may very well be the finest timeline I have come across on the forum... I can only ever think of Ad Astra Per Aspera as coming close in awesomeness...

 

[Stolengood]

The length, though, is daunting. Made me give up a little after where you are, when I realized I could never plausibly catch up.

 

[Plumber]

The length, though, is daunting. Made me give up a little after where you are, when I realized I could never plausibly catch up.

¡Sí, se puede!

 

[Stolengood]

¡Sí, se puede!

¡No, esta longitud es una mierda! ¡Dame algo más corto!

 

[Archibald]

Best way of enjoying that - monster - TL: use the search function (I'm talking about the Pdf !) with key words (try Thatcher; NASA; Rhodesia; lesser Mao)
It works well.

 

[Knight Ranger]

Been reading this for the last week. Great timeline Just a couple of continuity errors I've spotted. Is Patty Hearst alive or dead?

February 23, 1974

Heiress Patricia Hearst killed during a botched kidnapping attempt. This sets-off an intensive manhunt for the Symbonise Liberation Army, a self-styled domestic revolutionary group responsible for the kidnap attempt.

February 1, 1979
President Wallace does not commute the sentence of convicted bank robber Patty Hearst, who remains in prison.

And who really killed Major Houlihan?

“Jimmy Woods was the young soldier driving the Jeep in this episode. He went on to have a great acting career, but for the rest of his working life he got hung with the moniker of the guy who killed ‘Hot Lips’.”

Drew's implied that Bush is going to be a successful actor. I must ask what kind of roles could he get famous for? Certainly not drama, maybe type-casted comedy? Action hero?

Right now he's the proverbial 2d banana on television - the straight man on Barney Miller and the guy who killed "Hot Lips" on M*A*S*H when he ran her over with a Jeep.

Action hero might be the next step (after all he's already a military hero) - especially when he gets into movies. That's coming soon.

 

[Drew]

Been reading this for the last week. Great timeline Just a couple of continuity errors I've spotted. Is Patty Hearst alive or dead?

IITL: Patti Hearst was killed in 1974. The mistake was an oblique reference to OTL President Jimmy Carter commutting her sentence. Not hard to imagine President Wallace not commuting the sentence of any radical that crossed his desk.

And who really killed Major Houlihan?

Went through several editions, but it ended-up being a then little known actor named George W. Bush (known professionally as G.W. Bush) who went to a stellar career over the next decade.

 

[Knight Ranger]

Thanks for clearing that up, Drew Reading Rumsfeldia now.

 

[Plumber]

List of Presidents of the United States, 1953-1985

1953-1961: Dwight D. Eisenhower / Richard M. Nixon (Republican)
1952: Adlai Stevenson II / John Sparkman (Democratic)
1956: Adlai Stevenson II / Estes Kefauver (Democratic)
1961-1963: John F. Kennedy / Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic)
1960: Richard M. Nixon / Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (Republican)
1963-1965: Lyndon B. Johnson / vacant (Democratic)
1965-1969: Lyndon B. Johnson / Hubert H. Humphrey (Democratic)
1964: Barry Goldwater / William Miller (Republican)
1969-1973: Richard M. Nixon / Spiro "Ted" Agnew (Republican)
1968: Hubert H. Humphrey / Edmund Muskie (Democratic), George C. Wallace / Curtis LeMay (American Independent)
1973: Spiro "Ted" Agnew / Spiro "Ted" Agnew (Republican)
1972: John J. McKeithen / Birch Bayh (Democratic), Richard M. Nixon / Spiro "Ted" Agnew (Republican), George C. Wallace / Lester Maddox (Independent), George McGovern / Pete McCloskey (Peace and Freedom)
1973: John J. McKeithen / Spiro "Ted" Agnew (Democratic / Republican)
1973: Spiro "Ted" Agnew / vacant, [John Ashbrook] (Republican)
1973: Spiro "Ted" Agnew / vacant (Republican)
1973-1974: James M. Gavin / vacant (Independent)
1974-1977: James M. Gavin / William Scranton (Independent / Republican)
1977-1978: George C. Wallace / Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (Democratic)
1976: Ronald Reagan / Charles Percy (Republican), George Carlin / Dick Gregory (Independent), Roger MacBride / David Bergland (Libertarian), Peter Camejo / Willie Mae Reid (Socialist Worker's)
1978: Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach / Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (Democratic)
1978-1979: George C. Wallace / Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (Democratic)
1979: George C. Wallace / vacant, [Dick Lamm] (Democratic)
1979-1981: George C. Wallace / William Scranton (Democratic / Republican)
1981: George C. Wallace / vacant (Democratic)
1981-1985: Donald Rumsfeld / W. Jackson "Jack" Edwards (Republican)
1980: Hugh Carey / Reubin Askew (Democratic), Ron Dellums / Ralph Nader (We The People), Ronald Galtieri / David Koch (Libertarian), various (Christian Values Movement), Sandy Koufax / various (Independent)

I saw yesterday that part of the year 1976 was missing - a good chunk of this (which, thanks to the Murphy law, contain the climax of the "democrat killer" story arc, notably the revelation of his identity.)

My advice: use Google to browse the phrase

"WALLACE: but I’m not going to go about it like a fool
chasing three greased pigs around the barn"

The missing part starts there, until the end of Drew (looong) post that day.
Some posts were so huge they simply overwhelmed the cut-and-paste function. Can you believe that ?

Part of this after after December 21, 1979 is missing, which you probably missed because January 1-9, 1979 was updated twice.

Do you have a word document of everything, by chance? I can't convert a PDF into word on this computer.

 

[Blair]

Has anyone perchance gathered all the text of this TL in one place? It would make a good addition to the Finished Timelines and Scenarios forum.

 

[Archibald]

I have it as a word file, but a) it's Drew decision and b) it is just giganormous (2000 pages+)

 

[Swiffness]

ROFL @ the Black Liberation Army demands. Always thought they were cooler than the Panthers.

if anyone can hook me up with a PDF of this TL before my flight tomorrow, I WILL MARRY YOU ;___;

 

[Archibald]

Check your mail "darling "

 

[red1]

Is there a author only thread?

 

[clotifoth]

Sorry to gravedig this, but I recently wrote a web scraper backed up this thread in HTML (and DokuWiki if you care about that) formats and it looks like some people might've be interested in that here! Unzip this file and start at 00001.htm and continue on from there. The .txt format files are DokuWiki format, don't need to bother with that unless you know what DokuWiki is. I've backed up the commentary between posts as well- I found that the commentaries were enlightening and gave Drew a good chance to flesh out the small stuff within the FLG setting, as well as containing fact checks and at least one instance of a retcon (re: Jack Nitze) that I don't think is every addressed by a main post. Thus, this preserves everything.

Thanks for an absolutely fantastic TL Drew, it was a pleasure reading this during my college time. It really opened up my mind to the delicate realpolitik that dominated the 20th century- and how it could have gone much more poorly under much less tactful hands, and prompted me to take a college course on the history of the 1960's later on. You're a great author and you've done immaculate research for Fear, Loathing and Gumbo. Well done.

 

[metheguy]

"GET ME Edwards , GET Me ROBERTSON And GET Me DENTON NOW When Im DONE. They'll be No Dellums left"
-Donald Rumsfeld,1980

 

[Ian the Admin]

"GET ME Edwards , GET Me ROBERTSON And GET Me DENTON NOW When Im DONE. They'll be No Dellums left"
-Donald Rumsfeld,1980

Don't post to very old threads. The warning you clicked through told you not to post to this thread.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

Rumsfeldia is available here.

 

[CalBear]

Rumsfeldia is available here.

Oh FFS!

Post directly above yours is from Ian warning somebody about posting in dead threads. So you decide to post in a five and a half month dead thread to promote another DEAD thread?

DO NOT pull this sort of BS again.