Flower Power

Except Brown essentially said he'd nominate Jackson OTL. And the Convention wanted to put a candidate through already.
He only said he'd consider it.
and, as kevvy pointed out in the actual update the party split on other candidates instead of all rallying behind someone. I don't even see it as "unlikely" let alone ASB

And barely anyone in the party would support Jackson. Bob Casey is the most likely. It doesn't matter that they wanted to put a candidate through, if they would have confirmed Jackson, they would have confirmed almost anyone.
 
With the convention wrapped up and the nominee decided, the Democrats finally shifted their attention to the General Election, where President Bush had already gained a massive lead in the polls. It was Bush/Quayle versus Brown/Jackson in 1992, along with an independent candidate named Ross Perot, who was poised to make it a competitive three-man race.

I can see Ross doing well TTL...
 
Jesse Jackson becomes VP candidate in TL were Clinton implodes due to out of wedlock activities

I think the irony just made my brain explode :eek: given that Jackson:

A: Had extramarital affairs
B: Had a child out of wedlock with one of his mistresses
C: Has been the subject of male on male sexual harrassment lawsuits at his foundation

I hate to call ASB; but Jackson would never EVER survive a vetting process IRL let alone one where people are going to have heightened sensitivity to extramarital affairs
 
Guys, relax.

If I was going to make this ASB, I would have nominated Carter as a compromise candidate. With Bill Clinton as his running mate.

Just hang in there. Everything will be back on track soon.
 
Guys, relax.

If I was going to make this ASB, I would have nominated Carter as a compromise candidate. With Bill Clinton as his running mate.

Just hang in there. Everything will be back on track soon.

Oh, I don't think it's ASB this to happen. Doesn't mean I don't think this was a poor decision.:D

Anyway, really intriguing scenario, kevvy! I'd be interested to see how this set-up affects the Senate races- Ernest Hollings may actually lose reelection, for instance.
 
How early in '95?

Wiki is quite vague.

The Genocide said:
In late 1994, Tsongas briefly led an effort to establish a third party, to be led by someone with "national authority", suggesting General Colin Powell for that role.[7] By that time, he was considered "the most popular political figure in Massachusetts."[5]
A few years later, the cancer (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) returned. He died of pneumonia and liver failure on January 18, 1997.
 
The Other Side

Corbis-AABT002554.jpg

George H. W. Bush was doing great. He had handily won re-nomination (incumbent presidents tend to do that) from his own party, facing only a token resistance from Pat Buchanan, and the Democrats had spent most of the campaign season fighting amongst themselves rather than fighting him. On top of that, the spectacle in New York showed that the Democrats were a divided party, having required three separate ballots to nominate a candidate to run against him, and very nearly drafting someone else just to get the convention over with.

Bush was amused that they had nominated Jerry Brown, a man who had run his entire primary campaign on a platform of campaign finance reform to limit money being spent in politics. While Brown’s unorthodox campaign worked in the Democratic primary, the Bush team had a hard time seeing how it would work on the national level. While the idea of campaign finance reform sounded good, Brown had not yet said how he would implement such a thing if he were President. In addition, Brown would need to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans if he were to have any hope of defeating Bush. Brown refused to abandon his principles, and stuck to his guns.

Corbis-0000275129-002.jpg

A compounding trouble for the Democrats was money. It took a contested convention and a hard fight just to win the nomination, and Paul Tsongas didn’t have anywhere near the amount of money that Bush had. Adding on to that was Brown’s promise to stick to his original promise of only accepting donations from individuals, and not taking more than $100 from any one person. George Bush, on the other hand, had no such qualms and crushed Jerry Brown in terms of fundraising, raking in a hundred thousand dollars for every thousand raised by Brown. At a fundraiser in Atlanta, the President said to a group of donors, “If he [Brown] wants to fight with one hand behind his back, then he can go right ahead. I’ll kick his ass either way.” However, while Brown kept his promise, the DNC and related Political Action Committees made no such promises, and spent some of their money on Brown’s behalf.

What made Bush not take Brown seriously as a candidate was his selection of Jesse Jackson as his running mate. The south was a lock for Bush, as his campaign seriously doubted that they would vote for a presidential ticket that had a black man on it. On top of that, Jackson had gotten in trouble a few years earlier for harmful statements against Jews; specifically referring to New York City as “Hymietown” with the word “Hymie” being an ethnic slur used towards Jews. Despite apologies, Jackson’s reputation had never fully recovered with the Jewish community, who were largely upset that Brown had placed him on the ticket. As an unfortunate result for Brown, he polled rather low among Jews, with traditionally Democratic support being split between George Bush and Ross Perot.

As July passed into August, Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson trailed George Bush and Dan Quayle in national polls. That was not to say that the vast majority of Americans preferred the President (he had been suffering in the wake of an economic downturn that many Americans blamed on him). In fact, there were a good number of people that wanted a second choice, but were either suspicious of Jerry Brown or flat-out didn’t agree with him. There was also a quiet fear that Brown could turn out to be another Dukakis, which scared a lot of Democrats. Meanwhile, the American people were hungry for a third choice. When that third choice came, it changed the course of the ’92 election.
 
Prime targets for Republican wins in this scenario over our timeline's 1992 include the South, New Jersey, and New Hampshire.
 
This may be early- but will Lawrence Walsh's October Surprise change things?
The Southern African-American vote could put parts of the South in play.
Could both parties have a candidate from Greenville, SC in the VP spot? (Caroll Campbell was considered for the VP spot...)
 
And barely anyone in the party would support Jackson. Bob Casey is the most likely. It doesn't matter that they wanted to put a candidate through, if they would have confirmed Jackson, they would have confirmed almost anyone.

Bob Casey (Sr.) is pro-life. IOTL, he wasn't allowed to speak at the '88 DNC. Zombie Hitler has a better chance of being the VP nominee than Casey.

I don't think Jesse Jackson is as non-strategic as you'd think; he'll probably put states like NC, GA, and LA into play by driving up African American turnout to historic levels.

And on the flip side, this is sort of the mirror image of OTL '88, in which lots of Republicans were leery (to say the least) of VP Quayle, but held their nose and voted for Bush anyway. Here, mainstream Dems will probably be unhappy with VP Jackson, but they're not voting for Bush.

A neat twist on OTL.
 
Shortly after receiving the nomination, Brown named his running mate... Reverend Jesse Jackson... It was a choice that would later come back to haunt Jerry Brown..

Oh yeah.

I remember this joke from the 1983 Chicago mayoral election.

Jane Byrne was the incumbent, having won on a fluke in 1979. She had married Jay McMullen, a flaky retired reporter. (Second City had a sketch about the duo of "Byrnes and Mullen", with Jay as the Gracie analog.)

McMullen was out of sight during the primary, which was won by Harold Washington in a three-way split. (Rich Daley was the third candidate.)

Now for the joke: It was said that the first thing Washington should do was call Jane Byrne (who was mainly mad at Daley), find out where she'd been keeping Jay McMullen, and send Jesse Jackson there.
 
Bob Casey (Sr.) is pro-life. IOTL, he wasn't allowed to speak at the '88 DNC. Zombie Hitler has a better chance of being the VP nominee than Casey.

I don't think Jesse Jackson is as non-strategic as you'd think; he'll probably put states like NC, GA, and LA into play by driving up African American turnout to historic levels.

And on the flip side, this is sort of the mirror image of OTL '88, in which lots of Republicans were leery (to say the least) of VP Quayle, but held their nose and voted for Bush anyway. Here, mainstream Dems will probably be unhappy with VP Jackson, but they're not voting for Bush.

A neat twist on OTL.
I can't see a Brown/Jackson ticket putting the South into play; you'll have more Southern Conservatives and Moderates turned off by Jackson than you would more African Americans finding their way to the voting booth. Quite a few, if not the majority, of them would also be voting for Bush. Many of those who cannot vote for Bush either will be voting for Perot.
 
Bob Casey (Sr.) is pro-life. IOTL, he wasn't allowed to speak at the '88 DNC. Zombie Hitler has a better chance of being the VP nominee than Casey.

I don't think Jesse Jackson is as non-strategic as you'd think; he'll probably put states like NC, GA, and LA into play by driving up African American turnout to historic levels.

And on the flip side, this is sort of the mirror image of OTL '88, in which lots of Republicans were leery (to say the least) of VP Quayle, but held their nose and voted for Bush anyway. Here, mainstream Dems will probably be unhappy with VP Jackson, but they're not voting for Bush.

A neat twist on OTL.

You're undoubtedly right about Casey, that was a brain-fart on my part.
 
I can't see a Brown/Jackson ticket putting the South into play; you'll have more Southern Conservatives and Moderates turned off by Jackson than you would more African Americans finding their way to the voting booth. Quite a few, if not the majority, of them would also be voting for Bush. Many of those who cannot vote for Bush either will be voting for Perot.

By 1992, everyone who hates Jesse Jackson in the South is already voting Republican, no?

OTOH, as 2008 showed us, maximizing African American turnout in the South turned NC and GA into battleground states.
 
By 1992, everyone who hates Jesse Jackson in the South is already voting Republican, no?

OTOH, as 2008 showed us, maximizing African American turnout in the South turned NC and GA into battleground states.
No, a lot of the people you are thinking of were still turning out for Clinton, a New Democrat who professed more moderate positions. And even as a Southerner he had difficulty carrying the South in the manner Jimmy Carter did. That and by 2008 you not only had a more Liberal Generation coming into the voting booths, but many Northerners had moved into the Southern states along the Atlantic Coast, driving them towards the Democrats.

Jackson is not going to help Brown in the South even remotely.
 
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