George H.W. Bush wins re-election

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Dole would have to beat two-term Vice President Dan Quayle, who is in touch with the evangelical base. Clinton would be the failure by that point and still-Governor Cuomo can take his rightful throne. :p

I have my doubts Cuomo would even run. He passed up golden opportunities in both '88 and '92, and he was famously indecisive and conflicted about national politics. My guess is he again hems and haws but doesn't run.

Anyway, if Clinton loses in '92, then (aside from the possibility of Cuomo) the '96 field likely includes Gore, Bill Bradley, Dick Gephardt, maybe Jim Florio (early '90s governor of NJ — OTL lost reelection in '93, but might win absent a backlash to Clinton), maybe Bob Kerrey (though his disastrous '92 bid might rob him of support).

An alt-94 (absent a Republican Revolution) might also have knock-on effects on who gets elected. Kathleen Brown (brother of Jerry, daughter of Pat) might win her '94 California gubernatorial bid, making her a serious VP prospect. You'll have a bunch of other promising Democrats who lost bids in '94 in the national mix (Dave McCurdy, Sam Coppersmith, Bob Carr).

On the GOP side, Dole and Quayle would probably make bids. But so might Jack Kemp or Jim Baker (who might have inside tracks over Dole).
 
An interesting consideration if HW Bush had won in '92 is how that would have affected foreign policy and therefore the international scene. Being a respected diplomat, President Bush would have support to pursue terrorist cells after the first World Trade Center attack and the courage to do so. We may have seen the decline or even elimination of Islamic terrorism during the 90's and avoided all together the attacks of 2001. There is sufficient documentation that Bill Clinton had several squandered opportunities to eliminate terrorist leadership. It's fair to agree that some of the mentions on this post about actions against North Korea may have also come to pass in some form under a second term with President HW Bush, both because he had extensive international relationships as well as the discipline and aptitude to confront a problem when necessary rather than kick it down the road as every other president after him did.

On the domestic front my guess is that another 4 years of President Bush would be quite similar to the first 4 years of Bill Clinton. That may be surprising, but both men were ultimately bipartisan moderates, be it for different reasons (HW Bush due to sincerity to do the right thing, Clinton based on opinion polls). President Bush may have possibly even gone down the health insurance rabbit hole, although unlikely. The economy would have thrived in the same way and tax structure would have been similar. President Bush's popularity would have been great enough that he would have been able to pursue some great initiatives as well far ahead of their time, such as green energy in an effort to make America more independent. We would have seen maybe the greatest presidency in our history, and it's a sad thing that what we got instead was a Clinton administration.
 
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