Gore 2004

What if Al Gore had run for President in 2004 and won?

The 2004 democratic field wasn't very strong and I imagine he'd be able to push through fairly effectively.

Who'd be a good running mate? Kerry seems likely but Edwards might also seem like a good idea for Gore.

Bush won New Mexico and Iowa by paper-thin margins so I could see Gore taking them. Then it just becomes a matter of winning a third additional state.
 
Problem is, Bush was pretty damn popular in '04. It didn't really drop off until Katrina and the Recession. Far better to wait until '08.
 
Problem is, Bush was pretty damn popular in '04. It didn't really drop off until Katrina and the Recession. Far better to wait until '08.

He was popular but his margin was still closer than Obama's in 2012 (2.4 in 2008 vs 3.9 in 2012). New Mexico's margin was 0.79 and Iowa's margin was 0.67. Ohio and Nevada both had margins under 2.5 points, so its feasible that Gore wins the Electoral College while losing the popular vote in a sweet sweet irony.

Gore likely gives democrats more enthusiasm than Kerry did as well given how things in 2000 went.
 
What's the likelihood of a Gore run in 2004 galvanizing the Democrats to mobilize and try to win the rematch given how close the 2000 Elections went?
 
Given how Gore won the popular vote in 2000 it just might galvanize the Democrats. Learning from the mistakes of 2000, Gore allows Bill Clinton to do some campaigning for him. Edwards was on the short list in 2000, now with more experience, I think he'd be the selection. Another close one but Gore wins this time.
 
Bush wasn't *that* popular. He was hovering around 50 percent - sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower - throughout most of 2004 IIRC.

I think Gore would have won the nomination if he'd run in 2004, given the lingering sense that he'd been cheated, plus he was well-positioned to thread the needle between the party's various factions. He was against the Iraq War and even said we needed single-payer, but he was more disciplined and trusted by the party establishment than Dean. On the other hand, I do remember him getting oddly heated in some speeches in a way ("He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!") that seemed even more awkward than his stereotypically dull moments. Though maybe he wouldn't have done that if he'd been a candidate.

Would he have won? I don't know. He probably wouldn't have been tagged with the "flip-flopper" thing to the extent that Kerry was, and most of the potentially damaging material about him was already out there. But one thing we've seen lately is that a lot of what we tend to think matters in politics actually doesn't seem to. So it's hard to say whether that kind of stuff would have made much difference or if the election was just structurally tilted to Bush's slight favor.
 

Philip

Donor
Would he have won? I don't know. He probably wouldn't have been tagged with the "flip-flopper" thing to the extent that Kerry was, and most of the potentially damaging material about him was already out there.

If Gore takes a strong anti-Iraq War position, he'll open the floodgates for this. His 2000 platform advocated regime change in Iraq. There are hours of video from his time as vice president where he discussed the threat Saddam's WMD posed to the world.
 
Problem is, Bush was pretty damn popular in '04. It didn't really drop off until Katrina and the Recession. Far better to wait until '08.

Bush in 2004 wasn't as unpopular as he would be in his second term, but already his popularity had severely declined from its post-9/11 heights. For most of May to August 2004, his Gallup job approval ratings were slightly below 50 percent. http://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx In short, Bush was not unbeatable; had 1.6 percent of the voters in Ohio changed their minds, he would have lost in the Electoral College. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004 (And that could happen even with Ohio-specific developments not affecting the vote in the rest of the nation. For example, courts might not have allowed the same-sex-marriage referendum on the ballot which boosted Evangelical turnout. Or the scandals in Governor Taft's administration might have been brought to light before the election. So in a reversal of 2000 Gore could lose the national popular vote but win the election.)
 
The question is, do we get now-angry and galvanized "Howard Beale" Gore or do we get a rehash of 2000? If he's made up his mind to run again, there's a chance he stays in statesman mode and doesn't do the whole angry environmentalist thing. We get an even less enthusiastic Democratic base than OTL as a result.

If he does push to the left and ups the rhetoric, he could really make it interesting.

2004 is a poisoned pill, of course, so that's a depressing thought for the Democrats.
 
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