Gore Strikes Back! A Al Gore 2004 Timeline

[NyQuil]

On December 16th 2002 Former Vice President Al Gore appeared on 60 Minutes saying that he was still unsure about a 2004 Presidential run and he and his wife Tipper would think about it and make a decision early next year.

In March 2003 Gore would start a presidential exploratory committee to test the waters but nothing was official yet.

Next month however in April Al Gore would release a video and on his website officially declaring a run for the 2004 Democratic Presidential Run. Gore would explain his reasons for running after such a controversial election last time saying that “He was close to sitting out this election cycle however he was put off guard by the Iraq War and President Bush’s handling of the economy.”

Also in his video Gore laid out a plan for a green economy to help fight climate change, ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring peace there,rolling back most of the top Bush tax cuts and several other major issues.

Despite that Gore would land second in support in the Democratic Presidential Nomination polls behind the popular grassroots candidate Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

However his luck would change when in the primary debates in the summer when Al Gore would show that there was still something left in him for a presidential run.

By the end of the summer Gore was in the lead with 38% of support to Dean’s 36% of support with Senator John Kerry and John Edwards with 28% and 23% of the vote respectively in 3rd and 4th place.
Gore obviously would overtake heavily the lead when it came to fundraising and campaign dominations by quite amount with John Kerry being in a distant second.

In September despite rumors general Wesley Clark would announce that he would not enter the Democratic Presidential race and would announce his endorsement for Al Gore. Afterwards Gore would start to see his support go up more but still the Dean campaign and it’s support was still there hoping to end any chance of a Gore comeback.

Gore was starting to able to appeal himself in now as a progessive and still the same Clinton like New Democrat in the campaign in working fashion.

While there was still much doubt that Al Gore could pull off such a comeback it certainly was still possible!

UP NEXT:The official beginning of the timeline.

Question 1:What about your Miracle Man John McCain 2008 victory timeline?
Answer:Well unfortunately while I still want to one day comeback to it and continue it I have suffered a burnout on that project and have lack of ideas as of now of how to foward that timeline so it will be on hiatus for now.

Question 2:Will this still have the same style as TMM?
Answer:Yes it isnt going away I am just changing it up for the prologue.
And yes I will still be covering sports and entertainment in this timeline.

 

[ZeroFrame]

This looks interesting as I've never seen this done before.

If you want a good POD maybe Dick Armey comes out against the Iraq War? This could turn the tide with Bush being more unpopular. I'm excited to see where this goes.

 

[NyQuil]

This looks interesting as I've never seen this done before.

If you want a good POD maybe Dick Armey comes out against the Iraq War? This could turn the tide with Bush being more unpopular. I'm excited to see where this goes.

Yeah that kinda surprises me this hasn’t been done before too haha

 

[ZeroFrame]

Yeah that kinda surprises me this hasn’t been done before too haha

I’ve seen something similar done where Gore makes a comeback in 2008 but I’d guess it’s due to people thinking Gore’s career had ended as a politician in 2000 where he lost the election despite Clinton being popular.

 

[NyQuil]

I’ve seen something similar done where Gore makes a comeback in 2008 but I’d guess it’s due to people thinking Gore’s career had ended as a politician in 2000 where he lost the election despite Clinton being popular.

Also Gore wanted to get more into activism

 

[BigVic]

Bush v Gore II in 2004 would’ve been a great matchup

 

[Suzon]

I’ve seen something similar done where Gore makes a comeback in 2008 but I’d guess it’s due to people thinking Gore’s career had ended as a politician in 2000 where he lost the election despite Clinton being popular.

Had he embraced Clinton he would have won by a large margin. His own undoing, mostly because he was a bit egotistical. I think 2004 he would have had a solid chance, though. A good amount of people who either voted Bush or didn't vote in 04 but voted Gore in 00 would turn up for Gore here, looking to right what they saw as a wrong with the whole recount mess.

EDIT: the biggest nail in the coffin for Gore running in 04 was him shooting himself in the foot by deciding, publicly, not to run six months too soon. December 2002 Bush seemed infallible and Gore didn't want to lose in a landslide against Bush after 2000. The situation in mid-2003 was much different. Had he waited to publicly announce his intentions, he would have probably changed his mind.

 

[Admiral Bloonbeard]

Had he embraced Clinton he would have won by a large margin. His own undoing, mostly because he was a bit egotistical. I think 2004 he would have had a solid chance, though. A good amount of people who either voted Bush or didn't vote in 04 but voted Gore in 00 would turn up for Gore here, looking to right what they saw as a wrong with the whole recount mess.

EDIT: the biggest nail in the coffin for Gore running in 04 was him shooting himself in the foot by deciding, publicly, not to run six months too soon. December 2002 Bush seemed infallible and Gore didn't want to lose in a landslide against Bush after 2000. The situation in mid-2003 was much different. Had he waited to publicly announce his intentions, he would have probably changed his mind.

Bad idea. Clinton was plagued with the Lewinsky scandal and Bush will endlessly attack Gore for that. Bush OTL ran on restoring integrity in the white house

 

[Suzon]

Bad idea. Clinton was plagued with the Lewinsky scandal and Bush will endlessly attack Gore for that. Bush OTL ran on restoring integrity in the white house

Most people were sick of hearing about Lewinsky by then and Clinton was very popular.

 

[Admiral Bloonbeard]

Most people were sick of hearing about Lewinsky by then and Clinton was very popular.

2000 or 2004?

 

[Suzon]

2000 or 2004?

2000. While it was a big spectacle, impeachment was not a popular action for the majority of Americans. Post-impeachment, Clinton had a 73% approval rating, and he left office with 65%, the highest of any departing president since Harry Truman.[1]


1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton

 

[Sabin]

I certainly would've voted for him but I think any Democrat loses against Bush. Allan Lichtman famously called the '04 election a couple years early. He gave the incumbent part: strong party midterm performance (+1 -- very rare), no nomination challenge (+2), incumbent President running for reelection (+3), no third party challenge (+4), the economy is not in recession (+5), no social unrest (+6), no scandal (+7), foreign-military success (+8), and opponent is not historically charismatic (+9); meanwhile he called the remainder (long-term economy, lack of policy change, foreign-military failure, and charismatic incumbent) against the incumbent administration. I disagree with his definition of the invasion of Afghanistan as a foreign-military success. I don't know how he came to that conclusion; I think it initially seemed as such but then faded from memory and he was reticent to correct his calculation. Either way, the GOP has one of two things: a winning hand or a very strong hand going into the 2004 election, regardless of who the Democrats nominated.

There is one thing that Al Gore will bring to the table that likely no other Democrat will when it comes to a general campaign and that is going on the offense. John Kerry didn't get ahead of the Republican attack machine nearly enough (ie Swift Boating). I just can't imagine that Al Gore runs the same poll-tested campaign he ran in 2000 again in 2004. Which means that the Al Gore campaign is going to be a little more divisive and negative than the Kerry campaign. I don't know if that will be enough to ultimately win because he's still going to have to present a convincing strategic alternative to the GOP as well as fighting the 2004 culture wars.

While I don't see Al Gore winning, I also can't imagine him doing worse than John Kerry because the Democrats desperately wanted to run a "Let the adults fix it" campaign and Al Gore is the best possible selection shy of Bill Clinton. By the same token, Al Gore knows that we can't leave Iraq so instead of being the domestic policy wonk he was in 2000, he's going to be a foreign policy wonk in 2004 and that's not much better.

I could see Al Gore choosing Wesley Clark for his running mate.

My outcome prediction is (because nothing can go right for Al Gore), he wins all of Kerry's states plus Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico. Ohio remains a huge question mark due to voting irregularities. We end up with a 269-269 split which sends Bush-Cheney back to the White House. Gore probably wins the popular vote again but questions about Ohio linger for a bit longer. Sentiments of "Robbed again" linger but not for long. The Democrats perform a little better across the board, maybe even picking up a couple seats in the House and maybe hold onto the Senate. I could see Tom Daschle hanging on. Interesting ripples to this would be whether or not Howard Dean gets the same platform to get DNC Chairmanship and run the same 50 State Strategy that saw them do so well in 2006.

 

[ImperialxWarlord]

Honestly seems like it would be hard for any democrat to win in 2005 as @Sabin said. Bush had some things going for him in ‘04.

 

[NyQuil]

I certainly would've voted for him but I think any Democrat loses against Bush. Allan Lichtman famously called the '04 election a couple years early. He gave the incumbent part: strong party midterm performance (+1 -- very rare), no nomination challenge (+2), incumbent President running for reelection (+3), no third party challenge (+4), the economy is not in recession (+5), no social unrest (+6), no scandal (+7), foreign-military success (+8), and opponent is not historically charismatic (+9); meanwhile he called the remainder (long-term economy, lack of policy change, foreign-military failure, and charismatic incumbent) against the incumbent administration. I disagree with his definition of the invasion of Afghanistan as a foreign-military success. I don't know how he came to that conclusion; I think it initially seemed as such but then faded from memory and he was reticent to correct his calculation. Either way, the GOP has one of two things: a winning hand or a very strong hand going into the 2004 election, regardless of who the Democrats nominated.

There is one thing that Al Gore will bring to the table that likely no other Democrat will when it comes to a general campaign and that is going on the offense. John Kerry didn't get ahead of the Republican attack machine nearly enough (ie Swift Boating). I just can't imagine that Al Gore runs the same poll-tested campaign he ran in 2000 again in 2004. Which means that the Al Gore campaign is going to be a little more divisive and negative than the Kerry campaign. I don't know if that will be enough to ultimately win because he's still going to have to present a convincing strategic alternative to the GOP as well as fighting the 2004 culture wars.

While I don't see Al Gore winning, I also can't imagine him doing worse than John Kerry because the Democrats desperately wanted to run a "Let the adults fix it" campaign and Al Gore is the best possible selection shy of Bill Clinton. By the same token, Al Gore knows that we can't leave Iraq so instead of being the domestic policy wonk he was in 2000, he's going to be a foreign policy wonk in 2004 and that's not much better.

I could see Al Gore choosing Wesley Clark for his running mate.

My outcome prediction is (because nothing can go right for Al Gore), he wins all of Kerry's states plus Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico. Ohio remains a huge question mark due to voting irregularities. We end up with a 269-269 split which sends Bush-Cheney back to the White House. Gore probably wins the popular vote again but questions about Ohio linger for a bit longer. Sentiments of "Robbed again" linger but not for long. The Democrats perform a little better across the board, maybe even picking up a couple seats in the House and maybe hold onto the Senate. I could see Tom Daschle hanging on. Interesting ripples to this would be whether or not Howard Dean gets the same platform to get DNC Chairmanship and run the same 50 State Strategy that saw them do so well in 2006.

Maybe so but there’s gonna be no “Swiftboat” ads and Gore is a more enthusiastic candidate than Kerry was.

 

[Sabin]

Maybe so but there’s gonna be no “Swiftboat” ads and Gore is a more enthusiastic candidate than Kerry was.

Sure, but there will be something else. There always is. They'll run ads with Gore and his beard, they'll say he's doing this for his ego, he's obsessed, we need to look forward not back. Maybe Gore makes a mistake and talks to Michael Moore or something. Maybe he fumbles on gay marriage, coming out too loudly in one direction or another. Anyway, Gore may be a more enthusiastic candidate than Kerry was but he'll also be a more divisive one.

 

[NyQuil]

As the new year came in and the primary stage started to heat up Gore and Dean were virtually tied in polling.

While Gore was seen as the guy to go to on electability and issues such as the economy,energy and imagination Dean was leading in enthusiasm,healthcare and foreign policy which was made him surge and be a viable candidate and threat to Gore receiving the nomination again.

As for Kerry and Edwards? They once thought to be viable candidates were setting themselves getting distant from Gore and Dean. In debates Edwards was seen as getting outmatched by Gore and his responses surely didn’t helped and showed that maybe this president run for his run was too early in his political career. As for Kerry he didn’t have that great of a short either however he know that if we stayed it for quite awhile he could be a possible solid Vice Presidental candidate for Gore and Dean or at least ending up in a nice cabinet position for the next Democratic president.

Gore would finally going on the attack more towards the more and more Iowa got close while stick hanging towards a mostly positive campaign by releasing ads showing Dean’s flip flops like his one on cutting social security and veterans pensions and his one on moving the retirement age to 70.

Dean would response in a Iowa debate that Gore’s ad was out of context and that it “messed around” with the idea of what he was saying. Dean would response to Gore saying that he didn’t seem to mind when he was Vice President under Clinton the idea of those cuts with the Republican led Congress.

Gore would response denying talks of that ever happening and called Dean’s rebuttal dishonest.

Either way the first official primary in Washington DC which was a non-binding primary meaning no delegates would be awarded to anymore no matter the results ended up going to Howard Dean and resulted in the drop out of long shot candidate but historical candidate former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun.

Despite the results and the win for Dean his and the remaining campaigns brush it off to the side and got ready for the first real prize of the primaries The Iowa Caucus.

(Author’s Note:I will be reporting the stories on this timeline as in the style of internet news reporting stating next update I wanted to just do the first 2 parts in this style as I felt the prologue to the primaries would go smoother and better)

 

[Sabin]

While Gore was seen as the guy to go to on electability and issues such as the economy,energy and imagination Dean was leading in enthusiasm,healthcare and foreign policy which was made him surge and be a viable candidate and threat to Gore receiving the nomination again.

This is an intriguing idea to me because it basically turns the 2004 primary into a two person race: the electable candidate vs. the exciting outsider. If Al Gore enters the race, I'm not sure that Kerry or Edwards jump in. Gephardt probably does because he hates Al Gore.

One of the most interesting questions in the race is what happens with the MoveOn.Org vote and the question of who pulls us out of Iraq immediately. Because the 2004 race was so uninteresting, this never really became a point of vitriol with the left. If Al Gore runs but doesn't support leaving Iraq, it leaves a giant opening for an exciting outsider candidate. Howard Dean could easily fill that slot, but if he does then we should expect an acrimonious primary not dissimilar to 2016.

 

[NyQuil]

This is an intriguing idea to me because it basically turns the 2004 primary into a two person race: the electable candidate vs. the exciting outsider. If Al Gore enters the race, I'm not sure that Kerry or Edwards jump in. Gephardt probably does because he hates Al Gore.

One of the most interesting questions in the race is what happens with the MoveOn.Org vote and the question of who pulls us out of Iraq immediately. Because the 2004 race was so uninteresting, this never really became a point of vitriol with the left. If Al Gore runs but doesn't support leaving Iraq, it leaves a giant opening for an exciting outsider candidate. Howard Dean could easily fill that slot, but if he does then we should expect an acrimonious primary not dissimilar to 2016.

Good point but I can see Kerry and Edwards sticking around to give their political careers a boost

 

[Sabin]

Good point but I can see Kerry and Edwards sticking around to give their political careers a boost

Part of the race basically becomes "Who does Gore pick as his VP?" Both Kerry and Edwards are going to have a hard time finding donors if Gore is in the race. I could see Edwards jumping in with his populist message but he's probably going to have a hard time sticking around because his main selling point was "I'm a Southern Democrat who cares about the people!" Al Gore may not be beloved in the South by this point but he hurts Edwards' appeal a bit. I suspect Kerry stays out.

This has the makings of a very interesting race because Gore (if he supports staying in Iraq) might solidify support for Dean and turn it quickly into a two person race. New Hampshire is an interesting primary for Al Gore because he barely defeated Bradley there in 2000. With a potentially toxic primary between Gore and Dean in 2004, it's possible that Dean manages to upset Gore there in 2004, which would be music to the GOP's ears.

 

[NyQuil]

Part of the race basically becomes "Who does Gore pick as his VP?" Both Kerry and Edwards are going to have a hard time finding donors if Gore is in the race. I could see Edwards jumping in with his populist message but he's probably going to have a hard time sticking around because his main selling point was "I'm a Southern Democrat who cares about the people!" Al Gore may not be beloved in the South by this point but he hurts Edwards' appeal a bit. I suspect Kerry stays out.

This has the makings of a very interesting race because Gore (if he supports staying in Iraq) might solidify support for Dean and turn it quickly into a two person race. New Hampshire is an interesting primary for Al Gore because he barely defeated Bradley there in 2000. With a potentially toxic primary between Gore and Dean in 2004, it's possible that Dean manages to upset Gore there in 2004, which would be music to the GOP's ears.

Well we shall see what happens 😉