"Hipster" PMs and Presidents Thread

Any idea who could be a decent Old Guard, Labor type Democrat who'd be willing to be the VP on a "Hart for President" ticket in 1980? For some background info, Ford won re-election more or less due to selecting Jim Rhodes as his veep to mollify the Reaganites in Mississippi, and Rhodes's Ohio machine wins Ford their electoral votes.
Hugh Carey, Henry Jackson, Walter Reuther, Harrison A. Williams, and Carl D. Perkins are options.
 
There’s recently been a lot of discussion about why Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate. A few things came into play — there was the sense that Obama needed an older, more moderate (white, male) Washington insider to balance the ticket.

The alternative was to “double down on change” and pick another charismatic newcomer, a la Clinton-Gore ‘92. The problem was that there really weren’t any obvious candidates in that role. The other finalists were Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. Bayh was youngish, and his overall record was similar to Biden’s. But his profile was more centrist, he had little charisma, and his Senate seat would be filled by a Republican if he was elevated to the vice presidency. Kaine might have been good, but at the time he had just over 2 years as governor and was inexperienced in national politics.

So who might have been a good, younger complement to Obama as VP? Looking at losing Democratic senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in the years before, one name that struck me was Oklahoma Rep. Brad Carson. Carson served two terms in the House from a very Republican, eastern Oklahoma District and also ran for the Senate in 2004. He ran competitively, even leading many polls into early October, but Tom Coburn ultimately pulled away and best Carson by 11 points. Of course, Oklahoma is a very Republican state and Bush demolished Kerry there by over 30 points.

But had Carson somehow won, I think there’s a good chance *he* would have been Obama’s running mate. And he would likely have been the 2016 Democratic nominee — to an extent that’s under appreciated, Hillary’s candidacy was enabled by the fact that few in the Obama WH or the Dem establishment at large considered Biden a viable candidate, given his age and poor record at the national level. (Let alone Beau’s death.) And Carson may well have defeated Trump, unlike Clinton.

Why Carson? His biography and record makes him appear like a perfect complement to Obama. He’s younger (born in 1967), intellectual and erudite, a Rhodes scholar, and a former public defender. He later endorsed Obama early in the ‘08 presidential cycle and served as an undersecretary of the army.

The biggest issue is that Carson’s record — reflecting his state and district — was *very* conservative. He voted for the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq War, *and* came out during the ‘04 campaign in support of a federal marriage amendment. Those issues would probably have tripped up any vice presidential bid — much as candidates try to balance the ticket in perceptions or political strength, they don’t typically pick running mates that are deeply out of step with the national party electorate.

So one potential POD here is that the MA Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 doesn’t legalize same-sex marriage. Maybe they rule for civil unions (and leave the full marriage equality ruling to California 4 years later), or maybe the Goodrich case gets heard one year later, after the ‘04 election.

That may avert the federal marriage amendment push, keep state level same-sex marriage bans off the ‘04 ballot, and leave it off the table as a galvanizing issue for evangelicals and social conservatives that year. Carson himself blamed it for his defeat, and it's thought to have saved Jim Bunning in KY as well. (Not to mention that some think it swing Ohio to Bush.)

That may be too charitable to Carson — after all, he was running in Oklahoma. But let’s just say for the sake of argument that gay marriage isn’t a huge issue that year, Kerry still loses narrowly, but Carson is able to eke out a win over Coburn. Without coming out for the FMA, he’s less problematic to the national electorate, and he ends up getting selected as Obama’s running mate. (His Senate seat would be filled by a Democrat, since OK’s governor at the time, Brad Henry, was a Dem.)
 
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There’s recently been a lot of discussion about why Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate. A few things came into play — there was the sense that Obama needed an older, more moderate (white, male) Washington insider to balance the ticket.

The alternative was to “double down on change” and pick another charismatic newcomer, a la Clinton-Gore ‘92.

Even thou he isn't a Washington insider, maybe Tony Knowles in a world where he won the 2004 Alaskan Senate race (lost 48.6% to 45.6% to Lisa Murkowski, giving him 8 years as Governor and 4 as Senator) or the 2006 gubernatorial race (which he lost 48.3% to 41.0% against Sarah Palin, giving him a cumulative 10 years as Governor)? Alaska is a pretty small state (population wise), and I don't know how popular or charismatic he is overall (winning like 2 out of 5 statewide elections). He might appeal to western voters, but it might be a big gamble for little pay off (especially given how bad VP picks tend to lose votes, but good ones don't gain them).
 
I just discovered this thread, let's get give some contribution...

Gianni de Michelis is probably the most hipster politician in Italian politics. Firstly, it's relatively easy to put him as President of the Council, since he had a brilliant career; he had been Minister of State Partecipations from 1980 to 1983, Minister of Labor from 1983 to 1987, president of the parliamentary group of the PSI from 1987 to 1988, Vice-president of the Council from 1988 to 1989 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1992. He was the second most important member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) after Bettino Craxi and one of the most influential political figures in '80s Italy. But he also was a womanizer, who employed tens of women in his staff only for their beauty. He was a dancing lover, and he wrote and published in 1988 Where do we go to dance tonight?, a guide on the top 250 night clubs in Italy. He also was President of the Italian Basketball League from 1984 to 1992, where he obtained from RAI a 50 billion (lire, not euros, obviously) TV rights deal that gave Italian basketball movement one of his greatest boosts. His best moment would have been in the 80s, I'd say, because he rose in that era, he reached high position and public visibility and in the 90s Tangentopoli will wash away every possibility for him to get even near Palazzo Chigi.

Giovanni Spadolini maybe shouldn't be there, since he actually has been a President of the Council, but only for a year and a half, before falling for the dissociation from the government majority of the PSI. But Spadolini had more potential than that. Prominent journalist, he entered politics in 1972, and less than a decade after he was not only president of the Council, but the first President of the Council not member of DC (Christian Democracy). Spadolini was in fact member of the Italian Republican Party (PRI), a minor party which generally allied with Christian Democracy. In the election after the fall of his government, the 1983 political elections, PRI took 5,08% of the votes, the highest result for the party since 1900. In Turin, PRI was even the third party, over PSI and behind only DC and PCI. Spadolini became Minister of Defence, and he was there during Sigonella crisis, where Italian and American military forces almost came to blows in the NATO base of Sigonella in Italy over some PLO member. Spadolini here was in total disagreement with President Craxi, who was confrontational towards the US. A pair of years later, Spadolini found himself away from government jobs for enmity with the prominent leaders of DC and PSI that ruled the country that day, namely Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani. Spadolini is extremely interesting because he was in contrast with the politics of his era. When DC and PSI were moving to a third-positionist filosofy in foreign affairs, Spadolini was an ardent Atlanticist and supporters of US and NATO. When Tangentopoli blew away the cover for the mountain of corruption in Italian politics, Spadolini was one of the few top figures that ended up clean. He was an atheist (the first atheist president of council), and deeply believed in the importance of laicity in state and society. He also was one of the most ardent supporters of a separate Ministry for Cultural Heritage, and the preservation of Italian culture, history and archeological patrimony was always of paramount importance for him. I think he should deserve more attention and could have had a greater impact on Italy.

Toni Iwobi is a man born in Nigeria, who married an Italian woman, got citizenship through that and founded a business in IT. Around 90s/2000s he entered in politics, mostly at a local level. But in 2018 his political career took a great upturn, with him being elected to the Italian Senate. What's the matter? Well, the party he's part of in all that - it's Lega Nord. Yep, the Lega Nord that always had problems with anyone that wasn't Northern Italian. Yep, the Lega Nord that in 2014 said that after all the South is still Italy and that North and South must be united to face the ultimate menace - immigration. Which means "Arabian-African immigration". To sum it up for Americans, Iwobi is like a Black Dixiecrat. I have no idea about how he can become President of the Council. But if he isn't hipster I don't know who is.

Going outside of Italy, Edward Makuka Nkoloso once run as Mayor of Lusaka and lost. If he won that, he could have had a base to the Presidency of Zambia. If you ask why it should be interesting, I suggest you to read his Wiki bio. Only hints: afronauts and witchcraft medicine.
 
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Here's one: Dalip Singh Saund, Democratic rep. from California, the first Sikh American, Asian American, Indian American member of a non-Abrahamic faith to be elected to Congress. A naturalised citizen, yes, but lets operate under the assumption that maybe some sort of earlier Hatch act passes. He suffered a stroke during the early sixties and was unable to campaign.
 
I doubt anyone ever makes a timeline about 1990s Latvia, but a very interesting figure in early independence during the 90s is Joachim Siegerist. He was born in West Germany in 1947 and was a German-Latvian journalist, author and conservative politician. He was an ardent anti-communist and was chairman of the German Conservatives. His father was Latvian who fought in the Waffen SS while his mother was German.

As you see, a pretty reactionary and weird guy.

When Latvia regained it's independence, he became a Latvian citizen in 1992. Initially being in Latvia as part of a humanitarian aid initiative, he was elected to the Saeima in 1993 for the Latvian National Independence Movement or LNNK, which had become an influential party after independence. He was elected to the Saeima by bribing voters with ice cream and lemonade and later on bananas, which has given Siegerist a position in Latvian political folklore. Mmultiple buses were used to ferry voters to Jelgava so they could vote for Siegerist who was a candidate in Zemgale. When he left the LNNK and was ejected from the Saeima for not attending sessions, he formed the People's Movement for Latvia which was also called the Siegerist Party.

In 1995 his party won sixteen seats although Siegerist himself did not candidate for the elections. Either way, he was the candidate for Prime Minister from his own party. Siegerist is known for giving Latvia a taste of political campaigning that was common in the west and that the noob Latvians had not experienced. Handing out bananas, inviting people out to events which ended with live music, giving out humanitarian help and even showing a film wherein party officials establish a remembrance shrine for Kārlis Ulmanis in Turkmenistan, Latvian dictator from 1934 til 1940 who is thought to have died in exile in Turkmenistan after deported by Soviet authorities.

Running a fiercely populist and anti-communist campaign, his party was seen negatively by the mainstream media and the parties victories in 1995 were completely unexpected. Following the elections, the party attempted to support the creation of a coalition government with Ziedonis Čevers at the front of it but his Prime Ministership did not gain the confidence of the Saeima. The Siegerist Party remained in opposition and over time fractured as it was a conglomeration of politicians with different views. In 1998 the party was a candidate for the elections as well was the party leaders' arrived to meetings with voters in helicopters and meetings were supplemented by concerts, while attendees were given small bags with dirt inside them which was supposedly from Turkmenistan where the search was going on for the resting place of Ulmanis. Even Siegerist himself was declared as the Prime Minister candidate for the party. However, it's successes would not be replayed as the party failed to get into the Saeima.

Perhaps there could be a timeline where Siegerist gets in the 1995 coalition and his party doesn't get destroyed in the preceding scandals and faults of the government and in 1998, they're able to form a coalition government with Joachim Siegerist at the forefront. It would be an interesting timeline but it's probably difficult to find any information without being Latvian as most information about him at all is in Latvian. Well, at least the information that is related to him being in Latvian politics.
 
We all know FDR as one of the most monumental Presidents in American history. However, not a lot of people know about his sons, who were all deeply involved in politics and were actually very interesting people.

James Roosevelt was the eldest of the batch and managed to obtain several military awards despite suffering from flat feet and other health issues. Later, he would run for the Governor of California but lost to Earl Warren by 30% of the vote. He eventually managed to gain a seat in Congress where he became a vocal opponent against Senator McCarthy's tactics and was the only congressman who voted against raising funding for the HUAC. Later in his life, he voted for Nixon and Ronald Reagan despite being a lifelong Democrat and was later accused of scamming senior citizens by claiming that their welfare was at risk of being canceled. James was married a total of four times and his third marriage ended after his wife stabbed him eight times after he attempted to divorce her.

Elliott Roosevelt was the second son and was the favorite child of his mother. During his time in the air force, he pioneered new methods of photographic reconnaissance before being trialed for accepting bribes from aircraft companies to pay off his debts from nightclubbing and partying. When Joseph Stalin proposed to round up and shoot fifty thousand German officers during the Tehran Conference, Elliott joked that the fifty thousand would die in battle anyway, earning him the approval of Stalin and the hatred of Churchill. After the war, he became the Mayor of Miami Beach, published a book criticizing his father's philandering, and was later accused of hiring Mafia hitmen to assassinate the Prime Minister of the Bahamas to profit off of beachfront real estate. His last goal in life was to outlive his older brother, but Elliott would die of heart failure ten months before James would.

Franklin Roosevelt Jr. was the third brother and the one who looked and talked the most like his father. It was said by his brothers that he possessed all of Franklin Sr.'s charm, wit, and charisma, later running for political office in New York, much like his father did. While in Congress, he gained controversy for representing Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, a man who murdered Haitian immigrants, arrested members of opposing political parties, and attempted to bomb the President of Venezuela. He was later suggested by President Kennedy to serve as Secretary of the Navy, but the proposal was shot down by McNamara. The proposal was seen as an act of nepotism due to the fact that the two were close friends and that JFK had already appointed his own brother as Attorney General.

John Roosevelt was the last child in the family and out of all of his brothers he was the least involved in politics. During his youth, he was involved in a drunken brawl and an attack on the mayor in Cannes during a foreign trip with his family. Initially, he tried to become a self-made man and refused to gain favor from his family's connections. However, he later joined his brother, Elliot in staring several businesses across Cuba before Castro overthrew Batista. Like many of his brothers, he became deeply involved in Carribean politics, representing François Duvalier, the Voudu-worshipping dictator of Haiti and all-around maniac. Later in his life, John became a Republican to win the support of his wife's family, much to the ire of his mother and he became close friends with Jimmy Hoffa before the latter was convicted of bribery, fraud, and jury tampering in 1967.
 
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Allan L. Benson, the Socialist Party's candidate for President of the United States in 1916. Less well-known than both Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, he later disowned the Socialist Party.
 
I dunno if I've really seen much with Ruth Hanna McCormick. Aside from being the daughter of frequent alt-President Mark Hanna, wife of one-term Illinois Senator Joseph M. McCormick, and a prominent early supporter of the women's suffrage movement:
Wikipedia said:
She served one term in the United States House of Representatives, winning an at-large seat in Illinois in 1928. She gave up the chance to run for re-election to seek a United States Senate seat from Illinois. She defeated the incumbent, Senator Charles S. Deneen, in the Republican primary, becoming the first female Senate candidate for a major party. McCormick lost the general election. A decade later, she became the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, although her candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, failed to capture his party's nomination.
While it's not entirely realistic for her to win the 1930 Illinois senate race without an earlier POD (she lost by over thirty points to Democrat J. Hamilton Lewis), supposing she somehow gets into either the Senate or the Governor's mansion (maybe her career is sped up two years, running for the House in 1926 and the Senate in 1928?) it's not impossible to imagine her emerging as an stateswoman of sorts by the 1940s/50s and, say, being named Dewey or Eisenhower's running mate...
 
So yesterday I spent a good chunk of time watching the Netflix documentary series "The Confession Killer." Very good docuseries by the way. While I don't know the details well enough to say if it was a hundred percent accurate, it was a very engaging one. Anyways, that aside, at one point we're introduced to a man named Vic Feazell, who was a District Attorney while Henry Lee Lucas was claiming to have committed several hundred murders all across the country. He noticed that some of Lucas' confessions contradicted known information, and he claims that his investigation into this caused higher ups in the Texas Rangers to come after him on bogus charges. The documentary doesn't really detail those accusations, aside from saying what they were, so some people more in the know might read this and think "Uh, no way would he be elected president with that sort of history!" However, to those that say that, I refer you to the numerous Ted Bundy timelines and, well, reality :p

Anyways, at some point in the documentary, it's pointed out that Feazell was a fast riser through the ranks, being the youngest person elected to DA in that area in over a hundred years. Feazell himself says that he had planned to run for US congress or governor of Texas one day, but after all that happened with the Lucas case he decided he didn't want to pursue a political career. Lets say the Lucas stuff never happens and that the charges were bogus, or at least, that they were only dug up because law enforcement didn't want him looking further into the case. The result is he never loses interest in a political career and pursues either one of his goals. That he was such a quick riser and had ambitions of holding higher elected office one day makes me think he could be the type to eventually want to run for president, and it probably isn't out of the realm of possibility getting him elected to either of the other two offices.

Also in the documentary was a guy named Gary Richardson, who represented Feazell in his trial. I did some research on him and it turns out he ran for congress twice before all this business, and then ran for governor of Oklahoma two times after, once as an independent in 2002 and again in the Republican primary in 2018. Make him win any of these races and you could get him started on a path toward the presidency. For some meta-type humor, since Feazell is a Democrat and Richardson has spent most of his career as a Republican, you could have them run against each other.
 
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Apologies for the double post here, but I just noticed a bit ago that Harry G. Haskell Jr. died yesterday. I only found out about him the other day when I read about Joe Biden's first election to the senate. Haskell was not the man Joe beat though; that would be then incumbent J. Caleb Boggs, who was running for a third term. However, Boggs had originally intended to retire, but was convinced to run again by Nixon, because had he not run the primary would have likely been fought between Pete du Pont and Haskell. Nixon figured that Boggs running would mean the entire party was united behind one candidate instead of divided because of a bitter primary. But let's say Boggs does retire. The result is likely a very competitive primary, and if you can make Haskell win the nod and the subsequent general (also very likely to be competitive), you could set him on a path to the presidency.
 
Does anyone know some politicians who could become "Trump before Trump"? Someone like a crass populist who is elected President despite his many controversies.
 
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