Jack Kemp as the Republican Nominee of 1996

What inspired me to post this thread is Jack Kemp's presidential campaign in 1988 and the speculation that Jack Kemp should seek the Republican presidential nomination of 1988. Kemp was also considered more popular than the presidential nominee at the top of the Republican national ticket. Like in my previous thread about Lloyd Bentsen, perhaps the POD could be Bob Dole's health failing, forcing him to concede the nomination? Would the nomination fall to Kemp or would it be given to Pat Buchanan (that's where I'm unsure)? I believe that to give Bill Clinton a true challenge for re-election, have Kemp select Governor Christine Whitman of New Jersey as his running mate. While that ticket is not unbeatable, it will certainly give Clinton and Al Gore something to worry about. Thoughts? Ideas?
 
Paul's right that Whitman would be disqualifying as a VP, particularly given that Kemp himself was viewed as an unorthodox conservative.

Kemp is probably a slightly better candidate than Dole, but the underlying demographics of this election make it virtually unwinnable for any challenger. I mean, this is a time when teenagers are dropping out of college and getting millions of dollars in venture capital to start the first Internet businesses; most of those go belly up, of course (WebVans, anyone?), but it's pretty hard to dislodge an incumbent President during peacetime and a booming economy.
 
If Kemp is running against Dole in the primaries, he most likely loses. He might do well enough for Dole to offer him the VP spot. In past presidential nomination contests where they ran head to head, Dole performed better and his positions are just slightly closer to those of the median Republican.

If you posit a POD of Dole deciding he doesn't want to run, for whatever reason, then Kemp has a very good chance of being the nominee.

But I agree that some election years are just incumbent years and 1996 is one of them. Clinton probably beats Kemp by six percentages points in the popular vote, instead of eight percentage points for Dole. Clinton gets only a plurality, just like in OTL. You could argue that the narrower margin changes things re the impeachment, but really probably not.

This is one of those PODs where the optics change, but nothing really substantive.
 
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