John Glenn in '84!

POD: John Glenn - first American to orbit the Earth, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and then a Democratic senator - runs a better campaign in the 1984 Democratic primaries, gains momentum, and ends up winning the Democratic nomination for President in a close contest over Mondale.

How would he do? Could he win the general election? If so, what would President Glenn be like?
 
Tantilizing. I will be looking up his politics. Still do not know if he would have enough juice to oust Reagan though.
 
POD: John Glenn - first American to orbit the Earth, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and then a Democratic senator - runs a better campaign in the 1984 Democratic primaries, gains momentum, and ends up winning the Democratic nomination for President in a close contest over Mondale.

How would he do? Could he win the general election? If so, what would President Glenn be like?

For this to work, we have to butterfly his accident away. Glenn's campaign never really have a chance to get going, due to the fact that he slipped in the shower and hurt himself quite badly. As a result, he was forced to withdraw from the race. In the early cauceses, he polled very well though, consistently coming in a close second behind Walter Mondale. If he doesn't hurt himself and if he's quicker to take adavantage of way he's portrayed in The Right Stuff, combined with his life story, which has "American hero" stamped all over it, his election is probaby a foregone conclusion.
 
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For this to work, we have to butterfly his accident away. Glenn's campaign never really have a chance to get going, due to the fact that he slipped in the shower and hurt himself quite badly. As a result, he was forced to withdraw from the race. In the early cauceses, he polled very well though, consistently coming in a close second behind Walter Mondale. If he doesn't hurt himself and if he's quicker to take adavantage of way he's portrayed in The Right Stuff, combined with his life story, which has "American hero" stamped all over it, his election is probaby a foregone conclusion.

The shower thing just forced him to withdraw, he had already lost.

IOTL Glenn ran a really poor campaign capped off by a large strategic mistake in skipping Iowa to focus on New Hampshire. Gary Hart came in second in Iowa and began a meteoric media fuelled rise.

So Glenn has different (better) campaign advisors who force him to play up The Right Stuff, spend a lot of money on Iowa to come in second, hits it off in New Hampshire, and takes off.
 
Glenn would have been ran over by Reagan. His best bet would have been to wait until 1988 and run against Bush Sr.
 
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