Post 121
Post 121 (final post!): Index 7, Index 8, and Acknowledgments
Index 7 – Wikiboxes (Part 1)
(Still-Alive Presidents)
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Mondale is looked back on fairly favorably as a man who led his nation through several crises during a decade of social change and progress. A moderate on most issues, he won over enough middle class and suburban voters to win two terms and become a revered elder statesman to many future moderates in the party, including 1996 Presidential nominee John Glenn, 2016 VP nominee Bob Casey Jr., and former Presidential candidates James Blanchard and Tom Suozzi, among others. After 10 years in the US Senate, Mondale was able to mount a Presidential campaign that bested initial frontrunner Hubert Humphrey and Mike Gravel, but Mondale was forced to select the latter for running mate in order to united the moderate and progressive wings of the party. Under his administration, détente with the Soviets and the PRC continued on, while social improvements at home contributed to a feeling of stability and prosperity that allowed him to win re-election in a landslide over California Governor Ronald Reagan. His second term, though, proved to be a poisoned chalice that "Fightin' Fritz" was happy to be rid of come January 20, 1981.
During the 1980s, he strongly supported Scoop Jackson's presidential bid, offered tepid support to the Gravel'84 campaign, and endorsed Bellamy in 1988 after Glenn and Kennedy-Shriver withdrew. In the 2000s decade, his Presidency was compared to and overshadowed by Jackson's, especially when it came to the disasters and crises of the oughts. However, the former President was a welcomed advisor to the Wellstone'08 campaign, and got along well with the VP-turned-President. Mondale also reportedly gets along well with former Presidents Bellamy, Dinger, Jackson, and Grammer, but has reportedly not had much interaction with Harley Brown; he also endorsed Charlotte Pritt in 2020. Presently, Mondale and his Vice President, while back to being talking terms, have never truly buried the hatchet, with Mondale viewing Gravel as inhibiting efforts to seek compromise on legislation during crucial moments throughout the 1970s, and Gravel accusing Mondale of sabotaging his 1980 Presidential bid. This decades-old tension contrasts sharply with the friendship Mondale has formed with fellow Minnesotan Paul Wellstone, despite their political differences. Mondale currently resides in Minnesota, enjoying his 41st year of retirement.
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Bellamy is still a feminist icon for shattering the glass ceiling in 1988, but she is also a universally recognized diplomat and champion of various causes, working passionately to eliminate child poverty from the face of the Earth. During the 1990s, she worked closely with UK PM Lennon and other progressives to improve life quality and truncate poverty and food insecurity issues. In the early oughts, she coordinated with the Jackson administration and other world leaders to minimize the effects of the SARS Global Pandemic, which won her even more accolades and adoring fans. Though she did not get along that well with Presidents Iacocca and Dinger, she was on excellent terms with Jackson and Wellstone and on good terms with Presidents Mondale, Kemp and Grammer. As her life's work has been a source of inspiration to so many supporters, she has made her peace with never serving a second term (and reportedly made her peace with the matter a long time ago). Bellamy currently splits her time between New York and DC, working with both President Pritt and the United Nations to crack down on human rights abuses.
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Dinger's legacy is polarizing and controversial. Often "in the shadow" of his martyred predecessor, many question how his career and legacy would have unfolded if Iacocca had lived. Regardless, Dinger's supporters praise his leadership skills, which were often credited to his career in diplomatic and foreign policy-related positions during the 1980s. Backers praised his leadership abilities for keeping the country "strong and united" in the wake of the national tragedy that produced his ascension, for liberating those suffering from famine and torture under the reign of Kim Dynasty in the Hermit Kingdom, and for taking a firm stance on crime, recreadrugs, and illegal immigration.
On the other hand, critics call him a warmonger who needlessly expanded American intervention in Colombia (America's longest war, BTW) and whose escalation of the War on Recreadrugs hurt more lives than it helped. As his party continues to shift to the right and he stays pretty much ideologically similar to how he was in the 1990s, his critics have begun to come from the right of him, too. Regardless, Dinger has been able to got along decently with other Presidents. He reportedly interacted well with Denton, Kemp, and Iacocca, and later praised the work of Presidents Wellstone and Grammer, but reportedly does not have the kind of rapport that he wishes to have with Bellamy, Jackson, and even Harley Brown (who once called Dinger a "pitiful LID" (Liberal In Disguise)). Later reversing his attitudes on recreadrugs but justifying most of his other actions while President, Dinger has repeatedly declined to run for a second full term again, refusing to run in 2004, in 2008, in 2012 and even in 2020 despite some interventionist talking heads such as Bill Kristol calling for him to do so. No, the former President seems content to stay where he is currently, residing on his family's homestead in Iowa, enjoying a lengthy post-presidential retirement.
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America's First African-American President was a highly religious and passionate man. Starting off as a social activist and Baptist minister, the NAACP had him based in his birth state of South Carolina despite spending years working in Chicago. Shifting into politics, he ran for Mayor of Washington, D.C. in 1982, lost, but learned from the experience and successfully mounted a long-shot bid for the Governorship in 1986. He endorsed Mike Gravel in 1980 and 1984 and Bellamy in 1988. Limited to a single term (but eligible to a second one after leaving office), Jackson served was a “special liaison” to the Ivory Coast under President Bellamy from 1991 to 1993; he worked to cool rising tensions in that country over the breakaway nation of The Sanwi Kingdom (which later considered offering him the semi-ceremonial position of Crown Prince for his commitment to a peaceful secession) and over the Ivory Coast's neighboring country of Ghana's own turmoil stemming from its recently-discovered offshore oil deposits. Critical of Dinger's handling of the War on Recreadrugs, Jackson was elected back to the Governorship in 1998 and, two years later, successfully challenged him in the Presidential Election of 2000.
As President, Jackson led the US through a global pandemic, intense hurricanes, personal tragedy, and a resurgence in racist incidents in backlash to his election, his re-election, and his efforts at police reform. Jackson worked with Treasury Secretary Johnson to keep the federal government "out of the red" in accordance with the BBA, with rival-turned-Cabinet member to address diplomatic concerns, with his VP and Attorney General to push social justice measures, and with foreign leaders to promote peaceful resolutions to violent situations unfolding in Africa and Asia at the time. He reportedly got along well with former Presidents Kemp and Bellamy, and was on good terms with the four Presidents that came after him, but never fully thawed out of the icy relationship that he has with Larry Dinger. Now battling Parkinson's disease, this "fearless warrior...fighting for causes dear to him" divides his time between South Carolina, Potomac, and Illinois, as his children and grandchildren live across those three states.
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Not even the debilitating long-term effects of Multiple Sclerosis can keep this former President from offering his two cents on the latest political issues, partaking in TV and radio interviews to promote the progressive policies he has consistently held close to his heart. As Minnesota's Attorney General during the Second Ark Wave, Wellstone's fierce defending of women's rights in multiple DOJ cases led to him being labelled a rising star at the age of 42. After 22 more years of public service, first in The Land of Mondale And Ten Thousand Lakes and then in 1 Observatory Circle, Wellstone finally made it to the White House, where he oversaw electric energy projects and tax reform efforts despite the many Congressional Republicans snapping at his heels. After leaving office, several private health scares, worse than the ones he privately suffered while President, made him quick to decline running for a second term in 2016 or 2020. Wellstone reportedly got along well with Mondale, Kemp, Bellamy, Jackson, and even Dinger, and has many positive things to say about the incumbent President Pritt, but is on less positive terms with Grammer and Brown. He currently lives with his wife Sheila in Minnesota, but is reportedly in declining health and may pass away relatively soon.
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From Shakespearean productions to health scares and international missile crises, Grammer's life has certainly been a dramatic one. Facing personal tragedy with the murder of his father and the deaths of both half-brothers, Kelsey and his sister Karen faced their emotional demons together during the 1980s and because of this, both siblings prospered during the 1990s, with Kelsey becoming the wealthy star of TV's "Frasier" and Karen becoming involved in a diverse assortment of businesses in Colorado. Good fortune smiled on Kelsey again in the early 2000s decade when he began dating the star of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," Marissa Joan Hart.
However, as Kelsey was increasingly bothered by state rules and regulations and embarrassed by the failures of California's tumultuous post-Christopher administrations, Grammer found himself increasingly involved in local and then national politics. After notable appearances on political radio and TV channels, Kelsey was invited to speak at the 2004 RNC, doing so with a speech that received more attention than that of the nominee. Then, in 2005, with the support of his friends and family, Kelsey fully made his way from the theatrical stage to the political stage with his own bid for public office. Roughly six short years later, the Grammers were living in the White House, for better and for worse.
As President, Grammer appreciated advise given to him by all of the former Presidents, including Jeremiah Denton. After nearly eight years of dealing with economic recession, cyber-terrorism, bipartisan opposition, and complex geopolitical shenanigans, the First Couple not to wait out the lame-duck period. Cutting their stay in D.C. short by a few weeks (leading to one co-host of SNL's Weekend Update replying "Now, this dude has nine kids, so you know this has got to be the first time that he has ever pulled out early"), Kelsey and his wife Marissa are now back to raising their several children at their main home in southern California, away from the chaos of D.C. Grammer has left politics, but he is not retired; he says he is looking into returning to acting in the near future.
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Flaunting the long-sought title of President (alright, former President), the most famous biker in the world is still planning his next move. Beloved by many war veterans and law enforcement officials, by certain foreign leaders, by most members of the Religious Right, by many bikers and motorcycle enthusiasts (obviously), and by many social conservatives (paradoxically, given Brown's longtime support for the BLUTAGO Community), it is unknown if Harley Davidson Brown currently believes that he has finished doing "God's work" or not.
The gaffe-prone, potty-mouthed, tough-as-nails Mr. Brown spent much the 1970s overseas in the Mud Marines and a good part of the 1980s working as a taxi driver. After experiencing a life-changing religious and spiritual experience (during which God apparently spoke to him) that convinced him that he was "destined...for greatness," Brown returned to the military in the 1990s, just in time to oversee some troops during the Second Korean War. From there, he managed to launched a quixotic and unique political career that culminated in a failed Presidential bid in 2020. Feeling sorry for his VP, though, President Grammer let him serve out the last 71 days of his term. The small term ended up demonstrating just how much can be accomplished during the lame-duck period, establishing major precedence. During this "mini-presidency," as some called it, Brown did not consult with former Presidents (he reportedly considers Mondale, Bellamy, Jackson, and Wellstone to be "hacks," but has praised Dinger in the passed) and instead reliex on his longtime allies to maximize his time behind the Resolute Desk.
Currently, Brown reportedly has a movie/TV deal in the works, and there's heavy debate over the merits of him running for public office again. However his future goes, Brown seems to be in a good place right now, enjoying the media attention while residing back in Nampa, Idaho with his wife and young children.
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The current president is capitalizing on the Democrats controlling both chambers of congress to get as much work done before the midterms arrive. Primarily concerned with improving the standard of living for American families in the wake of rising automation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Pritt is calling on congress to pass, at the very least, a Federal Freedom Fund pilot program to minimize the effects of unemployment.
Pritt's dedication to these policies and proposals reflect her background. As the daughter of a poor coal miner father and a labor activist mother, growing up and serving as a grade school teacher in West Virginia made her experience first-hand what it truly meant to go without, and she was determined to prevent others from experiencing such poverty. With this in mind, she entered politics and worked tirelessly to protect the rights and the health of miners during her eight years in the state congress, four years as state Secretary of State, six years in the US House, and eight years in the governorship.
As the incumbent President, Pritt is working to reinvest in national projects to preserve natural resources and promote green energy, returning national attention to electric power grids, solar panels, wind farms, water turbine projects, and even hydrogen power projects. She is also attempting to work with businesses to establish worker training and retraining programs, along with many other policies and goals, to minimize the impact that automation is having on the American workforce. President Pritt is currently enjoying a national approval rating average of roughly 61%.
Bonus: Wikiboxes For Still-Living Major-Party Presidential Nominees
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Bernie Goetz is hard to define as both a person and as a political figure. He is an activist businessman who received fame and statewide media attention for shooting an attempted robber of his store – fame that led to him being elected to the US Senate in a good year for Republicans. He forewent a run for re-election to lay the groundwork for a Presidential run, and upon entering the race, soon found an audience that dubbed themselves the “Bernie Bros.” But the Goetz campaign was very paradoxical – he won over religious members of the Republican party despite not being religious; he was a “darling” of gun enthusiasts (“for hunting purposes”) despite being a vegetarian; he was endorsed by several pro-military groups despite him never serving in the military (or even on a military-relevant committee or subcommittee while in the US Senate); and his bluntness made him be seen as a “real man of the people” despite becoming a multi-millionaire before entering office.
Somewhat like Harley Davidson Brown, many of Goetz’s most passionate supporters were unaware of who exactly he was outside of the specific policies that they cared about. That is how he tapped into a long-dormant faction of the GOP, a faction energized by the carnage of KW2, intrigued by the possibilities of ontech harassment, and infuriated by the election of America’s firstAfrican-American Fully-Socialist President. These individuals flocked to his faux-populism three separate times, in 2004, in 2008, and 2012, with the third time being cut short by a well-timed video leak revealing Goetz’s negative attitude toward one of the GOP’s most treasured institutions – the good ol' fixin’s of KFC.
No longer actively involved in politics, Goetz is reportedly enjoying his retirement years, spending his time mainly at family homesteads in Florida and upstate New York, and at his own home in Boulder, Colorado. According to a 2020 interview, he supported Presidents Denton, Kemp, Iacocca, and Dinger, did not "trust" Mondale, Bellamy, Jackson and Wellstone, had "conflicting thoughts" on Grammer, praised Brown, and was highly critical of then-candidate Pritt. Goetz may have faded from public view, but is still remembered for the role he played in American history during the oughts and early 2010s.
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Born to immigrants from Greece, breast cancer and heart disease left Olympia Snowe an orphan by the age of nine; living with relatives, she worked her way through college and into a career in politics. After her husband, Peter T. Snowe (b. 1943, currently 74 years old), who had served in the state House from 1967 to 1970 and in the state senate from 1970 to 1975, lost re-election to the state Senate in 1974 (despite it being a fairly good year for Republicans overall), Olympia decided to run for a state senate seat four years later in 1978 and won; her career only progressed from there, while her husband found himself enjoying a new career as a prosecuting attorney. By the end of the 1980s, Maine newspapers were calling them the state’s top “Power Couple” (and, impressively, both still found the time to raise three children (b. 1970, 1973, and 1975) during this time). In 1996, Maine’s Governor appointed Snowe to a US Senate seat made vacant by the death of longtime incumbent US Senator Edmund S. "Ed" Muskie; Olympia won a subsequent special election with ease; she won re-election in 2000 and 2006 in landslides. Tragedy struck her family again when her youngest, 28-year-old Georgia, was hit by a car in early 2003 (possibly explaining Olympia's decision to not run for President in 2004 despite many in the state wanting her to do so), but the daughter managed to make a full recovery by early 2006
Heading into 2008, her party was divided into libertarian, “populist,” hard-c conservative, Religious Right, and moderate factions. Goetz’s landslide loss in 2004 made Snow correctly predict that the political atmosphere was exactly right for a moderate to be nominated at the national level. Snowe had criticized President Dinger in the past, but his then-recent comments against his own recreadrug policies convinced many that she was an excellent judge of character, improving her standing in the polls heading into the primaries. Despite this and other factors that leaned in her favor, Snowe just barely convinced enough primary voters to give a much more centrist candidate a chance, and while she won the popular vote in November, it was the Electoral Vote that mattered more at that point in US history.
During her final ten years in the Senate, her reputation of finding compromise and leading bipartisanship was bolstered by her work under both Presidents Wellstone and Grammer, leading to her being called “the best President we never had” by some and a “Liberal In Disguise” by others. Being privately concerned that Vice President Harley Davidson Brown was cut from the same cloth as that of Bernie Goetz and Bo Gritz, she only gave tepid support to the Vice President’s run in 2020; after the race, she had more positive things to say about America’s second female President. Snowe currently maintains an active life, adhering to the "Sandersian" theory of aging, that, in essence, “retirement equals rust,” as she currently works as a senior fellow for the Bipartisan Policy Center as Chair of its Commission on Political Reform; she also enjoys spending time with her husband, children, and grandchildren.
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First elected to the US Senate in 1992 at the age of 42, Locke gained national attention for his efforts to address and lower anti-Asian violence and Asian-American hatred and attacks on those communities during the build-up to, execution of, and socio-economic/geopolitical fallout from the Second Korean War. For these actions, Locke was rumored to be a potential candidate for President in 1996 and 2000, and a potential candidate for Vice President in 1996, 2000 and 2008. After Grammer won the White House in 2012, Gary Locke believed his party had to go in a more moderate direction. In 2016, the Democratic party voters agreed (or, as was common for Locke, many mistakenly believed that he was much more progressive that he really was due to him hailing from a progressive state), but Locke failed to convince people in the general election to vote out the popular incumbent. Still serving in the US Senate, he remains a popular figure among most Asian American communities.
Index 8 – Wikiboxes (Part 2)
(Still-Alive Vice Presidents)
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The "grandfather" of America's Direct Democracy movement led the charge to implement the National Initiative Amendment, and has accused every single Presidential administration since the 1960s of being too interventionist to varying degrees (even Bellamy, Jackson and Wellstone a few times). Retiring from public life following his landslide loss in the 1984 election, the "Gravelite" wing of the Democratic party that he had led was vindicated with the election of the progressive Carol Bellamy to the Presidency just four years later (however, as he was still unpopular in D.C., Gravel declined serving in Bellamy's cabinet over concerns that conservative Democrats would block his confirmation to any "meaningful" position), and soon after moved to California. After almost a decade of maintaining a low profile - quietly promoting local, statewide, regional, and national candidates and policies close to his ideology while serving on the board of directors from several progressive non-profit organizations - the "destructive [and] dangerous nature" of Dinger's full term convinced him to run for the Senate again. Despite accusations from pretty much all of his opponents that he was a carpetbagger, Gravel proved to be much more popular in The Golden State than he had been in Alaska, winning the 1998 primary and general elections by comfortable margins and easily winning re-election in 2004, 2010, and 2016.
There was subsequent talk of progressive activists drafting Gravel for the Presidential nomination in 2000, but nothing came of it. Under Presidents and Wellstone, Gravel demonstrated a calmer demeanor than the one he had shown during his self-described "pigheaded years" of the 1970s and late 1960s (later acknowledging that his first run for the Presidency, as a freshman US Congress in 1968, was "an idiotic public display of ego stroking" more so than a protest bid to US troops remaining in Indochina). During his second time in the Senate, nearly 30 years after leaving the Senate and roughly 20 years after leaving the Vice Presidency, Gravel managed to work better with his fellow lawmakers to promote progressive policies, though he still butted heads with conservatives regardless of party label. This led to talk of Gravel potentially resigning from the Senate in early 2009 in exchange for a cabinet position in the Wellstone administration, only for Gravel to decide against such a move.
Through Gravel's more productive efforts in the Senate, though, not only was he able to see his National Initiative idea become a reality; not only did the NIA become a part of the US Constitution, but Gravel got to see it pass RCV implementation for all US Presidential elections after 2016 via the US holding its first national initiative vote in 2018. Now considered an elder statesman looked up to by many within the party, and having made peace with the fact that he never became President despite running for the job five times (in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 2000), Gravel recently announced that he will not run for a fifth consecutive term in 2022, and is looking forward to what he hopes will be a lengthy, but still active, retirement period.
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With so many Republicans falling from grace during the 1980s - Lukens, Packwood, Helms, Gingrich and of course, Denton - Alexander is often overlooked, lost in the crowd of crooks, as his unrelated scandal was pretty tame by comparison; some even allege that he could have very easily refused to resign and publicly ignore or downplay the controversy, and thus could have become President of the United States just 16 grueling months later. Regardless, once out of D.C., he re-entered private practice in the 1990s and (apart from endorsing Billy McCormack in 1988 and Estus Pirkle in 1992) pretty much kept a low profile. He even lived in Australia for a few years during the turn of the twentieth century to work for an international law firm, and for a while even considered moving there permanently to avoid the negative media attention that he repeatedly experienced back in the states. However, his wife and children convinced him to return to Tennessee in early 2002, coincidently right before President Jackson placed limits on air travel at the start of the SARS Global Pandemic.
In the late 2000s decade, Alexander received media attention when he led a major lawsuit concerning his ancestor's homeland of Ireland, with members of the Taoiseach opposing foreign businesses using the country as a tax shelter. Impressed by Alexander's diplomatic skills during the court case, Grammer appointed him Ambassador to Ireland. Alexander enjoyed the suddenly positive media coverage of his work at the American Embassy in Dublin, but he stepped down after less than two years in the office because he found private practice to be more lucrative and exciting. According to a 2021 interview, Alexander was reportedly on good terms with Denton, Iacocca, Dinger and Brown, but less so with Kemp, Bellamy, Jackson, Wellstone and even Grammer, surprisingly. Alexander currently still heads a large law firm in Nashville, Tennessee, but is beginning to spend more time with his friends, wife, children, and grandchildren.
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Often considered one of America's most forgettable modern Vice Presidents, Polonko left the military after surviving multiple injuries in the Cuba War, with subsequent concerns with veteran assistance leading him to entering politics in 1967. After quickly ascending to the US House of Representatives, he formed a close professional and personal friendship with fellow lawmaker Jack French Kemp of the neighboring state of New York, which of course led to accusations of nepotism when Kemp nominated him for the Vice Presidency (when really it was to counter Kemp's "weakness" when it came to foreign policy/military and veteran affairs). Regardless, the two worked well together during the Kemp years, and maintain their friendship long after leaving office.
It is currently still up for debate whether or not he would have been selected to be Kemp's running mate had "JFK" secured the GOP nomination in 1988, as selecting a more electorally-friendly nominee was discussed by members of Kemp's inner circle at the time, but both of the men in question repeatedly denied that a "replacement scheme" was afoot. After floating the idea of running for President in 1992 if Kemp did not attempt a comeback, Polonko served as an unofficial advisor to Presidents Iacocca and Dinger, then essentially retired from public life in 2001, commenting on public affairs and issues only once in a while, and mostly through op-eds instead of through interviews. He is currently enjoying retirement life, spending time with friends and family members while residing in southern New Jersey.
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The highest-ranking African-American in politics at the time, VP Meredith was almost always referred to as "independent"-minded, and for good reason. Meredith often feuded with members of his own party for either promoting "racist" policies or for not being conservative enough. His unique brand of Republicanism was not for everyone, which became clear when he ran for President in the GOP primaries of 2004 (though the fact that his platform was very similar to the one on which he ran for the Presidency back in 1980 demonstrated the consistency of his unique political ideology). In pre-primary polling, he was the undisputed frontrunner, but once he began to run and the Republican voters became more aware of his open support of minority groups (yet was willing to work with openly racist individuals to "get other things done") and his willingness to work with conservative Democrats, the party base shifted to backing a more populist-sounding candidate. Characterized as having a "fiery" and confrontational demeanor and personality, he refused running for President again, and only occasionally comments on contemporary political concerns. He currently resides in Mississippi with his wife, and reportedly enjoys spending time with her and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
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Frequently called "the greatest President we never had," Ross's legion of fans has only grown over the years. His supporters celebrate his life story, from overcoming war wounds from his time serving in the Air Force during the Cuba War to founding successful educational programs over the years to his many accomplishments while serving in public offices over the years. Praise is usually given most prominently to his support for the arts; for his passionate promotion of renewable energy and conservation efforts; for his pragmatic work on children's health, disability rights, and Veterans Affairs; and for his firm opposition to bloodshed, violence and warfare. But arguably the most interesting thing about Ross the Boss is his ability to win over people from such diverse walks of life and conflicting ideologies by focusing on unifying "bread-and-butter" issues, helped by his universally well-known soothing voice and persistent promotion of peace and love. Naturally, it has been reported the he is on friendly terms with all the living former Presidents and VPs, with the sole exception being Dinger (the two men have reportedly never met, allegedly of "scheduling conflicts"). While still concerned that his leukemia will resurface someday, Ross is currently enjoying a refreshingly humble retirement in Florida; Painter Bob still paints landscapes as a relaxing hobby (once remarking "I play a bit of golf from time to time, but I really much prefer these kind of strokes instead"), and still interacts with fans and supporters both at local events and ontech.
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Rising quickly out of obscurity only to just as quickly return to it, Dumanis was America's first BLUTAGO VP, but appears as a trivia question more so than a domestic policy correspondent on TV networks, reportedly due to her alleged relative inexperience. While no pundits seem to believe that she would be a major player in the 2024 Presidential primaries should she enter them, Dumanis could still run for public again, possibly for Governor of California in 2022. She does after all, reportedly, have many political connections, and got along well with Harley Brown and most members of his 71-day Presidency. However, at this point, she seems to be enjoying an advance on a book deal, and networking more with allies of law-and-order efforts moreso than with political donor. Then again, nothing about the future is set in stone, so for all we know, Dumanis will someday soon return to national attention as a serious candidate. Until then, one can only wait and see how certain things unfold.
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Our current VP is partnering with state and D.C. lawmakers and justice department heads to lead the charge to implement civil justice and police reform measures, despite intense opposition from certain social and political groups, individuals and organizations. Raoul, the U.S.'s first African-American Democratic VP and the nation's second African-American VP overall, currently enjoys approval ratings that are hovering at around roughly 54%.
Bonus: Wikiboxes For Major-Party Vice-Presidential Nominees
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Raymond Eugene Green was a “dark horse” candidate for Vice President; selected due to Glenn working well him with on fundraising efforts outside of the halls and walls of congress, Green was young, energetic, and was from an electorally rich state. Glenn’s aides suggested selecting someone who was not such a political unknown, but Glenn ultimately stuck with Green as his choice for running mate. However, despite what The Houston Chronicle had to say positively about him, “Another Lyndon Johnson” and "A Rising Star From The Lone Star State" he was not. Meredith mopped the floor with him and his moderateness during the sole VP debate of 1996, in what proved to be one of many errors on John Glenn’s part.
After the election, Green faced an uncertain political future as there were few options for higher office. Texas’ US Senate elections were not until in 2000 and 2002, and Governor Cisneros had already made it clear that he would seek a second term in 1998; so, the private conversations turned to the next presidential election, only for Green to publicly announce in early 1998 that he would not run in that year and instead pursued another House term. Then another. And another...
Having graciously faded into political obscurity, Green served on several committees while being overshadowed, overlooked, and overall forgotten by the general public during the Jackson and Wellstone administration. All the while, Green stayed comfortably in his seat. It was only until after the 2006 midterms that he rediscovered his old urge to seek higher office, and began re-inventing himself. In 2007, he reintroduced himself to the American people once again, shifting noticeably to the left while still being in the moderate lane. After considering running for an open US Senate seat in 2008 to replace the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison, Green announced in 2011 that he was running for the other US senate in 2012. However, he lost the nomination to former Governor Henry Cisneros, attempting a political comeback of his own; Cisneros in turn lost to freshman incumbent Kay Granger.
Leaving congress after 24 years in the House, Green quickly found work as a corporate lobbyist. Despite this, he ran for the Democratic nomination for his old congressional seat in 2018 on a “progressive” platform; he finished in fourth place with 11% of the vote. He currently resides in Dallas.
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Eldon Bargewell had spent most of his life being relatively apolitical at the professional level. Chosen to “beef up” Goetz’s weak spot that was actual military experience (having served not served on any foreign-policy -related committees during his time in the Senate), Bargewell had, until just three years ago, spent his entire adult life in the US military.
Bargewell joined the US Army right out of high school, and just in time to participate in Operation Spicy Strychnine (a.k.a. Operation Fried Charlie 2.0), which impressively overthrew the government of communist North Vietnam in 1967. He then served in Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Uganda, Libya and Nicaragua. As a Lieutenant General, Bargewell’s troop coordination work during the Second Korean War led to him becoming a General in 1997. Upon the anti-military Jesse Jackson being elected President, Bargewell decided to retire “in protest” in 2001. From 2001 to 2004 (resigning to serve as Goetz’s running mate), Bargwell served as the Dean of the US Military Academy. During that time, he supported and endorsed several “interventionist” politicians, leading to him catching the attention of the national GOP and former Senator Goetz by the spring of 2004.
Bargewell’s selection, though, backfired significantly, largely because, while he was an enthusiastic speech-giver, he was a rather poor one-on-one debater. During the sole VP debate against incumbent Vice President Wellstone, Bargewell was able to discuss at length his experience with military affairs, including VA and national defense, but he fumbled terribly on questions about the nuances of domestic security, and struggled miserably to answer even basic questions about the economy and how domestic institutions and basic government systems functioned.
After the election was over, Bargewell moved to Alabama and declined seeking public office “ever again,” comparing it to “ordering an Army-man to do a Navy-man’s job.” While most view Bargewell being placed on the ticket as a mistake (with some suggesting Goetz should have gone with a more experienced candidate such as George Allen or Helen Chenoweth), Goetz is still on friendly terms with the retired General, as he blames the Jackson/Wellstone ticket for the poor performance of the Goetz/Bargewell ticket. Bargewell is currently enjoying retirement in his home state of Alabama [1].
[pic: imgur.com/n0jH2QQ.png ] (there's a 20-images limit)
Gary Johnson is a major figure in modern American moderate libertarianism. Beginning his career as a door-to-door handyman before founding his own mechanical contracting business, Johnson shifted to politics in the early 1990s by becoming the pot-smoking, bike-riding, mountain-climbing, pro-business, tax-cutting, environmentalist Mayor of Albuquerque. Johnson then made headlines for completely legalizing the use of recreation drugs such as marijuana, and at the height of the War on Recreadrugs, no less. Openly opposing the recreadrug policies of President Dinger (a fellow Republican of his) at first made him unpopular, but by the 2000 election, rising calls for legalizing marijuana led to Johnson being praised as a visionary who had been a few years ahead of his time. Capitalizing off the fame, Johnson – after a quick trip to the Himalayas to successfully trip Mt. Everest – was narrowly elected Governor of New Mexico in 2002, which was a bad year for Republicans, especially libertarian ones. Despite this, Johnson, a.k.a. “Governor Veto” proved be a capable leader; limited to one consecutive term at a time, he left office in 2007 and announced a bid for President a few months later. He lost the primaries, but as a “consolation prize” of sorts, the ultimate nominee (the moderate centrist US Senator Olympia Snowe) selected him (over US Senator Lyle Hillyard of Utah) to be her running mate in an attempt to win over libertarians and in turn secure several states out west. In exchange for her support, Johnson’s signature “FairTax” proposal was added to the party platform, but Johnson focused and campaigned on it much more than Snowe did.
After losing the 2008 election, Johnson ran for another gubernatorial term in 2010 and won by a larger-than-expected margin (though some believed he received sympathy votes after his wife died unexpectedly earlier in the year, most credit his name recognition and the pro-Republican trends of 2010 for his victory); this victory and the GOP ticket securing the popular vote in 2008 convinced Johnson that he could win in 2012. However, Johnson failed to dominate the GOP primaries after candidates Grammer and Brown were able to siphon away from him more than enough donations, endorsements, airtime and, ultimately, votes. However, as an attendee of the 2012, he was able to endorse Grammer in a crucial moment for the party and the nominee, ensuring the libertarian faction he led fell behind Grammer. In exchange, Grammer became the US Secretary of the Interior in 2017 (after Johnson finished up his gubernatorial term in early 2015).
Johnson reported has stayed on good terms with Snowe, Grammer and even the “prickly” Harley Brown. As Johnson’s FairTax proposal had received attention during the 2000s decade but failed to be made into a reality after the 2008 and 2012 election cycle, Johnson is currently pushing for it to be voted on in a National Initiative, recently saying “Hey, it worked for Mike Gravel.” He currently resides in New Mexico.
[pic: imgur.com/HrYkTzQ.png ] (there's a 20-images limit)
Robert P. “Bob” Casey Jr. is the son of a former Governor of Pennsylvania who ran for President in 1972 and served in the US Senate from 1975 until his death 25 years later. “Junior” was appointed to the seat soon afterwards. Closer to the center than the moderate Locke, Casey was selected for running mate in 2016 in order to try and appeal to Harley Brown voters and to voters in the Rust Belt. However, due to his “privileged” background, he failed to connect to the voters. He after performing well in the sole 2016 VP debate against Brown, Casey failed to shake off the “elitist” label that Brown was able to slap onto him, caring not for the irony of Brown serving under one of the wealthiest US Presidents in history. After some consideration, Casey decided not to run for President in 2020, believing that the Democratic party was “moving very far away from me,” or rather, farther to the left of him.
[pic: imgur.com/LvbkdY2.png ] (there's a 20-images limit)
Jennifer Sandra Johnson checks a lot of boxes for the GOP. A conservative, non-white (of Caribbean descent), charismatic female from an electorally rich state and boasting impressive experience in business, governance, and the military? It’s no wonder that she was labelled a “rising star” as early as 2010. Her parents moved from Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, to Paducah, Kentucky in March 1959 [2], then moved to Long Island when she was eight years old. After attending college in New York and Florida, Johnson spent decades in the US Navy and saw combat in Libya and the northern half of present-day United Korea. She and Harley Brown got along very well on the campaign trail, and many credit her presence there for keeping the election from being the blowout that many Democrats had expected it to be. Upon losing the election, Johnson remarked “don’t count my chickens just yet” when a reporter asked if this was it for her political career on the national stage; indeed, there is talk that she is planning on a run for the Presidency in 2024. And early polls suggest that she has a real shot of winning the primaries.
SOURCE(S)/NOTE(S)
[1] IOTL, Bargewell died in 2019 at the age of 71 in a gardening accident, when a lawnmower he was riding “rolled over an embankment behind his house in Eufaula, Alabama” ( https://www.armytimes.com/news/your...-major-general-dies-after-lawnmower-accident/ ); I feel like that would be butterflied away, right?
[2] ITTL, her parents moved to the US roughly eight years earlier than in OTL due to the number of KFC outlets in Kentucky in 1959 being higher in number than IOTL, and so her parents are able to find work in the US much sooner; her parents arrive in the US when her mother is three months pregnant with her (this is why there were no eligibility issues when she ran for VP ITTL, save for a few liberal “fringe” technetters who claimed that she was born in Trinidad and Tobago, but they received little attention and were not really taken seriously at all).
Acknowledgments
“No matter how much one reads, the whole story can never be told.”
– Lemony Snicket [1]
I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read and enjoyed this timeline. I want to also thank all who contributed to this TL, from PMing me and making in-thread recommendations, to simply voting in the polls.
Amid the hours spent perusing through hundreds of sources, dealing with behind-the-scenes real-life drama, struggling with writer’s block, and addressing other issues and situations, one major thing that has kept me these past three years was knowing that somewhere in the world – in the UK, in California, even in Australia – somebody was looking forward to this TL’s next chapter.
I believe a Special Thanks are in order for the following people (in alphabetical order):
@ajm8888 – for helping me with many aspects of the 1990s chapters, especially with Japan and the “Tommy Gun” Thompson character
@DTF955Baseballfan – for using his encyclopedic knowledge of sports information to contribute to several chapters
@Gentleman Biaggi – for giving me the push I needed to get started in the first place
@Igeo654 – for all his help with many aspects of the chapters of the late 1980s/early 1990s concerning the UK and pop-culture, especially music and TV
@Kennedy Forever – for his many contributions to the chapters, especially for things concerning Australia, and for being a good and encouraging friend
@Ogrebear, @Unknown, @historybuff, @Wendell, @Brky2020, @Sunstone77, @Bookmark1995, and @PNWKing and all others who commented on this TL.
I also want to thank those who contributed to the tropes.com article and the photos thread (links in the prologue). Even though some bullet points in the tropes article are a tiny bit inaccurate (it's "Kennedy News Network," not "Kable New Network"; it's the "Ms. Arkansas" Scandal, not the "Miss Arkansas" Scandal; this TL is not "millions of words" long, it's only roughly 1,420,000 words long (roughly 1,520,000 if you include the prologue, epilogue and indexes); minor things like that), I still very much appreciate the fact that somebody/somebodies actually went through all the trouble of making that page writing up all those bullet points; amazing!
I am just so overwhelmed by the positive support that this literary treatise has received, and I just want to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to you all.
This TL’s POD of Harley Sanders Jr. not dying at 9:30 AM on September 15, 1932 was finalized in February 2018, but the idea for the TL itself didn’t pop into my head until December 2017, when @Blair posted a wikibox showing Harland Sanders being elected President through a 1968 contigency election; when someone pointed out a plothole of sorts, he replied with something along the lines of “Look, I just wanted to make this man President.” That piqued my interest, and pretty soon a TL outline was born.
In fact, here is an early draft of the US Presidents that I originally planned to have in this TL:
1965-1973: 36) Harland David “The Colonel” Sanders Sr. (R-KY; 1890-1980) – Gov 1955-1959, KFC CEO 1950-1955/1959-1964
1964: Sanders/Scranton over Johnson/Humphrey and Patterson/Bryant
1968: Sanders/Scranton over Kennedy/Sawyer
Bryant and Patterson got reversed after realizing how the Cuban War would lead to a refugee crisis in Florida, which would boost Bryant’s national profile more than Patterson, and that Patterson would be an olive branch to voters not so far-right conservative as Bryant and his anti-Cuban/pro-segregation base.
1973-1977: 37) Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel (D-AK; b. 1930) – US Sen 1969-73, US HoR 1967-69 (youngest President ever, even younger than TR!)
1972: Gravel/Moss over Scranton/Stepovich
I really wanted to go with a young candidate to contrast the Colonel’s youth. Mondale, Bayh and Paul Simon were also considered. I ultimately decided to let polls decide who was the nominee this year because Gravel ascending so quickly felt too unrealistic even for this TL and I wanted to know what you the readers thought about such a prospect.
1977-1978: 38) Thruston Ballard Morton (R-KY; 1907-1978) – US Sen 1957-1977 (assassinated alongside Speaker Boggs just weeks after death of VP Bolton was killed in a car crash)
1976: Morton/Bolton over Gravel/Edwards
Morton and Ohio Congressman Bolton both dying felt way too grim and dark for this kind of TL, so a scrapped it. Furthermore, Morton didn’t seem like the type of guy who would run for President – IOTL, when Vietnam escalated, instead of running for President to end it, he basically suffered depression over it and retired from the Senate.
1978-1985: 39) Barry Morris Goldwater (R-AZ; 1909-2001) – President pro tempore of the Senate 1977-1978, Sent 1957-1978
1980: Goldwater/Lukens over Rafferty/Crane, Hollings/Pickle and Chisholm/Lucey
While Goldwater is an interesting person to write about, I later decided that this was way too unrealistic.
1985-1991: 40) Donald Edgar “Buz” Lukens (R-OH; 1931-2010) – US VP 1977-85, Gov 1971-77, US HoR 1967-1971 (impeached over scandals)
1984: Lukens/Agnew over Kennedy-Shriver/Bumpers
1988: Lukens/Robertson over Nader/Cisneros
Too cringy for me to write so much about, but I left him in the 1980 poll just in case people were interested. So instead of becoming President, he became a “supporting player” in the TL. In a later draft, North Dakota Governor Aloha Eagles was written down in this point in the TL as serving as America's first female President from 1981 to 1989, but I wasn't sure if this was too unrealistic even with the First Ark Wave in mind, so I ultimately decided to place her and other interesting potential Presidents in that aforementioned poll for the 1980 primaries.
1991-1993: 41) Marion Gordon “Pat” Robertson (R-VA; b. 1930) – US VP 1989-1990, pastor/televangelist
Again, too unrealistic. Plus, 16 years of 4 Republican Presidents felt too much like a GOPwank.
1993-1997: 42) Martha Layne Hill Collins (D-KY; b. 1936) – US Sen 1989-1993, Gov 1983-1987
1992: Collins/Simon over Robertson/Dole
Hence why she was first mentioned all the way back in a 1950s chapter, why she was heavily discussed in 1987, and why she was included in the 1988 chapter.
1997-2005: 43) Jim Edgar (R-IL; b. 1946) – Gov 1991-1996
1996: Edgar/Rowe over Collins/Simon
2000: Edgar/Rowe over Folsom/Wheat
Thus why he had cameos in chapters as far back as the 1950s, and 1970s.
2005-2009: 44) Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel (D-AK; b. 1930) – US Pres 1973-1977, US Sen 2001-2005
2004: Gravel/Jackson over Dunford/Dole
I figured Gravel winning the first time would possibly come off as being too close to the edge of ASB Territory, and that him returning to office 32 years after leaving it felt too much like a Gravelwank.
In a second draft I replaced him with African-American politician Wellington Webb (D-CO), which is why that individual received so many little bits here and there throughout the 1990s and 2000s chapters (those were edited pieces left over from that stage of development, which was before I decided to let the Presidential nominees be determined via polls so you the readers got to choose who you read about ITTL).
2009-2017: 45) Lisa Perez Jackson (D-NJ; b. 1962) – first Black President; US VP 2005-2009, US Sen 1997-2005, admin 1993-1996
2008: Jackson/Dodd over Dole/Gregg
2012: Jackson/Dodd over Tancredo/Allen
2017-2019: 46) Stephen McDannell “Steve” Hillenburg (R-CA; 1961-2019) – Seafood King CEO 1991-2014 (died from ALS)
2016: Hillenburg/Miller over Dodd/Durbin
I realized while researching him and his personal life that he’s way too much of a private, shy, and introverted person to ever mount a national campaign. It seems I also misjudged for how long he’d live. And I think what ended up happening with him in the final draft is way more interesting, anyway!
2019-2021: 47) Joseph Wayne “Joe” Miller (R-KS; b. 1967) – US VP 2017-2019, US Sen 2009-2017, state rep 2005-2009
Not exciting enough.
2021-present (2021): 48) Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin (D-WI; b. ’62) – 3rd female President; US Sen 2013-21, US HoR 1999-2013, state assembly 1993-9
2020: Baldwin/Brown over Miller/Bevin
Furthermore, the original draft was not meant to be this long. It was supposed to be just 11 chapters – a TLIAW/M sort of thing! But, during the development process, a technical error in April 2018 caused me to lose much of what I had written, causing to have to basically rewrite large chunks (including the entire opening chapters) from scratch/memory. But you know what? That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it lead to me adding more and more details and ideas to the TL, fleshing out parts I would have just flown by originally.
One more thing, I would like to take this moment to apologize to everyone for all the typos, spelling and grammar errors, and wrong autocorrects that can be found throughout this treatise. I'll do my best to fix them as I prepare this TL for the Finished TLs section. I would also like to apologize in advance for any videos that stop being playable for whatever reason, as those kind of things are very bothersome, frustrating and annoying. On both counts, I appreciate the feedback and patience that you all have shown in helping me address these linguistic and technical issues.
In conclusion:
In the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve graduated from college, landed a job (brandresumes.com – ask for Georgie!), learned a whole lot of interesting information about this wonderful world that we get to live in, written something that’s much longer than Stephen King’s “The Stand,” and have made some friends along the way too. I won’t be forgetting this period of my life for quite a long while, and I have many of you to thank for that.
So, once again, from the bottom of my heart:
Thanks, everyone
NOTE(S)/SOURCE(S)
[1] Courtesy of @Kennedy Forever; thanks again, buddy!
Index 7 – Wikiboxes (Part 1)
(Still-Alive Presidents)
[pic: imgur.com/S8GNplr.png ]
Mondale is looked back on fairly favorably as a man who led his nation through several crises during a decade of social change and progress. A moderate on most issues, he won over enough middle class and suburban voters to win two terms and become a revered elder statesman to many future moderates in the party, including 1996 Presidential nominee John Glenn, 2016 VP nominee Bob Casey Jr., and former Presidential candidates James Blanchard and Tom Suozzi, among others. After 10 years in the US Senate, Mondale was able to mount a Presidential campaign that bested initial frontrunner Hubert Humphrey and Mike Gravel, but Mondale was forced to select the latter for running mate in order to united the moderate and progressive wings of the party. Under his administration, détente with the Soviets and the PRC continued on, while social improvements at home contributed to a feeling of stability and prosperity that allowed him to win re-election in a landslide over California Governor Ronald Reagan. His second term, though, proved to be a poisoned chalice that "Fightin' Fritz" was happy to be rid of come January 20, 1981.
During the 1980s, he strongly supported Scoop Jackson's presidential bid, offered tepid support to the Gravel'84 campaign, and endorsed Bellamy in 1988 after Glenn and Kennedy-Shriver withdrew. In the 2000s decade, his Presidency was compared to and overshadowed by Jackson's, especially when it came to the disasters and crises of the oughts. However, the former President was a welcomed advisor to the Wellstone'08 campaign, and got along well with the VP-turned-President. Mondale also reportedly gets along well with former Presidents Bellamy, Dinger, Jackson, and Grammer, but has reportedly not had much interaction with Harley Brown; he also endorsed Charlotte Pritt in 2020. Presently, Mondale and his Vice President, while back to being talking terms, have never truly buried the hatchet, with Mondale viewing Gravel as inhibiting efforts to seek compromise on legislation during crucial moments throughout the 1970s, and Gravel accusing Mondale of sabotaging his 1980 Presidential bid. This decades-old tension contrasts sharply with the friendship Mondale has formed with fellow Minnesotan Paul Wellstone, despite their political differences. Mondale currently resides in Minnesota, enjoying his 41st year of retirement.
[pic: imgur.com/sS0LCXf.png ]
Bellamy is still a feminist icon for shattering the glass ceiling in 1988, but she is also a universally recognized diplomat and champion of various causes, working passionately to eliminate child poverty from the face of the Earth. During the 1990s, she worked closely with UK PM Lennon and other progressives to improve life quality and truncate poverty and food insecurity issues. In the early oughts, she coordinated with the Jackson administration and other world leaders to minimize the effects of the SARS Global Pandemic, which won her even more accolades and adoring fans. Though she did not get along that well with Presidents Iacocca and Dinger, she was on excellent terms with Jackson and Wellstone and on good terms with Presidents Mondale, Kemp and Grammer. As her life's work has been a source of inspiration to so many supporters, she has made her peace with never serving a second term (and reportedly made her peace with the matter a long time ago). Bellamy currently splits her time between New York and DC, working with both President Pritt and the United Nations to crack down on human rights abuses.
[Part 1: imgur.com/S5LBbnM.png Part 2: imgur.com/D840BU0.png ]
Dinger's legacy is polarizing and controversial. Often "in the shadow" of his martyred predecessor, many question how his career and legacy would have unfolded if Iacocca had lived. Regardless, Dinger's supporters praise his leadership skills, which were often credited to his career in diplomatic and foreign policy-related positions during the 1980s. Backers praised his leadership abilities for keeping the country "strong and united" in the wake of the national tragedy that produced his ascension, for liberating those suffering from famine and torture under the reign of Kim Dynasty in the Hermit Kingdom, and for taking a firm stance on crime, recreadrugs, and illegal immigration.
On the other hand, critics call him a warmonger who needlessly expanded American intervention in Colombia (America's longest war, BTW) and whose escalation of the War on Recreadrugs hurt more lives than it helped. As his party continues to shift to the right and he stays pretty much ideologically similar to how he was in the 1990s, his critics have begun to come from the right of him, too. Regardless, Dinger has been able to got along decently with other Presidents. He reportedly interacted well with Denton, Kemp, and Iacocca, and later praised the work of Presidents Wellstone and Grammer, but reportedly does not have the kind of rapport that he wishes to have with Bellamy, Jackson, and even Harley Brown (who once called Dinger a "pitiful LID" (Liberal In Disguise)). Later reversing his attitudes on recreadrugs but justifying most of his other actions while President, Dinger has repeatedly declined to run for a second full term again, refusing to run in 2004, in 2008, in 2012 and even in 2020 despite some interventionist talking heads such as Bill Kristol calling for him to do so. No, the former President seems content to stay where he is currently, residing on his family's homestead in Iowa, enjoying a lengthy post-presidential retirement.
[pic: imgur.com/MIDP5WC.png ]
America's First African-American President was a highly religious and passionate man. Starting off as a social activist and Baptist minister, the NAACP had him based in his birth state of South Carolina despite spending years working in Chicago. Shifting into politics, he ran for Mayor of Washington, D.C. in 1982, lost, but learned from the experience and successfully mounted a long-shot bid for the Governorship in 1986. He endorsed Mike Gravel in 1980 and 1984 and Bellamy in 1988. Limited to a single term (but eligible to a second one after leaving office), Jackson served was a “special liaison” to the Ivory Coast under President Bellamy from 1991 to 1993; he worked to cool rising tensions in that country over the breakaway nation of The Sanwi Kingdom (which later considered offering him the semi-ceremonial position of Crown Prince for his commitment to a peaceful secession) and over the Ivory Coast's neighboring country of Ghana's own turmoil stemming from its recently-discovered offshore oil deposits. Critical of Dinger's handling of the War on Recreadrugs, Jackson was elected back to the Governorship in 1998 and, two years later, successfully challenged him in the Presidential Election of 2000.
As President, Jackson led the US through a global pandemic, intense hurricanes, personal tragedy, and a resurgence in racist incidents in backlash to his election, his re-election, and his efforts at police reform. Jackson worked with Treasury Secretary Johnson to keep the federal government "out of the red" in accordance with the BBA, with rival-turned-Cabinet member to address diplomatic concerns, with his VP and Attorney General to push social justice measures, and with foreign leaders to promote peaceful resolutions to violent situations unfolding in Africa and Asia at the time. He reportedly got along well with former Presidents Kemp and Bellamy, and was on good terms with the four Presidents that came after him, but never fully thawed out of the icy relationship that he has with Larry Dinger. Now battling Parkinson's disease, this "fearless warrior...fighting for causes dear to him" divides his time between South Carolina, Potomac, and Illinois, as his children and grandchildren live across those three states.
[pic: imgur.com/6LyDZMJ.png ]
Not even the debilitating long-term effects of Multiple Sclerosis can keep this former President from offering his two cents on the latest political issues, partaking in TV and radio interviews to promote the progressive policies he has consistently held close to his heart. As Minnesota's Attorney General during the Second Ark Wave, Wellstone's fierce defending of women's rights in multiple DOJ cases led to him being labelled a rising star at the age of 42. After 22 more years of public service, first in The Land of Mondale And Ten Thousand Lakes and then in 1 Observatory Circle, Wellstone finally made it to the White House, where he oversaw electric energy projects and tax reform efforts despite the many Congressional Republicans snapping at his heels. After leaving office, several private health scares, worse than the ones he privately suffered while President, made him quick to decline running for a second term in 2016 or 2020. Wellstone reportedly got along well with Mondale, Kemp, Bellamy, Jackson, and even Dinger, and has many positive things to say about the incumbent President Pritt, but is on less positive terms with Grammer and Brown. He currently lives with his wife Sheila in Minnesota, but is reportedly in declining health and may pass away relatively soon.
[pic: imgur.com/GJryPHd.png ]
From Shakespearean productions to health scares and international missile crises, Grammer's life has certainly been a dramatic one. Facing personal tragedy with the murder of his father and the deaths of both half-brothers, Kelsey and his sister Karen faced their emotional demons together during the 1980s and because of this, both siblings prospered during the 1990s, with Kelsey becoming the wealthy star of TV's "Frasier" and Karen becoming involved in a diverse assortment of businesses in Colorado. Good fortune smiled on Kelsey again in the early 2000s decade when he began dating the star of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," Marissa Joan Hart.
However, as Kelsey was increasingly bothered by state rules and regulations and embarrassed by the failures of California's tumultuous post-Christopher administrations, Grammer found himself increasingly involved in local and then national politics. After notable appearances on political radio and TV channels, Kelsey was invited to speak at the 2004 RNC, doing so with a speech that received more attention than that of the nominee. Then, in 2005, with the support of his friends and family, Kelsey fully made his way from the theatrical stage to the political stage with his own bid for public office. Roughly six short years later, the Grammers were living in the White House, for better and for worse.
As President, Grammer appreciated advise given to him by all of the former Presidents, including Jeremiah Denton. After nearly eight years of dealing with economic recession, cyber-terrorism, bipartisan opposition, and complex geopolitical shenanigans, the First Couple not to wait out the lame-duck period. Cutting their stay in D.C. short by a few weeks (leading to one co-host of SNL's Weekend Update replying "Now, this dude has nine kids, so you know this has got to be the first time that he has ever pulled out early"), Kelsey and his wife Marissa are now back to raising their several children at their main home in southern California, away from the chaos of D.C. Grammer has left politics, but he is not retired; he says he is looking into returning to acting in the near future.
[pic: imgur.com/6HEM4TC.png ]
Flaunting the long-sought title of President (alright, former President), the most famous biker in the world is still planning his next move. Beloved by many war veterans and law enforcement officials, by certain foreign leaders, by most members of the Religious Right, by many bikers and motorcycle enthusiasts (obviously), and by many social conservatives (paradoxically, given Brown's longtime support for the BLUTAGO Community), it is unknown if Harley Davidson Brown currently believes that he has finished doing "God's work" or not.
The gaffe-prone, potty-mouthed, tough-as-nails Mr. Brown spent much the 1970s overseas in the Mud Marines and a good part of the 1980s working as a taxi driver. After experiencing a life-changing religious and spiritual experience (during which God apparently spoke to him) that convinced him that he was "destined...for greatness," Brown returned to the military in the 1990s, just in time to oversee some troops during the Second Korean War. From there, he managed to launched a quixotic and unique political career that culminated in a failed Presidential bid in 2020. Feeling sorry for his VP, though, President Grammer let him serve out the last 71 days of his term. The small term ended up demonstrating just how much can be accomplished during the lame-duck period, establishing major precedence. During this "mini-presidency," as some called it, Brown did not consult with former Presidents (he reportedly considers Mondale, Bellamy, Jackson, and Wellstone to be "hacks," but has praised Dinger in the passed) and instead reliex on his longtime allies to maximize his time behind the Resolute Desk.
Currently, Brown reportedly has a movie/TV deal in the works, and there's heavy debate over the merits of him running for public office again. However his future goes, Brown seems to be in a good place right now, enjoying the media attention while residing back in Nampa, Idaho with his wife and young children.
[pic: imgur.com/nqb09ts.png ]
The current president is capitalizing on the Democrats controlling both chambers of congress to get as much work done before the midterms arrive. Primarily concerned with improving the standard of living for American families in the wake of rising automation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Pritt is calling on congress to pass, at the very least, a Federal Freedom Fund pilot program to minimize the effects of unemployment.
Pritt's dedication to these policies and proposals reflect her background. As the daughter of a poor coal miner father and a labor activist mother, growing up and serving as a grade school teacher in West Virginia made her experience first-hand what it truly meant to go without, and she was determined to prevent others from experiencing such poverty. With this in mind, she entered politics and worked tirelessly to protect the rights and the health of miners during her eight years in the state congress, four years as state Secretary of State, six years in the US House, and eight years in the governorship.
As the incumbent President, Pritt is working to reinvest in national projects to preserve natural resources and promote green energy, returning national attention to electric power grids, solar panels, wind farms, water turbine projects, and even hydrogen power projects. She is also attempting to work with businesses to establish worker training and retraining programs, along with many other policies and goals, to minimize the impact that automation is having on the American workforce. President Pritt is currently enjoying a national approval rating average of roughly 61%.
Bonus: Wikiboxes For Still-Living Major-Party Presidential Nominees
[pic: imgur.com/jZmM5UO.png ]
Bernie Goetz is hard to define as both a person and as a political figure. He is an activist businessman who received fame and statewide media attention for shooting an attempted robber of his store – fame that led to him being elected to the US Senate in a good year for Republicans. He forewent a run for re-election to lay the groundwork for a Presidential run, and upon entering the race, soon found an audience that dubbed themselves the “Bernie Bros.” But the Goetz campaign was very paradoxical – he won over religious members of the Republican party despite not being religious; he was a “darling” of gun enthusiasts (“for hunting purposes”) despite being a vegetarian; he was endorsed by several pro-military groups despite him never serving in the military (or even on a military-relevant committee or subcommittee while in the US Senate); and his bluntness made him be seen as a “real man of the people” despite becoming a multi-millionaire before entering office.
Somewhat like Harley Davidson Brown, many of Goetz’s most passionate supporters were unaware of who exactly he was outside of the specific policies that they cared about. That is how he tapped into a long-dormant faction of the GOP, a faction energized by the carnage of KW2, intrigued by the possibilities of ontech harassment, and infuriated by the election of America’s first
No longer actively involved in politics, Goetz is reportedly enjoying his retirement years, spending his time mainly at family homesteads in Florida and upstate New York, and at his own home in Boulder, Colorado. According to a 2020 interview, he supported Presidents Denton, Kemp, Iacocca, and Dinger, did not "trust" Mondale, Bellamy, Jackson and Wellstone, had "conflicting thoughts" on Grammer, praised Brown, and was highly critical of then-candidate Pritt. Goetz may have faded from public view, but is still remembered for the role he played in American history during the oughts and early 2010s.
[pic: imgur.com/67wKGaV.png ]
Born to immigrants from Greece, breast cancer and heart disease left Olympia Snowe an orphan by the age of nine; living with relatives, she worked her way through college and into a career in politics. After her husband, Peter T. Snowe (b. 1943, currently 74 years old), who had served in the state House from 1967 to 1970 and in the state senate from 1970 to 1975, lost re-election to the state Senate in 1974 (despite it being a fairly good year for Republicans overall), Olympia decided to run for a state senate seat four years later in 1978 and won; her career only progressed from there, while her husband found himself enjoying a new career as a prosecuting attorney. By the end of the 1980s, Maine newspapers were calling them the state’s top “Power Couple” (and, impressively, both still found the time to raise three children (b. 1970, 1973, and 1975) during this time). In 1996, Maine’s Governor appointed Snowe to a US Senate seat made vacant by the death of longtime incumbent US Senator Edmund S. "Ed" Muskie; Olympia won a subsequent special election with ease; she won re-election in 2000 and 2006 in landslides. Tragedy struck her family again when her youngest, 28-year-old Georgia, was hit by a car in early 2003 (possibly explaining Olympia's decision to not run for President in 2004 despite many in the state wanting her to do so), but the daughter managed to make a full recovery by early 2006
Heading into 2008, her party was divided into libertarian, “populist,” hard-c conservative, Religious Right, and moderate factions. Goetz’s landslide loss in 2004 made Snow correctly predict that the political atmosphere was exactly right for a moderate to be nominated at the national level. Snowe had criticized President Dinger in the past, but his then-recent comments against his own recreadrug policies convinced many that she was an excellent judge of character, improving her standing in the polls heading into the primaries. Despite this and other factors that leaned in her favor, Snowe just barely convinced enough primary voters to give a much more centrist candidate a chance, and while she won the popular vote in November, it was the Electoral Vote that mattered more at that point in US history.
During her final ten years in the Senate, her reputation of finding compromise and leading bipartisanship was bolstered by her work under both Presidents Wellstone and Grammer, leading to her being called “the best President we never had” by some and a “Liberal In Disguise” by others. Being privately concerned that Vice President Harley Davidson Brown was cut from the same cloth as that of Bernie Goetz and Bo Gritz, she only gave tepid support to the Vice President’s run in 2020; after the race, she had more positive things to say about America’s second female President. Snowe currently maintains an active life, adhering to the "Sandersian" theory of aging, that, in essence, “retirement equals rust,” as she currently works as a senior fellow for the Bipartisan Policy Center as Chair of its Commission on Political Reform; she also enjoys spending time with her husband, children, and grandchildren.
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First elected to the US Senate in 1992 at the age of 42, Locke gained national attention for his efforts to address and lower anti-Asian violence and Asian-American hatred and attacks on those communities during the build-up to, execution of, and socio-economic/geopolitical fallout from the Second Korean War. For these actions, Locke was rumored to be a potential candidate for President in 1996 and 2000, and a potential candidate for Vice President in 1996, 2000 and 2008. After Grammer won the White House in 2012, Gary Locke believed his party had to go in a more moderate direction. In 2016, the Democratic party voters agreed (or, as was common for Locke, many mistakenly believed that he was much more progressive that he really was due to him hailing from a progressive state), but Locke failed to convince people in the general election to vote out the popular incumbent. Still serving in the US Senate, he remains a popular figure among most Asian American communities.
Index 8 – Wikiboxes (Part 2)
(Still-Alive Vice Presidents)
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The "grandfather" of America's Direct Democracy movement led the charge to implement the National Initiative Amendment, and has accused every single Presidential administration since the 1960s of being too interventionist to varying degrees (even Bellamy, Jackson and Wellstone a few times). Retiring from public life following his landslide loss in the 1984 election, the "Gravelite" wing of the Democratic party that he had led was vindicated with the election of the progressive Carol Bellamy to the Presidency just four years later (however, as he was still unpopular in D.C., Gravel declined serving in Bellamy's cabinet over concerns that conservative Democrats would block his confirmation to any "meaningful" position), and soon after moved to California. After almost a decade of maintaining a low profile - quietly promoting local, statewide, regional, and national candidates and policies close to his ideology while serving on the board of directors from several progressive non-profit organizations - the "destructive [and] dangerous nature" of Dinger's full term convinced him to run for the Senate again. Despite accusations from pretty much all of his opponents that he was a carpetbagger, Gravel proved to be much more popular in The Golden State than he had been in Alaska, winning the 1998 primary and general elections by comfortable margins and easily winning re-election in 2004, 2010, and 2016.
There was subsequent talk of progressive activists drafting Gravel for the Presidential nomination in 2000, but nothing came of it. Under Presidents and Wellstone, Gravel demonstrated a calmer demeanor than the one he had shown during his self-described "pigheaded years" of the 1970s and late 1960s (later acknowledging that his first run for the Presidency, as a freshman US Congress in 1968, was "an idiotic public display of ego stroking" more so than a protest bid to US troops remaining in Indochina). During his second time in the Senate, nearly 30 years after leaving the Senate and roughly 20 years after leaving the Vice Presidency, Gravel managed to work better with his fellow lawmakers to promote progressive policies, though he still butted heads with conservatives regardless of party label. This led to talk of Gravel potentially resigning from the Senate in early 2009 in exchange for a cabinet position in the Wellstone administration, only for Gravel to decide against such a move.
Through Gravel's more productive efforts in the Senate, though, not only was he able to see his National Initiative idea become a reality; not only did the NIA become a part of the US Constitution, but Gravel got to see it pass RCV implementation for all US Presidential elections after 2016 via the US holding its first national initiative vote in 2018. Now considered an elder statesman looked up to by many within the party, and having made peace with the fact that he never became President despite running for the job five times (in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 2000), Gravel recently announced that he will not run for a fifth consecutive term in 2022, and is looking forward to what he hopes will be a lengthy, but still active, retirement period.
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With so many Republicans falling from grace during the 1980s - Lukens, Packwood, Helms, Gingrich and of course, Denton - Alexander is often overlooked, lost in the crowd of crooks, as his unrelated scandal was pretty tame by comparison; some even allege that he could have very easily refused to resign and publicly ignore or downplay the controversy, and thus could have become President of the United States just 16 grueling months later. Regardless, once out of D.C., he re-entered private practice in the 1990s and (apart from endorsing Billy McCormack in 1988 and Estus Pirkle in 1992) pretty much kept a low profile. He even lived in Australia for a few years during the turn of the twentieth century to work for an international law firm, and for a while even considered moving there permanently to avoid the negative media attention that he repeatedly experienced back in the states. However, his wife and children convinced him to return to Tennessee in early 2002, coincidently right before President Jackson placed limits on air travel at the start of the SARS Global Pandemic.
In the late 2000s decade, Alexander received media attention when he led a major lawsuit concerning his ancestor's homeland of Ireland, with members of the Taoiseach opposing foreign businesses using the country as a tax shelter. Impressed by Alexander's diplomatic skills during the court case, Grammer appointed him Ambassador to Ireland. Alexander enjoyed the suddenly positive media coverage of his work at the American Embassy in Dublin, but he stepped down after less than two years in the office because he found private practice to be more lucrative and exciting. According to a 2021 interview, Alexander was reportedly on good terms with Denton, Iacocca, Dinger and Brown, but less so with Kemp, Bellamy, Jackson, Wellstone and even Grammer, surprisingly. Alexander currently still heads a large law firm in Nashville, Tennessee, but is beginning to spend more time with his friends, wife, children, and grandchildren.
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Often considered one of America's most forgettable modern Vice Presidents, Polonko left the military after surviving multiple injuries in the Cuba War, with subsequent concerns with veteran assistance leading him to entering politics in 1967. After quickly ascending to the US House of Representatives, he formed a close professional and personal friendship with fellow lawmaker Jack French Kemp of the neighboring state of New York, which of course led to accusations of nepotism when Kemp nominated him for the Vice Presidency (when really it was to counter Kemp's "weakness" when it came to foreign policy/military and veteran affairs). Regardless, the two worked well together during the Kemp years, and maintain their friendship long after leaving office.
It is currently still up for debate whether or not he would have been selected to be Kemp's running mate had "JFK" secured the GOP nomination in 1988, as selecting a more electorally-friendly nominee was discussed by members of Kemp's inner circle at the time, but both of the men in question repeatedly denied that a "replacement scheme" was afoot. After floating the idea of running for President in 1992 if Kemp did not attempt a comeback, Polonko served as an unofficial advisor to Presidents Iacocca and Dinger, then essentially retired from public life in 2001, commenting on public affairs and issues only once in a while, and mostly through op-eds instead of through interviews. He is currently enjoying retirement life, spending time with friends and family members while residing in southern New Jersey.
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The highest-ranking African-American in politics at the time, VP Meredith was almost always referred to as "independent"-minded, and for good reason. Meredith often feuded with members of his own party for either promoting "racist" policies or for not being conservative enough. His unique brand of Republicanism was not for everyone, which became clear when he ran for President in the GOP primaries of 2004 (though the fact that his platform was very similar to the one on which he ran for the Presidency back in 1980 demonstrated the consistency of his unique political ideology). In pre-primary polling, he was the undisputed frontrunner, but once he began to run and the Republican voters became more aware of his open support of minority groups (yet was willing to work with openly racist individuals to "get other things done") and his willingness to work with conservative Democrats, the party base shifted to backing a more populist-sounding candidate. Characterized as having a "fiery" and confrontational demeanor and personality, he refused running for President again, and only occasionally comments on contemporary political concerns. He currently resides in Mississippi with his wife, and reportedly enjoys spending time with her and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
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Frequently called "the greatest President we never had," Ross's legion of fans has only grown over the years. His supporters celebrate his life story, from overcoming war wounds from his time serving in the Air Force during the Cuba War to founding successful educational programs over the years to his many accomplishments while serving in public offices over the years. Praise is usually given most prominently to his support for the arts; for his passionate promotion of renewable energy and conservation efforts; for his pragmatic work on children's health, disability rights, and Veterans Affairs; and for his firm opposition to bloodshed, violence and warfare. But arguably the most interesting thing about Ross the Boss is his ability to win over people from such diverse walks of life and conflicting ideologies by focusing on unifying "bread-and-butter" issues, helped by his universally well-known soothing voice and persistent promotion of peace and love. Naturally, it has been reported the he is on friendly terms with all the living former Presidents and VPs, with the sole exception being Dinger (the two men have reportedly never met, allegedly of "scheduling conflicts"). While still concerned that his leukemia will resurface someday, Ross is currently enjoying a refreshingly humble retirement in Florida; Painter Bob still paints landscapes as a relaxing hobby (once remarking "I play a bit of golf from time to time, but I really much prefer these kind of strokes instead"), and still interacts with fans and supporters both at local events and ontech.
[pic: imgur.com/jybJ8a5.png ]
Rising quickly out of obscurity only to just as quickly return to it, Dumanis was America's first BLUTAGO VP, but appears as a trivia question more so than a domestic policy correspondent on TV networks, reportedly due to her alleged relative inexperience. While no pundits seem to believe that she would be a major player in the 2024 Presidential primaries should she enter them, Dumanis could still run for public again, possibly for Governor of California in 2022. She does after all, reportedly, have many political connections, and got along well with Harley Brown and most members of his 71-day Presidency. However, at this point, she seems to be enjoying an advance on a book deal, and networking more with allies of law-and-order efforts moreso than with political donor. Then again, nothing about the future is set in stone, so for all we know, Dumanis will someday soon return to national attention as a serious candidate. Until then, one can only wait and see how certain things unfold.
[pic: imgur.com/JjVJ71F.png ]
Our current VP is partnering with state and D.C. lawmakers and justice department heads to lead the charge to implement civil justice and police reform measures, despite intense opposition from certain social and political groups, individuals and organizations. Raoul, the U.S.'s first African-American Democratic VP and the nation's second African-American VP overall, currently enjoys approval ratings that are hovering at around roughly 54%.
Bonus: Wikiboxes For Major-Party Vice-Presidential Nominees
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Raymond Eugene Green was a “dark horse” candidate for Vice President; selected due to Glenn working well him with on fundraising efforts outside of the halls and walls of congress, Green was young, energetic, and was from an electorally rich state. Glenn’s aides suggested selecting someone who was not such a political unknown, but Glenn ultimately stuck with Green as his choice for running mate. However, despite what The Houston Chronicle had to say positively about him, “Another Lyndon Johnson” and "A Rising Star From The Lone Star State" he was not. Meredith mopped the floor with him and his moderateness during the sole VP debate of 1996, in what proved to be one of many errors on John Glenn’s part.
After the election, Green faced an uncertain political future as there were few options for higher office. Texas’ US Senate elections were not until in 2000 and 2002, and Governor Cisneros had already made it clear that he would seek a second term in 1998; so, the private conversations turned to the next presidential election, only for Green to publicly announce in early 1998 that he would not run in that year and instead pursued another House term. Then another. And another...
Having graciously faded into political obscurity, Green served on several committees while being overshadowed, overlooked, and overall forgotten by the general public during the Jackson and Wellstone administration. All the while, Green stayed comfortably in his seat. It was only until after the 2006 midterms that he rediscovered his old urge to seek higher office, and began re-inventing himself. In 2007, he reintroduced himself to the American people once again, shifting noticeably to the left while still being in the moderate lane. After considering running for an open US Senate seat in 2008 to replace the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison, Green announced in 2011 that he was running for the other US senate in 2012. However, he lost the nomination to former Governor Henry Cisneros, attempting a political comeback of his own; Cisneros in turn lost to freshman incumbent Kay Granger.
Leaving congress after 24 years in the House, Green quickly found work as a corporate lobbyist. Despite this, he ran for the Democratic nomination for his old congressional seat in 2018 on a “progressive” platform; he finished in fourth place with 11% of the vote. He currently resides in Dallas.
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Eldon Bargewell had spent most of his life being relatively apolitical at the professional level. Chosen to “beef up” Goetz’s weak spot that was actual military experience (having served not served on any foreign-policy -related committees during his time in the Senate), Bargewell had, until just three years ago, spent his entire adult life in the US military.
Bargewell joined the US Army right out of high school, and just in time to participate in Operation Spicy Strychnine (a.k.a. Operation Fried Charlie 2.0), which impressively overthrew the government of communist North Vietnam in 1967. He then served in Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Uganda, Libya and Nicaragua. As a Lieutenant General, Bargewell’s troop coordination work during the Second Korean War led to him becoming a General in 1997. Upon the anti-military Jesse Jackson being elected President, Bargewell decided to retire “in protest” in 2001. From 2001 to 2004 (resigning to serve as Goetz’s running mate), Bargwell served as the Dean of the US Military Academy. During that time, he supported and endorsed several “interventionist” politicians, leading to him catching the attention of the national GOP and former Senator Goetz by the spring of 2004.
Bargewell’s selection, though, backfired significantly, largely because, while he was an enthusiastic speech-giver, he was a rather poor one-on-one debater. During the sole VP debate against incumbent Vice President Wellstone, Bargewell was able to discuss at length his experience with military affairs, including VA and national defense, but he fumbled terribly on questions about the nuances of domestic security, and struggled miserably to answer even basic questions about the economy and how domestic institutions and basic government systems functioned.
After the election was over, Bargewell moved to Alabama and declined seeking public office “ever again,” comparing it to “ordering an Army-man to do a Navy-man’s job.” While most view Bargewell being placed on the ticket as a mistake (with some suggesting Goetz should have gone with a more experienced candidate such as George Allen or Helen Chenoweth), Goetz is still on friendly terms with the retired General, as he blames the Jackson/Wellstone ticket for the poor performance of the Goetz/Bargewell ticket. Bargewell is currently enjoying retirement in his home state of Alabama [1].
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Gary Johnson is a major figure in modern American moderate libertarianism. Beginning his career as a door-to-door handyman before founding his own mechanical contracting business, Johnson shifted to politics in the early 1990s by becoming the pot-smoking, bike-riding, mountain-climbing, pro-business, tax-cutting, environmentalist Mayor of Albuquerque. Johnson then made headlines for completely legalizing the use of recreation drugs such as marijuana, and at the height of the War on Recreadrugs, no less. Openly opposing the recreadrug policies of President Dinger (a fellow Republican of his) at first made him unpopular, but by the 2000 election, rising calls for legalizing marijuana led to Johnson being praised as a visionary who had been a few years ahead of his time. Capitalizing off the fame, Johnson – after a quick trip to the Himalayas to successfully trip Mt. Everest – was narrowly elected Governor of New Mexico in 2002, which was a bad year for Republicans, especially libertarian ones. Despite this, Johnson, a.k.a. “Governor Veto” proved be a capable leader; limited to one consecutive term at a time, he left office in 2007 and announced a bid for President a few months later. He lost the primaries, but as a “consolation prize” of sorts, the ultimate nominee (the moderate centrist US Senator Olympia Snowe) selected him (over US Senator Lyle Hillyard of Utah) to be her running mate in an attempt to win over libertarians and in turn secure several states out west. In exchange for her support, Johnson’s signature “FairTax” proposal was added to the party platform, but Johnson focused and campaigned on it much more than Snowe did.
After losing the 2008 election, Johnson ran for another gubernatorial term in 2010 and won by a larger-than-expected margin (though some believed he received sympathy votes after his wife died unexpectedly earlier in the year, most credit his name recognition and the pro-Republican trends of 2010 for his victory); this victory and the GOP ticket securing the popular vote in 2008 convinced Johnson that he could win in 2012. However, Johnson failed to dominate the GOP primaries after candidates Grammer and Brown were able to siphon away from him more than enough donations, endorsements, airtime and, ultimately, votes. However, as an attendee of the 2012, he was able to endorse Grammer in a crucial moment for the party and the nominee, ensuring the libertarian faction he led fell behind Grammer. In exchange, Grammer became the US Secretary of the Interior in 2017 (after Johnson finished up his gubernatorial term in early 2015).
Johnson reported has stayed on good terms with Snowe, Grammer and even the “prickly” Harley Brown. As Johnson’s FairTax proposal had received attention during the 2000s decade but failed to be made into a reality after the 2008 and 2012 election cycle, Johnson is currently pushing for it to be voted on in a National Initiative, recently saying “Hey, it worked for Mike Gravel.” He currently resides in New Mexico.
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Robert P. “Bob” Casey Jr. is the son of a former Governor of Pennsylvania who ran for President in 1972 and served in the US Senate from 1975 until his death 25 years later. “Junior” was appointed to the seat soon afterwards. Closer to the center than the moderate Locke, Casey was selected for running mate in 2016 in order to try and appeal to Harley Brown voters and to voters in the Rust Belt. However, due to his “privileged” background, he failed to connect to the voters. He after performing well in the sole 2016 VP debate against Brown, Casey failed to shake off the “elitist” label that Brown was able to slap onto him, caring not for the irony of Brown serving under one of the wealthiest US Presidents in history. After some consideration, Casey decided not to run for President in 2020, believing that the Democratic party was “moving very far away from me,” or rather, farther to the left of him.
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Jennifer Sandra Johnson checks a lot of boxes for the GOP. A conservative, non-white (of Caribbean descent), charismatic female from an electorally rich state and boasting impressive experience in business, governance, and the military? It’s no wonder that she was labelled a “rising star” as early as 2010. Her parents moved from Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, to Paducah, Kentucky in March 1959 [2], then moved to Long Island when she was eight years old. After attending college in New York and Florida, Johnson spent decades in the US Navy and saw combat in Libya and the northern half of present-day United Korea. She and Harley Brown got along very well on the campaign trail, and many credit her presence there for keeping the election from being the blowout that many Democrats had expected it to be. Upon losing the election, Johnson remarked “don’t count my chickens just yet” when a reporter asked if this was it for her political career on the national stage; indeed, there is talk that she is planning on a run for the Presidency in 2024. And early polls suggest that she has a real shot of winning the primaries.
SOURCE(S)/NOTE(S)
[1] IOTL, Bargewell died in 2019 at the age of 71 in a gardening accident, when a lawnmower he was riding “rolled over an embankment behind his house in Eufaula, Alabama” ( https://www.armytimes.com/news/your...-major-general-dies-after-lawnmower-accident/ ); I feel like that would be butterflied away, right?
[2] ITTL, her parents moved to the US roughly eight years earlier than in OTL due to the number of KFC outlets in Kentucky in 1959 being higher in number than IOTL, and so her parents are able to find work in the US much sooner; her parents arrive in the US when her mother is three months pregnant with her (this is why there were no eligibility issues when she ran for VP ITTL, save for a few liberal “fringe” technetters who claimed that she was born in Trinidad and Tobago, but they received little attention and were not really taken seriously at all).
Acknowledgments
“No matter how much one reads, the whole story can never be told.”
– Lemony Snicket [1]
I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read and enjoyed this timeline. I want to also thank all who contributed to this TL, from PMing me and making in-thread recommendations, to simply voting in the polls.
Amid the hours spent perusing through hundreds of sources, dealing with behind-the-scenes real-life drama, struggling with writer’s block, and addressing other issues and situations, one major thing that has kept me these past three years was knowing that somewhere in the world – in the UK, in California, even in Australia – somebody was looking forward to this TL’s next chapter.
I believe a Special Thanks are in order for the following people (in alphabetical order):
@ajm8888 – for helping me with many aspects of the 1990s chapters, especially with Japan and the “Tommy Gun” Thompson character
@DTF955Baseballfan – for using his encyclopedic knowledge of sports information to contribute to several chapters
@Gentleman Biaggi – for giving me the push I needed to get started in the first place
@Igeo654 – for all his help with many aspects of the chapters of the late 1980s/early 1990s concerning the UK and pop-culture, especially music and TV
@Kennedy Forever – for his many contributions to the chapters, especially for things concerning Australia, and for being a good and encouraging friend
@Ogrebear, @Unknown, @historybuff, @Wendell, @Brky2020, @Sunstone77, @Bookmark1995, and @PNWKing and all others who commented on this TL.
I also want to thank those who contributed to the tropes.com article and the photos thread (links in the prologue). Even though some bullet points in the tropes article are a tiny bit inaccurate (it's "Kennedy News Network," not "Kable New Network"; it's the "Ms. Arkansas" Scandal, not the "Miss Arkansas" Scandal; this TL is not "millions of words" long, it's only roughly 1,420,000 words long (roughly 1,520,000 if you include the prologue, epilogue and indexes); minor things like that), I still very much appreciate the fact that somebody/somebodies actually went through all the trouble of making that page writing up all those bullet points; amazing!
I am just so overwhelmed by the positive support that this literary treatise has received, and I just want to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to you all.
This TL’s POD of Harley Sanders Jr. not dying at 9:30 AM on September 15, 1932 was finalized in February 2018, but the idea for the TL itself didn’t pop into my head until December 2017, when @Blair posted a wikibox showing Harland Sanders being elected President through a 1968 contigency election; when someone pointed out a plothole of sorts, he replied with something along the lines of “Look, I just wanted to make this man President.” That piqued my interest, and pretty soon a TL outline was born.
In fact, here is an early draft of the US Presidents that I originally planned to have in this TL:
1965-1973: 36) Harland David “The Colonel” Sanders Sr. (R-KY; 1890-1980) – Gov 1955-1959, KFC CEO 1950-1955/1959-1964
1964: Sanders/Scranton over Johnson/Humphrey and Patterson/Bryant
1968: Sanders/Scranton over Kennedy/Sawyer
Bryant and Patterson got reversed after realizing how the Cuban War would lead to a refugee crisis in Florida, which would boost Bryant’s national profile more than Patterson, and that Patterson would be an olive branch to voters not so far-right conservative as Bryant and his anti-Cuban/pro-segregation base.
1973-1977: 37) Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel (D-AK; b. 1930) – US Sen 1969-73, US HoR 1967-69 (youngest President ever, even younger than TR!)
1972: Gravel/Moss over Scranton/Stepovich
I really wanted to go with a young candidate to contrast the Colonel’s youth. Mondale, Bayh and Paul Simon were also considered. I ultimately decided to let polls decide who was the nominee this year because Gravel ascending so quickly felt too unrealistic even for this TL and I wanted to know what you the readers thought about such a prospect.
1977-1978: 38) Thruston Ballard Morton (R-KY; 1907-1978) – US Sen 1957-1977 (assassinated alongside Speaker Boggs just weeks after death of VP Bolton was killed in a car crash)
1976: Morton/Bolton over Gravel/Edwards
Morton and Ohio Congressman Bolton both dying felt way too grim and dark for this kind of TL, so a scrapped it. Furthermore, Morton didn’t seem like the type of guy who would run for President – IOTL, when Vietnam escalated, instead of running for President to end it, he basically suffered depression over it and retired from the Senate.
1978-1985: 39) Barry Morris Goldwater (R-AZ; 1909-2001) – President pro tempore of the Senate 1977-1978, Sent 1957-1978
1980: Goldwater/Lukens over Rafferty/Crane, Hollings/Pickle and Chisholm/Lucey
While Goldwater is an interesting person to write about, I later decided that this was way too unrealistic.
1985-1991: 40) Donald Edgar “Buz” Lukens (R-OH; 1931-2010) – US VP 1977-85, Gov 1971-77, US HoR 1967-1971 (impeached over scandals)
1984: Lukens/Agnew over Kennedy-Shriver/Bumpers
1988: Lukens/Robertson over Nader/Cisneros
Too cringy for me to write so much about, but I left him in the 1980 poll just in case people were interested. So instead of becoming President, he became a “supporting player” in the TL. In a later draft, North Dakota Governor Aloha Eagles was written down in this point in the TL as serving as America's first female President from 1981 to 1989, but I wasn't sure if this was too unrealistic even with the First Ark Wave in mind, so I ultimately decided to place her and other interesting potential Presidents in that aforementioned poll for the 1980 primaries.
1991-1993: 41) Marion Gordon “Pat” Robertson (R-VA; b. 1930) – US VP 1989-1990, pastor/televangelist
Again, too unrealistic. Plus, 16 years of 4 Republican Presidents felt too much like a GOPwank.
1993-1997: 42) Martha Layne Hill Collins (D-KY; b. 1936) – US Sen 1989-1993, Gov 1983-1987
1992: Collins/Simon over Robertson/Dole
Hence why she was first mentioned all the way back in a 1950s chapter, why she was heavily discussed in 1987, and why she was included in the 1988 chapter.
1997-2005: 43) Jim Edgar (R-IL; b. 1946) – Gov 1991-1996
1996: Edgar/Rowe over Collins/Simon
2000: Edgar/Rowe over Folsom/Wheat
Thus why he had cameos in chapters as far back as the 1950s, and 1970s.
2005-2009: 44) Maurice Robert “Mike” Gravel (D-AK; b. 1930) – US Pres 1973-1977, US Sen 2001-2005
2004: Gravel/Jackson over Dunford/Dole
I figured Gravel winning the first time would possibly come off as being too close to the edge of ASB Territory, and that him returning to office 32 years after leaving it felt too much like a Gravelwank.
In a second draft I replaced him with African-American politician Wellington Webb (D-CO), which is why that individual received so many little bits here and there throughout the 1990s and 2000s chapters (those were edited pieces left over from that stage of development, which was before I decided to let the Presidential nominees be determined via polls so you the readers got to choose who you read about ITTL).
2009-2017: 45) Lisa Perez Jackson (D-NJ; b. 1962) – first Black President; US VP 2005-2009, US Sen 1997-2005, admin 1993-1996
2008: Jackson/Dodd over Dole/Gregg
2012: Jackson/Dodd over Tancredo/Allen
2017-2019: 46) Stephen McDannell “Steve” Hillenburg (R-CA; 1961-2019) – Seafood King CEO 1991-2014 (died from ALS)
2016: Hillenburg/Miller over Dodd/Durbin
I realized while researching him and his personal life that he’s way too much of a private, shy, and introverted person to ever mount a national campaign. It seems I also misjudged for how long he’d live. And I think what ended up happening with him in the final draft is way more interesting, anyway!
2019-2021: 47) Joseph Wayne “Joe” Miller (R-KS; b. 1967) – US VP 2017-2019, US Sen 2009-2017, state rep 2005-2009
Not exciting enough.
2021-present (2021): 48) Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin (D-WI; b. ’62) – 3rd female President; US Sen 2013-21, US HoR 1999-2013, state assembly 1993-9
2020: Baldwin/Brown over Miller/Bevin
Furthermore, the original draft was not meant to be this long. It was supposed to be just 11 chapters – a TLIAW/M sort of thing! But, during the development process, a technical error in April 2018 caused me to lose much of what I had written, causing to have to basically rewrite large chunks (including the entire opening chapters) from scratch/memory. But you know what? That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it lead to me adding more and more details and ideas to the TL, fleshing out parts I would have just flown by originally.
One more thing, I would like to take this moment to apologize to everyone for all the typos, spelling and grammar errors, and wrong autocorrects that can be found throughout this treatise. I'll do my best to fix them as I prepare this TL for the Finished TLs section. I would also like to apologize in advance for any videos that stop being playable for whatever reason, as those kind of things are very bothersome, frustrating and annoying. On both counts, I appreciate the feedback and patience that you all have shown in helping me address these linguistic and technical issues.
In conclusion:
In the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve graduated from college, landed a job (brandresumes.com – ask for Georgie!), learned a whole lot of interesting information about this wonderful world that we get to live in, written something that’s much longer than Stephen King’s “The Stand,” and have made some friends along the way too. I won’t be forgetting this period of my life for quite a long while, and I have many of you to thank for that.
So, once again, from the bottom of my heart:
Thanks, everyone
NOTE(S)/SOURCE(S)
[1] Courtesy of @Kennedy Forever; thanks again, buddy!
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