@Asami: Naughty.
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Anyway, here's the second AH of
Third Parties Galore. It's a short one, I know. Sorry.
Unsafe At Any Speed: The Presidency of Ralph Nader
PoD: What if Jerry Brown lived, and endorsed Nader instead of VP Trump?
Jerry Brown (Reform) 1997-2005
President Brown's close brush with death in 2003 caused him to think about his legacy. Vice-President Donald Trump was a shoo-in for the Reform nomination [who else could run? Michael Bloomberg? The guy was too busy being Mayor for that!] and yet he stood for many things that President Brown found deplorable. The Green National Convention in 2004 had a surprise guest, who turned the race upside down. As President Brown uttered every word against Trump and in favour of Nader, the Greens' popularity rose. Brown split Reform between "Brownites" and "Trumpists" in doing so, and energised the Greens. Nader won the election by a 4% margin...
Ralph Nader (Green, endorsed by "Brownite" Reform) 2005-2009
2004: def.
Rick Santorum (American Independent),
Donald Trump (Reform),
Gary Johnson (Libertarian),
Andrew Cuomo (Socialist)
With Donald Trump swearing vengeance on "traitor" Jerry Brown and Reform splintering between the more liberal "Brownites" and conservative "Trumpists" [even if many conservative Reformists disliked his bombastic populism], Ralph Nader had an unique opportunity, and took it. Closer co-operation between the Greens and Brownites [which successfully took over control of the Reform Party from the conservatives under Jerry's urging in 2005] led to the "Green/Reform coalition", later mushed together as "Green Reform" in several states, the main "left-liberal" camp in America and rather more coherent than the Reform Party itself was under Brown.
Nader, unlike Jerry Brown, wasn't strongly committed to balancing the budget, and the deficit grew as he authorised expansion of the welfare state. This caused the AIP to attack him for being a spendthrift and "wasting the people's money". The Greens and Reform got a hit in the 2006 midterms and under a folksy Hoosier governor often attacked for being "stupid", the AIP returned to government handily. The Libertarians and the state Conservative parties were under a period of transition, and a weaker-than-OTL Libertarians [Trump in "OTL" led to a surge. In ATL, that surge doesn't happen] were unable to prevent a Conservative candidate, George Pataki of New York, from winning the nomination. Unfortunately, Bloomberg saw Pataki as a puppet of the Libertarians and decided to run a "true Reform" candidacy, decrying radicalism from the left and right. In a world where he had the Reform nomination, he would have won. That isn't this world.
Dan Quayle (American Independent) 2009-2017
2008: def.
Ralph Nader (Green/Reform),
Michael Bloomberg (Ind. Reform),
George Pataki (Conservative),
Howard Dean (Socialist)
2012: def.
Mary Landrieu (Green/Reform),
Mitt Romney (Conservative),
Joe Manchin (Socialist)
President Quayle vowed a "new Moral Society for a new century", and the AIP majority in the House [in the Senate they had to work with Conservatives and Libertarians] helped him reach closer to his aim. Reversing many of Nader's "socialistic" reforms in his first term, he found that the Moral Society itself still divided the AIP into neoconservatives [in favour] and paleoconservatives [against], so he framed his reforms as instead "returning morality to government". Nevertheless, this created discontent from his left and right. On foreign trade, Quayle proved a small-c conservative, much to Canada and Mexico's frustation.
Winning re-election barely over Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana thanks to a very aggressive campaign in which the countercultural side of the Greens [Ms. Landrieu was from the Reform half, but this did not matter in political perception] was exploited in order to portray Landrieu as a weed-smoking hippy who hated America and traditional values. One part of why Quayle only scraped by is Mitt Romney. The right-wing in America can be understood as a division between the "progressives", the "populists" and the "libertarians". Mitt Romney choosing a young up-and-coming Libertarian from Wisconsin, a traditionally-left state, united two factions of the American right. His moderate reputation plus his popularity with Mormons elevated his result from Pataki's 8% to a very respectable 19%, especially after a strong presence at the debates calling for "a constitutional conservatism, not the radical reactionarism that the President peddles to you."
Quayle's second term was eventual. The Indian Summer led to a humanitarian intervention by the Assembly of Nations to prevent a genocide from happening. Coming under criticism by the paleoconservatives for sending American troops, he declared "this is not an American intervention, it is a compassionate intervention". Nevertheless, the AIP fell to second place in the midterms as the Greens, Reformists and Socialists formed a coalition.
Martin O'Malley (Green/Reform) 2017-20??
2016: def.
John Kasich (Conservative),
Tom Tancredo (American Independent),
Francis Lee (Socialist)
Come the 2016 election, the AIP was in dire strides. The paleoconservatives and neoconservatives were sniping at each other, and the President was in the middle of it. The Conservatives [Libertarians are now pretty much the junior partner to a now-fully-national-and-party-organised Conservatives] are taking advantage of this by nominating Governor John Kasich of Ohio, who was hoped to cut into the AIP's support with neoconservatives given that they nominated Senator Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a prominent paleoconservative who got the neoconservatives' hackles up.
With the Socialists nominating far-left Governor of Vermont Francis Lee, the Green-Reformists hoped they had a strong chance of victory. After all, the right was hopelessly split and the Socialists were turkeys who voted for Christmas. Nominating former Governor Martin O'Malley [a Reformist], they set forth a clear plan of municipal reform, social liberalism and bringing America together. Surely this will lead to a landslide?
Wrong.
The 2016 election night was one of the most memorable in American history. With Francis Lee's past prominence as a television pundit, he reached to many disappointed Leftists who turned off politics after Swamp Pot, or more likely, just never tapped in. His movement led to Socialists doing far better than before despite Governor Lee's many extreme beliefs ["We should support the proletarist government in India" for one]. The split between the Conservatives and AIP proved true, but O'Malley and his team underestimated right-wing strategic voting. Many Am-Inders voted for Kasich instead of Tancredo upon realising that Kasich had more of a chance to defeat the "socialists". Kasich's vague feel-good campaign helped massively with this.
But still, the right was split more than in 2012, and thus O'Malley eked out a victory. With Conservatives and Libertarians gaining massively in Congressional elections at the expense of the AIP and in suburbs the Green-Reformists, it seemed that O'Malley would be an one-term president. Will he prove everybody wrong?
