Mario Cuomo runs for president in 1992?

JoeMulk

Banned
Maybe a butterfly of this timeline could be his son being elected Govorner earlier and say Clinton wins in 2000 over McCain, serves two terms and then in 2008 we have a Cuomo vs Bush matchup between two sons of former presidents.
 
i see Cuomo having a bette chance of getting a health care package through Congress in his first terrm. He had to deal with a full time state legislature that woud give him better insights on how to deal with Congress than Clinton had.
 
Cuomo would lose. The Bush people can paint him with some accuracy as the liberal Republicans claimed Clinton was. Perot's support is likely capped out or he hurts Cuomo more than he did Clinton because there is now a sharper left right and center contrast among the candidates running.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Cuomo would lose. The Bush people can paint him with some accuracy as the liberal Republicans claimed Clinton was. Perot's support is likely capped out or he hurts Cuomo more than he did Clinton because there is now a sharper left right and center contrast among the candidates running.

But Bush is having problems with the economy and such, right? Wouldn't that cause a bigger problem for him than his pointing out how liberal Cuomo is?
 
For the purposes of this thread, let's assume Cuomo wins the presidency (otherwise it just becomes "WI George H W Bush had won a 2nd term?"). That gives us 6 big issues to debate:

(1) Who would be his VP? I think he'd go for a Southerner, which makes Gore, Clinton, Bentsen, and Nunn (if he'd be interested) the most likely candidates.

(2) Health care reform

(3) NAFTA

(4) Foreign policy: the former USSR and Yugoslavia, NATO, China and Taiwan, the Middle East, North Korea, Haiti, trade with Japan, overseas forces, normalizing relations with Vietnam and possibly Cuba and Iran.

(5) The midterms

(6) Reelection
 

Zioneer

Banned
I don't know too much about politics around this time, but since I'm the OP, I'll give it my best shot, using Wikipedia to help me.

1. Yeah, he'd likely go for a Southerner, only I'm a bit hesitant to think of Clinton being a choice, because Bill would likely accidentally damage Cuomo's efforts by his affairs and such. I don't think Clinton would stop if he were Vice President.

Gore would be a good choice, and his lack of charisma wouldn't hurt him since Cuomo has a lot of oration skill.

Bentsen might be an effective choice, being a conservative Texan Democrat, which would mollify swing voters wary of Cuomo's liberalism.

By Nunn, do you meanLouie B Nunn? I'm not sure he'd be a good choice, seeing as how he was a Republican and all.

So the best choices are Bentsen, Clinton, and Gore. I think Bentsen would be the most pragmatic choice, but I don't think Cuomo would go for pragmatism.

2. Healthcare... I think Cuomo would either push for a combo between heavily regulated private care and single-payer healthcare, or just drive straight for single-payer. I don't know how this would be seen by the nation; but I'm guessing that some far-right groups will deplore it as "bringing back the Soviet Union".

3. From the sources I've googled, Cuomo seems to have been deeply against NAFTA and fought against it, while Clinton was for it. If Clinton becomes the VP, that might be a source of friction between the two.

4. No idea about the foreign policy bit, I haven't been able to find sources for his views on that.

5. No idea.

6. I'm assume he'd run again, most presidents do.
 
1. Bentsen is 72 in 1993, he's too old to be on a ticket. By Nunn Pervez is referring to Sam Nunn, the veteran Blue Dog senator from Georgia.

2. Cuomo will go just as liberal, if not more so than Hillarycare. It will be shot down by Pat Moynihan and the DLC-Blue Dog-GOP alliance just as Hillarycare was.

3. If NAFTA is not ratified that is a huge blow to American credibility in the international community, because they're not willing to keep their word on a treaty that has already been signed. Republicans do not have the votes to pass it on their own in the House, but enough pro-trade Democrats are there to obtain ratification. The Senate will pass it easily.

4. No idea. Cuomo would probably rely heavily on his foreign policy team.

5. Worse than 1994, because Cuomo will be pushing an explicitly liberal program. Gingrich could get in the 240 range in the House. Feinstein could go down, as could Ted Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg. Maybe even John Warner is defeated by Oliver North, though that's a bit less likely given that the state GOP despised North and Warner's solid Blue Dog voting record. Gingrich will have more success than OTL, and if welfare reform is passed it is done over Cuomo's veto.

6. If the economy is doing OK, Cuomo should pull through. However an Alexander/Gramm or Gramm/Alexander ticket could mean trouble, depending on what happens internationally and the Congressional action.
 
I don't know too much about politics around this time, but since I'm the OP, I'll give it my best shot, using Wikipedia to help me.

1. Yeah, he'd likely go for a Southerner, only I'm a bit hesitant to think of Clinton being a choice, because Bill would likely accidentally damage Cuomo's efforts by his affairs and such. I don't think Clinton would stop if he were Vice President.

Gore would be a good choice, and his lack of charisma wouldn't hurt him since Cuomo has a lot of oration skill.

Bentsen might be an effective choice, being a conservative Texan Democrat, which would mollify swing voters wary of Cuomo's liberalism.

By Nunn, do you meanLouie B Nunn? I'm not sure he'd be a good choice, seeing as how he was a Republican and all.

So the best choices are Bentsen, Clinton, and Gore. I think Bentsen would be the most pragmatic choice, but I don't think Cuomo would go for pragmatism.

2. Healthcare... I think Cuomo would either push for a combo between heavily regulated private care and single-payer healthcare, or just drive straight for single-payer. I don't know how this would be seen by the nation; but I'm guessing that some far-right groups will deplore it as "bringing back the Soviet Union".

3. From the sources I've googled, Cuomo seems to have been deeply against NAFTA and fought against it, while Clinton was for it. If Clinton becomes the VP, that might be a source of friction between the two.

4. No idea about the foreign policy bit, I haven't been able to find sources for his views on that.

5. No idea.

6. I'm assume he'd run again, most presidents do.

I'm not sure that the Dems would want Bentsen to run for VP two elections in a row, with two different running mates.

He's talking about Sam Nunn, a Georgian Senator who specialized in foreign policy (think a Democratic Richard Lugar). Lots of policy heft, and the charisma of a rocking chair.

Clinton's health-care plan was highly complex, radical, and idiosyncratic, due to Ira Magaziner's enormous influence. Cuomo would likely push for a more traditional public-option and employer-coverage scheme, such as the Nixon plan.

Cuomo was too New Deal Democrat to support NAFTA as it came to be, but some sort of trade deal during the 1990s was probably inevitable.

I can't really see the famous 1993 budget being too different than Clinton's.

He'd probably run and win in 1996. Decent economy, no personal scandals, most Presidents win re-election, especially if their party is in its first term in power.
 
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The Clinton health care plan was somewhat similar to Nixon's plan - it had an employer mandate but in order to encourage choice and competition most employers would have been placed in regulated markets - what Obamacare calls the "exchanges" and what Hillary called "health alliances." Small businesses and individuals would also have entered these alliances.

What made the '93 Hillarycare plan more radical than Obamacare was that it changed everybody's health insurance options, unlike Obamacare which mostly leaves the employer health plans alone. It also had caps on overall spending. And what was frightening to people was that most insurance would have been managed care plans, which is what people wound up falling into anyway, but which were uncommon in '93.

Cuomo would probably have pushed a more traditional "pay-or-play" scheme: employer mandate, with a tax on employers that didn't provide coverage which would go towards funding health care for those who didn't get it through work. Democratic proposals at the time differed on whether those in this pool would get insurance through a public plan, through an existing program (like Medicaid), or through a regulated insurance market.

But like RB said - and I don't usually agree with him - Cuomocare probably stands even less of a chance of getting enacted. The problem with the '93 health care effort was not just near-united Republican opposition (as in '09/'10), but huge Democratic divisions, with policy differences that went well beyond the simple public option debate of 2009. Many prominent Democrats simply didn't believe in health care reform back in 1993, and there was still a big block of conservative Democrats in both the House and Senate who put the current Blue Dogs to shame in terms of their conservatism.
 
1. Bentsen is 72 in 1993, he's too old to be on a ticket. By Nunn Pervez is referring to Sam Nunn, the veteran Blue Dog senator from Georgia.

2. Cuomo will go just as liberal, if not more so than Hillarycare. It will be shot down by Pat Moynihan and the DLC-Blue Dog-GOP alliance just as Hillarycare was.

3. If NAFTA is not ratified that is a huge blow to American credibility in the international community, because they're not willing to keep their word on a treaty that has already been signed. Republicans do not have the votes to pass it on their own in the House, but enough pro-trade Democrats are there to obtain ratification. The Senate will pass it easily.

4. No idea. Cuomo would probably rely heavily on his foreign policy team.

5. Worse than 1994, because Cuomo will be pushing an explicitly liberal program. Gingrich could get in the 240 range in the House. Feinstein could go down, as could Ted Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg. Maybe even John Warner is defeated by Oliver North, though that's a bit less likely given that the state GOP despised North and Warner's solid Blue Dog voting record. Gingrich will have more success than OTL, and if welfare reform is passed it is done over Cuomo's veto.

6. If the economy is doing OK, Cuomo should pull through. However an Alexander/Gramm or Gramm/Alexander ticket could mean trouble, depending on what happens internationally and the Congressional action.

Nitpick: you mean Chuck Robb (D) not John Warner (R).
 
But Bush is having problems with the economy and such, right? Wouldn't that cause a bigger problem for him than his pointing out how liberal Cuomo is?

While Bush faces the same challenges, there is less competition for the voter who leans rightward on economic issues, and, depending on Cuomo's message, the economy may not work as favorably for him as it did for Clinton.
 
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