Obama/Edwards 2008: Does McCain win?

More specifically, does John Edwards' affair offset the unpopularity of Sarah Palin and give McCain enough of an edge to win?
 
I tried to do a TL about McCain winning in 2008 with this as the POD. Let's just say, I never got around to finishing it as other members were quick to point out that this wouldn't be enough for McCain to win. I came to agree with them and killed the timeline.
 
The way I see it, Palin was a double-edged sword to begin with: sure, she proved to be somewhat of a liability, but she also was very popular with the right-wing of the party, motivating them to vote when they otherwise might not have. Besides, even without her the election would still have been Obama's to lose thanks to the economy, and he'd still be favored even with Edwards damaging the ticket.

Besides that, I think the most likely option would be a repeat of 1972, with Obama simply dropping Edwards and replacing him with someone else.
 
More specifically, does John Edwards' affair offset the unpopularity of Sarah Palin and give McCain enough of an edge to win?

This is not going to happen, period. First of all, *even without the affair* Obama would have no reason to choose Edwards. The last thing he wants to do is to remind people of the failed Kerry campaign. (Remember that Edwards couldn't even prevent Bush-Cheney from carrying NC by a landslide.) Second, one of Obama's leading perceived weaknesses was his lack of experience in foreign policy, especially with the Georgian/Russian war erupting just before the Democratic convention. That's a major reason he chose Biden. For a one-term senator to choose another single-term senator (Edwards) would not be helpful. Third, and most important, the affair was pretty widely known--certainly to Obama and his circle--even if the mainstream media only obliquely referred to it. (They would no doubt have talked about it earlier and more directly if Edwards had stayed in the presidential race.) Even if Edwards' guilt were not proven, it would just be an absurd risk to choose him.
 
Obama had better alternatives to Joe Biden if he would have turned down the position (Tim Kaine, Kathleen Sebelius). If Obama chose John Edwards as his running mate, the election would be much closer but the odds are still in favor of the Democrats because of the economic collapse and the Bush gaffes (tax cuts, hurricane season, Iraq War, etc.). McCain agreed with Bush on most of the issues, which was a big liability. For McCain to beat an Obama/Edwards ticket, replace Sarah Palin with Huckabee or Pawlenty and have the McCain campaign aggressively attack John Edwards on his financial cover-up of his affair, illegal campaign contributions, and everything else he was tried and indicted for in 2011-12, but that's only if McCain can get his hands on that information. Edwards would not be helpful because Obama was going to win North Carolina that year anyway, Edwards was a one-term senator just like Obama, and Edwards would not be the attack dog that a running mate is expected to be. Instead, he'd probably be anticipating a run in 2016 (as was the case of 2004 with John Kerry at the top of the ticket).
 
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In 2008 the country was so sick of Bush the Republicans would have had hard time winning if they nominated Jesus.
 
This is not going to happen, period. First of all, *even without the affair* Obama would have no reason to choose Edwards. The last thing he wants to do is to remind people of the failed Kerry campaign. (Remember that Edwards couldn't even prevent Bush-Cheney from carrying NC by a landslide.) Second, one of Obama's leading perceived weaknesses was his lack of experience in foreign policy, especially with the Georgian/Russian war erupting just before the Democratic convention. That's a major reason he chose Biden. For a one-term senator to choose another single-term senator (Edwards) would not be helpful. Third, and most important, the affair was pretty widely known--certainly to Obama and his circle--even if the mainstream media only obliquely referred to it. (They would no doubt have talked about it earlier and more directly if Edwards had stayed in the presidential race.) Even if Edwards' guilt were not proven, it would just be an absurd risk to choose him.

Yeah, the issue here isn't the likelihood of this seriously impacting on the election, the issue is 'Why the actual fuck would Obama do this?'
 
Edwards was so crap at covering up his affair that his own campaign staff were considering leaking the news should anyone even mention his name in connection with the VP-ship. His behaviour destroyed any loyalty they might have had and they really would have put the party first. No way does he get the nod to be Obama’s running mate.
 
In 2008 the country was so sick of Bush the Republicans would have had hard time winning if they nominated Jesus.

It wasn't Bush that guarenteed the election for Obama it was the economic crisis hitting when it did, change that and even without a democratic scandal McCain had a shot.

Mind you many blame Bush for the deregulation, but no that was a few decades in the works.
 
BTW, if by some miracle Edwards did succeed in covering up the affair (I mean not just mostly keeping it out of the mainstream media but even unknown to political insiders) until after the convention, and if Obama chose Edwards as his running mate (which is very unlikely even in that event, as I have explained), there would be overwhelming pressure to drop Edwards from the ticket. Once he was replaced, the fact that he had originally been chosen would hurt Obama a little but not nearly enough to cost him the election. (It's not like McGovern and Eagleton, where many people perceived Eagleton as the victim. Not that McGovern and Eagleton would have won in any event....)
 
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Harry Turtledove himself talks about adultery in a fair number of his books.

Yes, John Edwards cheated on his wife when she was dying of cancer, and yes, it was really lousy on his part. All the same, I understand it's relatively common. A spouse you love who's sick, it's a serious, ponderous situation. And you might long for relief from the pressure cooker. Or, so I've read, don't have personal experience. I say, all the more reason to be on guard, and tomake a conscious decision not to have an affair.
 
It's a closer election. VPs can only bring down tickets and only very rarely make a positive difference. You've got downward pressure here on two fronts: 1) the affair, and 2) as people have mentioned, Obama looks weaker on foreign policy. Both of these are generally going to turn off independents.

You still have a lot of Republicans and right-leaning independents staying home, so a Democratic victory is assured, but it's closer.

What's more, it keeps the narrative of Democrats-as-philanderers in the forefront of the national conscience for possibly another generation. It potentially invigorates the flagging Christian Conservative wing of the party (whose policies are still respected by the party, but in terms of identity politics they're really fraying these days). Maybe they have enough juice to take over the Tea Party, so that instead of a movement based on primitivist nationalism, we have one based more heavily on Christian values.

The effect of this is that the Republicans never really reclaim those "missing white voters" we hear so much about these days, because they're not really driven by religion. So no natural constituency for Donald Trump emerges. (Trump might still take a shot, but it won't be the same Trump; the man's a chameleon.)

Probably more changes...I'll keep thinking.
 
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