alternatehistory.com

Minor, underdeveloped question I've been kicking around in my head for a while now.

Everybody who wants to do so can very easily look up the electoral history of Barack H. Obama online. He served in the Illinois General Assembly from 1996 to 2004 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until elected President in 2008. What some people don't know is, his Senate campaign was not his first bid to go to Washington. In the year 2000 he launched a campaign to win the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois' 1st Congressional District, but he lost in the primaries to Bobby Rush by a margin of two votes to one. Rush went on to win the House seat in a true landslide. He got more than 80% and brutally crushed a Republican opponent who couldn't even get 13%. Rush was the incumbent and well-liked in his District.

Now, let's go to Fantasy Land here for a minute and speculate. What if something happens to Rush before or during the primaries? Suppose he gets ill, or dies unexpectedly, or just decides he's had enough of Washington and really wants to go home. Obama was second (albeit a distant second), and the numbers show that Raymond Wardingley, the Republican candidate, was unlikely to beat almost anybody who showed up on the Democratic side in the election, so it's probably safe to imagine that Obama would have won such a contest.

Once in the House of Representatives, what happens to Mr. Obama? Does he manage to get the attention and notoriety necessary to attain the Presidency in '08? Does that come later, or not at all? If he does wind up being unable to move beyond the House, or possibly the Senate, should he make it there, who does his party choose in '08, and who do the Republicans choose to oppose that person?
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