President John McCain and a Republican majority

What if John McCain had won the 2008 Presidential election by a landslide and conservative Republicans had won both The House of Representatives and The Senate by huge margins?

What would things be like now in late May going into early June 2009 and what would the rest of McCain's first term as President be like?
 
What is the PoD to achieve that aim? Even without the desperate economy, you'd have to make George W have a far better term to get McCain to win in a landslide.

Further, if W did really well, he'd probably support the challenger in 2008 as opposed to staying away from the issue. This might be Condi, actually.

So, going to need to work out the difficult PoD and how much it changes things in Washington beforehand.
 
What is the PoD to achieve that aim? Even without the desperate economy, you'd have to make George W have a far better term to get McCain to win in a landslide.

Further, if W did really well, he'd probably support the challenger in 2008 as opposed to staying away from the issue. This might be Condi, actually.

So, going to need to work out the difficult PoD and how much it changes things in Washington beforehand.

POD: Alien Space Bats replace George Bush with Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris round house kicks all deserters to oblivion believing them to be communists working for the Vietcong.
 
Perhaps for whatever reason or reasons, a majority of Americans feel George W. Bush had kept us safe for eight years, therefore they support the war in Iraq and Afganistan. Also the majority feel the private sector can do a much better job of righting the desperate economy. Also perhaps if both the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations had listened more to how the average Americans felt about issues such as keeping jobs here at home in America, if things had happened like laws preventing things like sub-prime mortgages, and the government had responded to American anger over things like the loss of jobs and markets.
 
Perhaps for whatever reason or reasons, a majority of Americans feel George W. Bush had kept us safe for eight years, therefore they support the war in Iraq and Afganistan. Also the majority feel the private sector can do a much better job of righting the desperate economy. Also perhaps if both the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations had listened more to how the average Americans felt about issues such as keeping jobs here at home in America, if things had happened like laws preventing things like sub-prime mortgages, and the government had responded to American anger over things like the loss of jobs and markets.

Erm. Can we just go with Norton's suggestion instead? I think it is probably less ASB.

I mean, you are fundamentally rewriting the entire electorate of the United States. This PoD involve the people of the United States feeling confident at a time where Bernie Madoff has stolen tens of billions, when there is a massive financial crisis, the stock market has crashed. The War on Iraq getting support in spite of having no justification?

I can not contemplate a reality where the above leads to someone else in his party recieving this kind of large electorial mandate to lead. This is the realm of "Chocolate Unicorns induce glyemic shock to all americans".

Suffice it to say, in a reality so detached from our own, the direction of government is going to be completely stupid. McCain would not bother to address the economy, as the US electorate is very happy with it crashing. The People of the United States oddly support the war in Iraq, so McCain makes plans to invade North Korea.

That is correct, the world has gone totally mad.
 
Perhaps for whatever reason or reasons, a majority of Americans feel George W. Bush had kept us safe for eight years, therefore they support the war in Iraq and Afganistan. Also the majority feel the private sector can do a much better job of righting the desperate economy. Also perhaps if both the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations had listened more to how the average Americans felt about issues such as keeping jobs here at home in America, if things had happened like laws preventing things like sub-prime mortgages, and the government had responded to American anger over things like the loss of jobs and markets.
Subtle. I have absolutely no idea what your political leanings are after that comment.
 
In response to the economic crisis, the Republicans would effectively do nothing. You'd have a cutback and spending freeze on everything minus defense spending, which would probably rise, as it has under President Obama. Tax cuts will increase the deficit substantially, but that will be of little care to the Republicans and McCain.

All of this probably won't bode well as unemployment rises steadily. No spending means no priming of the economic pump and a worse over all economic trend. I would probably predict that financial bailouts continue (McCain had every intention of supporting them back in the campaign, after all), while GM and Chrysler go through bankruptcy. The latter will matter little to the Republicans, who have pretty well given up on winning the midwest in the near future anyway.

The McCain administration might try to privatize a few more governmental services under its watch, too. You can forget the sort of cap and trade legislation under construction in the Obama administration--if a system is put in place, it would give a grandfathered amount of pollution credits to already pollutant-wealthy energy corporations. Big oil will have a field day.

With regard to foreign policy, I don't see much of a change from the Bush administration, beside a small polishing of America's image. McCain is much more of an internationalist than was Bush, after all. Guantanamo probably closes on schedule, but the suspected terrorists housed there aren't going to get anything resembling a fair trial. Torture might end up being banned, too, but with Conservative Republicans in control of Congress, I doubt it.

Iraq will probably progress as OTL, but I could see increased violence if the McCain administration doesn't agree to a timetable for withdrawal. Saber-rattling will continue in the region, of course. More verbal assaults on Iran, et al.

In Afghanistan, I'm not sure what happens, to be honest. McCain never really had a well defined policy position on what to do about that war, and with the Bush administration's track record of ignoring it, I'm sure that we might see something similar from a McCain administration.
 

Typo

Banned
Perhaps for whatever reason or reasons, a majority of Americans feel George W. Bush had kept us safe for eight years, therefore they support the war in Iraq and Afganistan. Also the majority feel the private sector can do a much better job of righting the desperate economy. Also perhaps if both the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations had listened more to how the average Americans felt about issues such as keeping jobs here at home in America, if things had happened like laws preventing things like sub-prime mortgages, and the government had responded to American anger over things like the loss of jobs and markets.
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wtf, I don't even know where to begin
 
What if John McCain had won the 2008 Presidential election by a landslide and conservative Republicans had won both The House of Representatives and The Senate by huge margins?

What would things be like now in late May going into early June 2009 and what would the rest of McCain's first term as President be like?
*sigh*
Another political question asked in here.

Nobody can really answer your question anyways because you have no back ground as to why McCain and Republicans won.

But if you just mean that 5% of swing voters simply change their minds at the last minute and go Red, then I assume little changes. It's not like the Parties are so different that everything is unrecognizable in a few months.
 
John McCain is outside of my area of expertise, but I always used to be confused by the whole "McSame" angle. This is a guy who got "swift boated" by Karl Rove in 2000 and pushed to the Republican fringes.

IMO, here was a guy who was utterly different in attitude to GWB, an actual party maverick, tolerated only because the GOP needed a whipping boy to put against Obama.

POD, Palin gets Lt Governor in 2002, Governor in 2006. Or just Murkowski's senate seat in 2002. Her political career is planned out from 2004. By the time 2008 hits, she's well trained, well informed, and has some decent experience. Somehow, she becomes a long term asset.
 
Really not to much, short term.

Large stimulus package, hell Bush started down that route. Less aimed at Obama's health care and similar ideological pets, but still..

McCain is a supporter of cap and trade, but a Republican Congress would stop that, thank God.

Iraq continues as is, hell Bush would be winding down at this point.

Afganistan ditto. IE same as now. As troops become available from improving Iraqi situation more force brought to bear on Afganistan.

Also check the Chat section. TOns of whining (music to my ears:p) from liberals pissed off at the Bush policies Obama is not changing.

Kinda implies there are real reasons for them, instead the pure evilness of the President, but whatever, less change as I said.
 
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