President Prescott Bush

MrHola

Banned
POD: Prescott Bush wins his Senate campaign in 1950, which he very narrowly lost in OTL. Following his election he becomes one of the leading Republican proponents of fiscal responsibility. He also, however, supports several of Truman's bills in regards to race relations. He makes a name for himself as a Moderate Conservative.With the coming election, which is widely expected to be a Republican sweep, Bush throws his support behind his good friend Robert Taft. Taft manages, just barely, to wrest the nomination from Eisenhower who goes on to enjoy a peaceful retirement.

Taft for his part chooses Bush as his nominee for VP, needing a moderate to offset his image as a hardline conservative. Also, being a New Englander, Bush offsets Taft's Mid-Western background. The Taft/Bush ticket goes on to win the election as Stevenson, to a lesser degree than Eisenhower/Nixon in OTL. Bush's past business connections with certain European totalitarian states do manage to hurt the ticket, but not enough as to cause a loss of the election (and his moderate record since being elected DOES help off set Taft a bit).

Taft dies of cancer a few weeks earlier than in OTL, due to the stress of the campaign and being elected, and suddenly Prescott Bush is President of the United States. Now what? Bush does has a socialy moderate record, and will push for greater fiscal responsibility for the Government. I can image the scaling back of some programs, which is going to make the Democrats none-to-pleased, but could help him with the general public. Bush is also going to have to find a way to end the war in Korea if Taft hasn't already managed it, and it would be interesting to see how he does it.

Any ideas of how Bush's presidency would have played out? How would the Korean War have ended? Who would be his VP and successor in 60?
 

JohnJacques

Banned
That ticket wouldn't win.

You have the isolationist who argued against the Nuremburg trials and a guy known as a war profiteer. Its ready made for a smear campaign.
 
as JJ said taft is an isolationist that isn't going to play well, also Prescott lost in 1950 for a reason, that has nothing to do with war profiteering, i'll quote wiki for this

He was involved with the American Birth Control League as early as 1942, and served as the treasurer of the first national capital campaign of Planned Parenthood in 1947. Bush was also an early supporter of the United Negro College Fund, serving as chairman of the Connecticut branch in 1951.

those things will not play well
 

JohnJacques

Banned
But he still had a reputation for being a war profiteer, even if its not what caused his defeat. Combine that with an isolationist and it is the exact formula for the smears used against isolationists.
 

MrHola

Banned
:eek: Wow, I wasn't aware of those things. Well, in that case I guess that Stevenson/Sparkman would win. I assume Stevenson would be defeated in 1956 by Nixon/Lodge(?). How would Stevenson take care of things?
 
:eek: Wow, I wasn't aware of those things. Well, in that case I guess that Stevenson/Sparkman would win. I assume Stevenson would be defeated in 1956 by Nixon/Lodge(?). How would Stevenson take care of things?

Stevenson is a good man and a strong Politician, he just had the bad timing to come after Truman (also a great Politician, but very unpopular) 20 years of Dem rule, and be running against Ike, both Nixon and Lodge are very young in 1956 43 and 54 respectively, it's hard to say were Lodge will be, in OTL he loses to JFK in 1952, because i stumped for IKE so hard, Taft's people in Mass were pissed about Lodge's backing of Ike so voted for JFK over lodge thusly he lost a tight race, but in TTL no Ike, so Taft heads won't be mad at Lodge, so he may win a tight race in 1952, i think Lodge will head the ticket not Nixon, also two senators on one ticket is unlikely, though not unheard of, Nixon and Lodge are both liberals though if Taft goes down in flames it isn't unlikely that the conservatives are to weak to stop it (though Goldwater is around)
 
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