Reagan in '76

MrHola

Banned
Reagan wins the Republican nomination. He loses the election by a wider margins than Ford, however: the USA post-Watergate and post-fall of Saigon is in no mood for his conservative message, and Reagan has not yet met Arthur Laffer and gotten tax-cut-uber-alles religion. Carter governs more or less as in OTL, with the same successes (Camp David), events-out-of-his-control (OPEC tripling oil prices) and failures (Iran hostages.)

The question: would the Republicans re-nominate Reagan (who remember lost big-time 4 years before) in 1980, or turn to someone else? If so, then who? Consider that in 1980 the Republican party was badly fractured between their Eastern, low-tax and business-friendly wing, their Western, defense-and-libertarianism, and their Southern socio-religious agenda wing. Reagan united all these factions because they all saw him as one of their own (rightly or wrongly.) If the Republicans shun Reagan because of his 1976 defeat, do they unite? What changes?
 
1) Gerald Ford. Just as OTL Ford was popular enough that Reagan considered asking him to be VP, Ford may run again in 1980. In 1980, OTL he didn't really want to be VP and was enjoying his retirement. In TTL, he has the chance at the top job again and he may still want the chance to run an election. This might side-step the Republican infighting, but might also require somekind of victory for the northeastern folks.

2) I think Reagan probably does run again, but his defeat in 1976 may work against him.

3) If Carter performs as poorly as OTL, he might himself face a primary challenge from Kennedy. This confusion might give the Republicans more room to have their own infighting. Candidates in such an open race would probably include much of the folks who ran OTL: George H.W. Bush, John Anderson, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole. I'd favor Bush or Dole. OTL, Bush had a very strong organization in the intial rounds, but lost to Reagan beause of the latter's popularity in the South, which may be blunted TTL due to the defeat in 1976. Dole has the best chance, IMHO, to be TTL's Reagan in terms of the Republican coalition, though not in terms of general election success.

4) Similar to the Ford idea, if the Republicans are truly divided perhaps they might go looking for an independent to draft as a dark horse / modern day Eisenhower. Problem is, I can't think of anybody better in this regard than Ford.
 
Okay, here's a try:

The Republican primary of 1976 proceeds largely as OTL until the convention. Instead of announcing his nomination of northern Schweiker, Reagan proclaims his desire to fight for the nomination on the floor. He declares the necessity to fight for the morality of the party after the depravity of Watergate and Ford's suspect pardon of Nixon. He rallies conservatives and wins the nomination on the third ballot.

Reagan and Carter fight a bitter campaign. Reagan makes bold promises, which Carter undermines as populist, irresponsible, and ungrounded in fact. Reagan nonetheless ends up going down to defeat when in the televised debates he goes on about how Democrats are responsible for all wars of the twentieth century. [Dole did OTL]. Reagan is defeated by a handy margin, but his electoral defeat is much slimmer; tempers rise when a faithless elector puts Carter's majority in near jeopardy. Ford ends the bicentennial year by straightening out the issue of the faithless elector--the people's will must triumph, he says--and with a memorable Farewell Address, calling for good government and self-sacrifice in the face of national crises.

While a lame duck, Ford manages to finalize negotiations with Panama to secure the canal for the US for an additional twenty year lease (in exchange for concessions with Panama, one of which opens the door to something like free trade). The Chairman of the Federal Reserve unexpectedly dies in December. Ford calls Carter to ask his opinion, in deference to the President elect, but needs to make a choice soon, given the severity of inflation. Carter bungles the issue, making statements about signing the money himself if need be (he wants to wait to make the appointment himself; the statement belies Carter's lack of knowledge and lack of experience). Ford has quite a predicament, since he would rather appoint a conservative like himself (such as Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the CEA), but feels that to do so would be tantamount to defrauding the American people. Hence he selects Paul Volker to head the Fed.

By 1980, Carter looks like everyone's worse nightmare: he is trying to ally with evangelical Christians, which offends the ABC Democrats, and yet he is also making ineffectual shows against the Soviet Union. The last straw comes in the showdown with the Islamic Revolutionaries in Iran.

If the 1976 Republican primary had been contentious, the 1980 election is chaotic. Without a clear incumbent or favorite, the party is deluged with candidates from John Anderson to the charismatic Jerry Fallwell. Reagan makes another bid, but comes in third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire, due to misplaced comments about President Carter. When a front runner emerges--in the person of Robert Dole of Kansas--his leadership counts for nothing: two weeks before the convention, John Hinckley, Jr., assassinated the would-be nominee, throwing the Republican Party into utter anarchy. The convention chose Ford on the fifth ballot, even though Ford was not at the convention itself (it was meeting in his hometown, however).

Ford accepted the nomination and ran on a campaign of change, non-partisanship, and quiet strength. Due to the 22nd Amendment, Ford would be constitutionally unable to run for a second term; nonetheless, Ford used this to his advantage by emphasizing his call to service.

The Democratic nomination battle proved if anything equally stunning as Teddy Kennedy, desperate to reclaim "the Party of my slain brothers" from Carter, launched a successful bid for the nomination. He offered Carter the Vice-Presidency, but Carter refused, point-blank. His speech to the convention, supposedly endorsing the nominee, spoke of a national malaise.

Ford won in a landslide, with running mate John Connally (who brought in a tide of Connally-crats from the Democratic Party). Connally beat out a resurgent Ted Kennedy in 1984 and Democrat Al Gore in 1988. Bill Clinton managed an electoral victory in 1992 only due to third party candidate Pat Buchanan (a religious right candidate, under the name "American Party") splitting the vote in the Midwest and Deep South. After two years of policy bluster--national healthcare--and two of scandal that made some old reporters miss Watergate, John Sidney McCain won the Presidency in 1996 and in 2000. In 2004, Al Gore, with running mate John Kerry, won the presidential election after the American Party candidate Rick Santorum derailed Vice-President Jeb Bush's bid for the White House. The American Party since 1994 has maintained a delegation to the House of Representatives, numbering between 2 and 16; between 2006 and 2008, they held what would have been a swing vote to crown a Speaker of the House, but President Gore, in conjunction with former President McCain organized a bi-partisan effort to give that post to Rep. George W. Bush (R-TX), to ensure the continued sanity of the American legislative system.
 
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MrHola

Banned
I've made a President/VP list starting in 1977 and ending in 2005;

1977 - 1981: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale

1981 – 1985: Gerald Ford/John Connally

1985 – 1993: John Connally/George Bush

1993 – 1997: Bill Clinton/Sam Nunn

1997 – 2005: John McCain/

2005 – XXXX: Al Gore/John Kerry

However, I have no idea who McCain's VP would be, I was thinking of Condoleeza Rice. Are the others plausible?
 
The Republican primary of 1976 proceeds largely as OTL until the convention. Instead of announcing his nomination of northern Schweiker, Reagan proclaims his desire to fight for the nomination on the floor. He declares the necessity to fight for the morality of the party after the depravity of Watergate and Ford's suspect pardon of Nixon. He rallies conservatives and wins the nomination on the third ballot.

The more elegant point is one Clarke Reed, leader of the Mississippi delegation and the one vote needed to win. Under the unit rule all of the Mississippi delegates voted for a candidate if a simple majority of them preferred that candidate. Minus Reed it was split 30-30. Reed eventually tipped Ford, under massive pressure from both sides, and afterwards confused kept talking about how he wanted to vote Reagan.

So. Reed tips to Reagan, Mississippi tips to Reagan, the dominoes begin and Reagan is the nominee.

Reagan and Carter fight a bitter campaign. Reagan makes bold promises, which Carter undermines as populist, irresponsible, and ungrounded in fact. Reagan nonetheless ends up going down to defeat when in the televised debates he goes on about how Democrats are responsible for all wars of the twentieth century. [Dole did OTL]. Reagan is defeated by a handy margin, but his electoral defeat is much slimmer; tempers rise when a faithless elector puts Carter's majority in near jeopardy. Ford ends the bicentennial year by straightening out the issue of the faithless elector--the people's will must triumph, he says--and with a memorable Farewell Address, calling for good government and self-sacrifice in the face of national crises.

Reagan, especially '76 Reagan, doesn't make those kinds of mistakes in debates. I honestly expect Reagan to destroy Carter but, and this is a big one, Ford had one of the most brilliant campaign teams ever assembled—pulling him close to victory from a 30 point deficit and stopped only by Poland.

So no big moments here, nothing crazy, just Reagan—like Ford—coming up slightly short. (We can still have a faithless elector, with actual jeopardy this time, to give Ford that statesman aura.)

(I'm going along for the purposes of this timeline, but I consider it quite plausible that Reagan could have beaten Carter in 1976.)

[Various]

I feel that in this timeline Bill might go in 1988. He changed his mind the day of announced IOTL, and he's facing much less of a Republican America than IOTL 1988. Actually that may also compel Cuomo into the race as well, assuming he fufills the same role at the '84 convention.

I don't really see Kennedy going again in 1984. Neither the Republican nor Democratic Party gives their losers a second shot if they lose in a general (the Republicans will give you plenty of shots if you merely lose in the primaries though).

The McCain/Kerry/Gore stuff I feel is too far from the POD, certainly losers IOTL have become winners ITTL and so on. Douglas Wilder wins Virginia big? Powell decides to go for the nomination? Romney beats Kennedy in 1994? Etc….
 
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Oh I quite agree with you on a number of points.

1) Reagan probably could have crushed Carter.

2) Clinton probably runs in 1988, given the less Republican feel. If Connally is the incumbent at the time, he may have all sorts of scandals: OTL, he went bankrupt in 1986 because of oil investments.

3) All of the post 1980 stuff was just me having fun at 11:45 in the evening. The only part I meant to be telling was an insurgent third party for religious conservatives, a potential result of Ford's prominence in the Party through 1984.

Personally, I also think the more interesting change in 1976 is to have Ford win. I personally think he could have done better than Carter did, but much of what made Carter's presidency what it was was outside of Carter's control. It might stack the deck against Reagan in 1980, presuming he gets the nomination. I don't think Carter in 1980 would fly since in '76 he was such an unknown, though the race for the Democratic nomination would also be pretty wide open I'd imagine.
 
I've made a President/VP list starting in 1977 and ending in 2005;

1977 - 1981: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale

1981 – 1985: Gerald Ford/John Connally

1985 – 1993: John Connally/George Bush

1993 – 1997: Bill Clinton/Sam Nunn

1997 – 2005: John McCain/

2005 – XXXX: Al Gore/John Kerry

However, I have no idea who McCain's VP would be, I was thinking of Condoleeza Rice. Are the others plausible?

On McCain's VP: I was thinking he might have two. For the first term, Phil Gramm of Texas; for the second (Gramm retires), Jeb Bush of Florida, who loses to Al Gore in 2004.
 
Don't that Reagan would lose big, I suspect it would be at min an even closer 50/50 or Reagan winning popular and a very tight electoral going either way.

Remember it appears (based on the research after the election) that only the Nixon pardon and "Poland" (yes, Poland was one mistake but it must be taken in the context of the Chevy Chase verison of Pres. Ford) saved Carter from a stunning (when you consider his advanages, NIXON, over Ford) defeat.

By the convention, Reagan had superb campaign team, actually it's more impressive Reagan made it to the convention than the Ford comeback, considering how disfunction his campaign was in the beginning. In the general election he doesn't have the direct Nixon milstone. Also Reagan was first major Republican to condemn Nixon over Watergate (long before the resignation), actually, Reagn apparrently distrusted Nixon going back to 68, but obeyed the 11th commandment, so he can actually run without the shadow.

Finally, a 76 Carter-Reagan would have been Conservative Republican against Conserative Democrat. Back then Carter was a Anti-communist, maintain the military and MAD, a budget and Tax cutter, family values, clean up Washington outsider. Reagan was a fierce Anti-communist, buildup the military (but try to reduce nucs) Anti-MAD, buget cutter, tax reformer (yes, there's difference), an American value guys, and a cleanup Washington outsider. I believe Reagan defeats Carter in the debates, but the "new-born" Christian movement gives Carter the slim margin on the first Tues in NOV.

All of which means, Carter MAYBE gets the message that most American's are as tired of the excesses of counter-culture and welfare-liberals as they are of Nixon. And he actually governs as he campaigned, as a moderate right of center Democrat.

Of course world events also certainly get him in 1980, I just don't see Carter being up to dealing better with either Afganstan or Iran.
 
The very fact that someone in the Democrat party can be described as 'right of centre' I think illustrates how much further to the right the major US parties are, compared to most European countries, including even the UK (until recently, anyway).

Also, @ Nicomachaeus: Why is it that the Democrats do so badly in your TL, after Carter? I'm not seeing any specific reason given...
 
The very fact that someone in the Democrat party can be described as 'right of centre' I think illustrates how much further to the right the major US parties are, compared to most European countries, including even the UK (until recently, anyway).

Also, @ Nicomachaeus: Why is it that the Democrats do so badly in your TL, after Carter? I'm not seeing any specific reason given...

Well, I'm of two minds about this. Firstly, this is only who holds the White House. OTL, the Democrats had at least control of the House of Representatives from 1954 until 1994; TTL, I could see that control continuing longer. Second, there is some reason to think that if Ford and the moderate centrists win out for control of the Republican Party, while the ultra-conservatives form a third Party, then I think the Republican Party becames a centre-right Party that has a nice lock on national politics. They can essentially become the Party of efficient government, tax reform/ tax cuts, and "wise" foreign policy. Remember without Ross Perot in 1992, Bill Clinton's election OTL isn't certain; TTL, he might have done better if he wins a genuine two man race. He will be attempting the same kind of Party-changing platform, however, and he may end up being less sucessful as the more liberal wings of the Party rebel.

As I've mulled this over, however, it occurs to me that John Connally, for example, might have a particularly troubled Presidency, since OTL he ran into quite a bit of trouble in the late 1980s (he went personally bankrupt due to the Oil Crunch in Texas). I think this can be the equivalent of Iran-Contra like troubles for the Ford-Connally coalition. Also, Bush can't be Connally's VP since they're both from Texas (unless Bush pulls a Cheney and switches residency; since Connally and Bush detested each other, I think another person is more likely, probably a California Republican for the electoral math).

The only real difference in Party control of the White House has been Bill Clinton being defeated in 1996; without a Contract with America to take the house in 1994, motivated largely by the more conservative wings of the Republican Party, I think this is the outcome of a Republican minority fighting back in a different style against the Clinton White House. Hence the electoral weight of 1994 is delayed a bit.

To me, the story begins to change in 2004. Assuming that globalization takes an equivalent course, I think the Democrat's social program and economic populism might begin to have a renewed resonance. Certainly, recent OTL history suggests so. The American Party (maybe it's called the American Reform Party which doesn't sound quite so ominous) also might begin to gain ground as anti-immigration anxiety grows. This begins to nibble more strongly at the Republican coalition from two sides.

Now there is a slight reason to think that I may underestimate the Democrat's ability to change: in my opinion, the Democrats of the last two decades haven't had very many new ideas that have gained electoral substance. Much of their actions are dedicated to defending New Deal and Great Society Programs, and maybe trying to increase them. If the Democrats can manage to find new ideas--i.e. they invent new liberal reform measures--than there may be a path to renewed victory. However, such a path may alienate Labor since the constituency the Democrats will need to gain will be upper middle class and suburban voters. Essentially, I assume that Nixon's Silent Majority will continue to support the Republicans. Perhaps I underestimate the effect of the far-right forces, but I think they defect only slowly.
 
The very fact that someone in the Democrat party can be described as 'right of centre' I think illustrates how much further to the right the major US parties are, compared to most European countries, including even the UK (until recently, anyway).

of course. When you're talking US politics, you have to do it from our perspective. Our 'center' is further to the right than yours, and we use the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' in different ways. I don't even try to discuss European politics here because your political terms and views differ so much from ours...
 
of course. When you're talking US politics, you have to do it from our perspective. Our 'center' is further to the right than yours, and we use the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' in different ways. I don't even try to discuss European politics here because your political terms and views differ so much from ours...

That's probably for the best...

American board member: "What are you talking about, you fool! 'Liberal' means big government, obviously!"
All European members say, "WTF? No, 'liberal' means free market, also socially moderate."
"Oh. You mean conservative?"
"... huh?!? :confused::confused::confused:"

repeat x 10,000

:D
 
That's probably for the best...

American board member: "What are you talking about, you fool! 'Liberal' means big government, obviously!"
All European members say, "WTF? No, 'liberal' means free market, also socially moderate."
"Oh. You mean conservative?"
"... huh?!? :confused::confused::confused:"

repeat x 10,000

:D

Not nearly as bad as:

A: "it's a center-left party"
B: "no, it's a centre-left party"
A: "well, it's a pro-labor party"
B: "you mean, pro-labour. And in any case, that's not clear since most trade union members are back-benchers"
A: "Back-benchers? I thought we agreed not to talk about cricket."
 
Not nearly as bad as:

A: "it's a center-left party"
B: "no, it's a centre-left party"
A: "well, it's a pro-labor party"
B: "you mean, pro-labour. And in any case, that's not clear since most trade union members are back-benchers"
A: "Back-benchers? I thought we agreed not to talk about cricket."

Yeah...:D Well that's just nitpicking over spelling, really.

And which party is this? SNP?
he he...
 
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