The Ice is Red: A TLIAD
- Thread starter General Mosh
- Start date
"Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black'" - John McCain
By the time the 2004 elections had rolled around, the Democratic Party had ruled the White House for 16 years. While the Democratic Presidents had been popular, there was still a feeling of stagnation in the political process that many people felt had to change. After all, the United States wasn't a one-party state, was it? Despite a spirited fight by Representative from Ohio John Kasich, Senator John McCain was able to overpower all of his opponents in the 2004 Republican Primaries, touting his foreign policy experience in a new world. Senator McCain chose as his running mate former secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole, wife of Bob Dole. The Democratic Primaries ended with Vice President Jesse Jackson coming out over Senator Al Gore. The election saw two things go right for the Republican candidate. First, as alluded to earlier, the American people were simply ready for a regime change in the White House, with the mobilization of the conservative vote across the country. Second, President Jerry Brown was hit by the end of the internet bubble and a sharp economic downturn that may have swayed a couple percentages towards the Republican side. In the end, John McCain would win by the skin of his teeth.
President McCain's inauguration marked yet another Vice Presidential milestone, with Elizabeth Dole being the first woman to hold that office. The President's first action, rather than being to attempt to repeal liberal legislation in the face of a Democratic Congress, was to make clear that he could work with Congress. McCain wasn't a hardline Reagan or Bush conservative, he was a moderate, ready to compromise and known for his attempts at passing bipartisan legislation during his time in Congress. By the time of McCain's inauguration President Brown had gotten the economy back on track, and the incoming President was free to enact his own legislation. Although he did manage to pass a round of minor tax cuts in order to appease his base, they weren't actually all that significant, certainly not the kind of cuts that the more radical members of the Republican Party were looking for, which would cause problems for McCain with the conservative Republicans for the rest of his first term.
Fortunately for him, however, President McCain had no intention of getting himself bogged down in domestic political fights. Instead, he had run on his foreign policy acumen, pointing to recent problems in the Middle East (where there was another flare-up between Israel and the Palestinians in 2005) and the disconcertingly rapid growth of China, which seemed intent on pushing its agenda onto the smaller Asian states that surrounded it. President McCain was also happy to work with the Russians, who had been cultivating a closer relationship with the West for a decade and a half. In 2006 McCain pushed for and received from Congress the ratification of yet another nuclear weapons disarmament treaty, this one including China as well as Russia and the United States and reducing the stockpiles of all three nations considerably. When in 2007 tensions began to flare up between Russia and Georgia, McCain was there to attempt to mediate a solution to the crisis. Although he achieved his goal of avoiding war, McCain would later confess in his memoirs that he found it harder and harder to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The economy was still solid by 2008, and McCain's various overseas successes, including the start of a massive aids program for developing African nations, made him attractive to the moderate votes. Challenged in the primary by Texas Representative and well known fiscal conservative and isolationist Ron Paul, President John McCain was able to portray himself as the reasonable moderate, beating Paul and bringing him to the general election perhaps even stronger and more respected among voters than before. Senator John Kerry was able to win in the crowded Democratic primaries, narrowly beating Senator Barack Obama for the nomination. Senator Kerry, choosing Senator Obama for his Vice Presidential nominee, really didn't have much to run a campaign on. The President was popular, and although he'd passed tax cuts he'd done little to assault the liberal legislation passed by Presidents Dukakis and Brown. Kerry attacked the President's record domestically, stating that the United States needed a President who was willing to help his own country as much as he was willing to help others, but the campaign fell flat, and President McCain was able to gain reelection by a considerable margin.
In his second term, President McCain was hit by two major issues. First, in late 2009 a sharp recession hit the country, and although McCain was able to recover his nation's economic balance by 2010, it didn't do much to help his approval ratings. Second, a Russian invasion of Georgia made McCain look like a fool, seeing as how his earlier peace plan clearly hadn't played out the way it was intended to. Although the 2009 Georgian War was short, it resulted in a bitter political fight between John McCain and his Russian counterparts Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin. McCain sanctioned top Russian leaders, stating that this kind of grave disregard of international law could not go unpunished, and made public overtures towards the former Soviet states in Eastern Europe about NATO cooperation. The international crisis marked a breakdown in relations between Russia and the United States, relations which many had thought were at a turning point. As it turned out, there did only seem to be room in this town for one of them. McCain's strong reaction to the Russian invasion improved his approval ratings, and by 2010 it seemed as though international relations were, more or less, back to normal. Unfortunately for both the President and the American people, there was a storm on the horizon that not many of them were prepared for, although in retrospect it was perhaps something that should have been expected.
On 15 July 2011, a series of bombings targeting the New York City public transport system was carried out, hitting three targets in the subway (including one in crowded Penn's Station) and another in busy John F. Kennedy International Airport. 423 people were killed with nearly two thousand more injured in the worst terrorist attack ever carried out on American soil. As shocked Americans across the United States tuned into the news, they were greeted by horrifying images of dust-covered civilians being evacuated from subway stations and emergency vehicles racing across the city. Simultaneously, images began to come in of some sort of attack in Tel Aviv, Israel. An Air France Airbus A320 flying from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris towards Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, carrying some 140 passengers and crew, had been hijacked and flown into the circular tower of Azrieli Center in Israel's capital city. All aboard the plane and over 500 on the ground were killed. The tower collapsed on top of the shopping mall below soon after being hit, causing further casualties and resulting in serious damage to the other two buildings. Investigation would conclude that both attacks were carried out be al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden.
In September 2011, as Israeli forces enacted their revenge on the Gaza Strip and West Bank, ostensibly searching for Hamas militants with ties to al-Qaeda and provoking the Third Intifada, President John McCain demanded that the Libyan government, still led by Muammar al-Gaddafi, hand over Bin Laden, who was thought to be hiding in Libyan territory. Gaddafi, a man who had only survived this long by having a brilliant sense of self-preservation, attempted to cooperate despite his hatred of the West, fearing being deposed. The attempt kicked off an Islamist coup against his government and the start of a civil war. On 2 October 2011, President John McCain, with the approval of Congress, invaded the Islamic Republic of Libya. Though quickly overpowering the lesser Libyan armed forces, the US-led coalition (including a sizable contribution from the French, who had lost some 100 citizens in the attacks, as well as several thousand Israelis) quickly began to face the problem of insurgency tactics by Islamist militants, most of whom were aligned with al-Qaeda. Bin Laden remained uncaptured, and by 2012 the war didn't seem to have done much to improve the national security of the United States. The new Libyan government remained completely unstable, casualty rates seemed high, and the economy was stagnant. What remained to be seen was exactly what all this would mean for the Presidential election of 2012 as President John McCain's Presidency came to an end.
"A zebra does not change its spots" - Al Gore
With the war in Libya and the steadily stagnating economy, liberals were up in arms. They had lost control of the Presidency, and now look at what had happened! Of course, the liberal vote was hardly the most powerful voting block in America, and the moderates were quite happy with how President McCain had responded to the attacks on New York and Tel Aviv and the subsequent wars in Libya and Palestine (though US troops were not actually deployed on the ground in Palestine, it certainly didn't look good for them for their close ally Israel to be occupying Gaza and "defending" its settlements in the West Bank through the use of massive military power). While the conservatives were happy with McCain's strong support of Israel in these troubled times, they were not quite so happy with his actions on the home front, where McCain had made only cursory attempts to fight back against the liberal legislation passed by Congress both before and during his Presidency. Vice President Elizabeth Dole, considered the frontrunner in the 2012 Presidential elections, was tarred by this anger despite her attempts to distance herself from the actions undertaken at home by the McCain administration.
Dole's candidacy in 2012 was almost assured from the start. She was one of the most prominent women in the country, certainly the most prominent Republican woman, and her war chests were easy to fill. Polls placed her higher than any of the other prospective candidates, and McCain was ready to endorse her (though how much good that would actually do for her with the conservatives was up for debate). Unfortunately for her, she faced a spirited conservative challenge by one former Senator Rick Santorum, who many pinned as halfway to the crazy-house but the conservatives had picked as their pet candidate. The Republican primary race went all the way up to the Republican National Convention, where Elizabeth Dole was able to clinch the nomination by the skin of her teeth. The next day, Santorum announced he would be entering the race as an independent candidate, representing the "hopes and dreams of every good god-fearing American". The conservatives lapped it up, and Dole's campaign rushed to perform damage control, even offering Santorum a place on the ticket if he gave up his third party candidacy. Perhaps he even would have accepted had the conservative machine not already started running, praising Santorum for his bravery in sticking up to the "Washington parties". In some ways, it was a culmination of the tension that had been building up ever since Reagan was assassinated and the conservative moment stolen from them.
The Democratic primaries were not quite so exciting, seeing Senator Al Gore of Tennessee overcome his opponents in the form of Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Gore's candidacy, focusing on environmental concerns and the economy, was successful, Gore choosing the young Senator Cory Booker as his running mate. The election of Al Gore in 2012 is seen by most political analysts as an underdog victory. Without former Senator Santorum running his third party campaign (in which he would receive about 10% of the vote), Vice President Dole's victory would have been all but assured. Gore had little experience with foreign policy, and his hopes hinged on the ability of the American people to recognize the environmental and economic problems that the United States was undergoing. However, Dole's expected victory was not to be. The massive majority of votes Santorum won in the election were 'stolen' from Dole, essentially depriving her of 10% of the popular vote, enough to swing several major states Gore's way. Even so, it is a testament to Elizabeth Dole's brilliant campaigning that Gore still only one by a singly percentage point, despite his relatively strong victory in the electoral college.
President Gore's first two years have, at the time of this writing, gone relatively smoothly. Though the economy stagnant as it is hasn't seen any real improvement, it also hasn't seen any serious damage during his administration. Gore's attempts at mediating a solution to the opening that is Palestine, however, have meant with failure, as the death toll in those combined territories has reached over 10,000 in 3 years of occupation. The establishment of a democracy in Libya remains challenged, although a Constitution is being formed for the nation. Significantly, evidence of the location of Osama Bin Laden led to an incursion into Algeria, where although Bin Laden was not found significant progress was made against al-Qaeda holdouts in the south of the country. Currently, a dual French-US intervention in Mali is being considered, where al-Qaeda forces have launched an uprising against the government. Heavy use of drones has been made across the region, including in Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, and Nigeria. President Gore was able to successfully convince the Syrians and Israelis to back down after an international incident in 2014 nearly led to a war. A summit between President Al Gore and Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled for 2015, with hopes on a warming in relations between the two countries. With the situations on both the domestic and foreign fronts stable, Americans according to a recent CNN poll are optimistic about the future, hopeful that this generation will indeed be better than the last. With 2016 fast approaching, the question on all America's minds is: what's next? Who's next? Who knows? That's the great thing about history. There's always more of it.
Well, that's it folks! Thank you for reading this TLIAD that turned into a TLIAW! Who wins in 2016? I echo the sentiment of my narrator. Who knows?
I truly enjoyed this!! Hurrah to you, good sir! A little disappointed Dole didn't make it (who would of thought I hate Santorum IOTL and ITTL
) but maybe she'll pull a Richard Nixon later to become the first female POTUS! We're supposed to be optimistic, right?? (And Hillary isn't going anywhere unless she remarried)I'll be honest, I kinda wanted Dole to make it too, but I thought I'd be pushing it if after 16 years of Democratic rule and 8 years of a moderate Republican (and because of the lack of Reagan and the Democratic administrations McCain is more moderate ITTL than IOTL) the conservatives didn't try to launch a grassroots campaign. I figure the assassination of Reagan and replacement by Bush is like the assassination of Kennedy and replacement by Johnson. With Kennedy, the liberals felt that they had just lost their golden new generation guy. With Reagan ITTL, the conservatives felt (perhaps rightly) that they had lost their chance at a conservative comeback.
Unless someone uber charismatic comes by. Gore wouldn't stand a chance, I'd say... I certainly would be okay with him winning in 2016, however.
Apparently we alternatehistory guys are suckers for environmentalism
I can't help myself but put the election date instead of inauguration date. You're right, it should, but I'm just crazy
It was addressed earlier as well. And it doesn't take away from the TL really.