The late 70's under President Reagan

samcster94

Banned
What would the late 70's be like if Reagan became President early(where he wins against Ford in the primary)??? I am not looking for stuff about today, just those four years with him at the helm.
 
What would the late 70's be like if Reagan became President early(where he wins against Ford in the primary)??? I am not looking for stuff about today, just those four years with him at the helm.

Not as much as it thought on the economy or military buildup, but the biggest would be the Bully Pulpit, you would never get the 'Malaise' speech from RR, for ex.
 
I think he loses in 1980 for many of the same reasons Carter did plus voter fatigue, although it's a bit closer given Reagan Charisma and as @marathag the Bully Pulpit.
 
If Reagan wins at all in November 1976 it's going to be by a much narrower margin than in 1980, which means that Congress will be much more Democratic than the one Reagan faced in 1981--indeed almost as Democratic as the 95th Congress (1977-79) of OTL [1] This means that much of OTL's "Reaganomics"--especially tax cuts on the scale of 1981--will not be enacted in 1977-81. (Tough presumably Reagan could get some deregulation done by executive action.)

[1] Remember that the 95th Congress of OTL accompanied a very narrow Carter victory. A very narrow Carter defeat probably isn't going to change the results of too many races. And in midterms the tendency is for the party controlling the White House to lose seats, so things will probably only get worse for Reagan in Congress after 1978.
 
Vietnam 2.0: Iran
Except they wouldn't be getting aid from the USSR, Khomeini called them 'the other Great Satan' , Iraq was an Soviet backed client state, as was Afghanistan. No external resupply.

2nd, unlike the Maddox incident, grabbing hostages and occupying the Embassy was about a pure Casus Belli one could ask for, and both D&R were outraged about that.

RR could plausibly get a real DoW from Congress over that.

Even the Armed Forces coming off the nadir from Vietnam, could still curbstomp the Iranian Military
 
And the soaring cost of oil would have insured that US economy would have crashed.

Iranian Oil went primarily to Europe, and production had plummeted already.
621px-Iran_Oil_Production.png

Production

OPEC, Non-OPEC, & World oil production, 1973–2004[10]

Non-OPEC
During the 1980s, reliance on Middle East production dwindled as commercial exploration developed major non-OPEC oilfields in Siberia, Alaska, the North Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico,[11] and the Soviet Union became the world's largest producer of oil.[12] Smaller non-OPEC producers including Brazil, Egypt, India, Malaysia, and Oman doubled their output between 1979 and 1985, to a total of 3 million barrels per day.[13]


USA
In April 1979, Jimmy Carter signed an executive order which was to remove price controls from petroleum products by October 1981, so that prices would be wholly determined by the free market. Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan signed an executive order on January 28, 1981, which enacted this reform immediately,[14] allowing the free market to adjust oil prices in the US.[15] This ended the withdrawal of old oil from the market and artificial scarcity, encouraging increased oil production.[citation needed] The US Oil Windfall profits tax was lowered in August 1981 and removed in 1988, ending disincentives to US oil producers. Additionally, Trans-Alaska Pipeline System began pumping oil in 1977. The Alaskan Prudhoe Bay Oil Field entered peak production, supplying 2 million bpd of crude oil in 1988, 25 percent of all U.S. oil production.[16]


North Sea
Phillips Petroleum discovered oil in the Chalk Group at Ekofisk, in Norwegian waters in the central North Sea.[17] Discoveries increased exponentially in the 1970s and 1980s, and new fields were developed throughout the continental shelf.
[18]

1979 was on the verge of a glut, as the US deregulated oil in 1979, RR would have done this sooner.

The World would do without Iranian Oil. As it was, Saudi Arabia had cut production by 8M bbl a day in vain, trying to keep Oil prices high, and gave up in 1985

1M bbl loss from Iran, that isn't that big of a threat.
 
He'd be a latter day Herbert Hoover. That is to say a stubborn California conservative who fails to tackle the poor economy while millions suffer. Carter was actually a fiscal conservative who was committed to a balanced budget and generally stonewalled Congress's liberal leadership. I don't think Reagan would govern very differently believe it or not. Except that he would try to implement voodoo economics, and run into a brick wall when Congress refuses to pass his tax cut. He would handle Iran similarly to Carter as well: cozy up to the Shah, encourage him to crack down on dissent, then let him into the country for cancer treatment. The hostage crisis still happens, Eagle Claw still fails, and Iran will refuse to release the hostages if they think they can get a better deal from Reagan's opponents. He'd be ranked as one of America's all time worst Presidents, and the Democrats are in power from 1981-1989 and possibly from 1989-1993.
 
. . production . .
621px-Iran_Oil_Production.png

Production

OPEC, Non-OPEC, & World oil production, 1973–2004[10]

These two graphs contradict each other. The top graph shows a drop of production from just shy of 6 million barrels a day around 1976 to about (?) 1.3 million in 1980.

The bottom graph shows a lesser decline of world production in the early ‘80s. And a decline of OPEC and Persian Gulf starting about the same time but bottoming out around 1985.
 

samcster94

Banned
He'd be a latter day Herbert Hoover. That is to say a stubborn California conservative who fails to tackle the poor economy while millions suffer. Carter was actually a fiscal conservative who was committed to a balanced budget and generally stonewalled Congress's liberal leadership. I don't think Reagan would govern very differently believe it or not. Except that he would try to implement voodoo economics, and run into a brick wall when Congress refuses to pass his tax cut. He would handle Iran similarly to Carter as well: cozy up to the Shah, encourage him to crack down on dissent, then let him into the country for cancer treatment. The hostage crisis still happens, Eagle Claw still fails, and Iran will refuse to release the hostages if they think they can get a better deal from Reagan's opponents. He'd be ranked as one of America's all time worst Presidents, and the Democrats are in power from 1981-1989 and possibly from 1989-1993.
So essentially inverted from OTL.
 

Bomster

Banned
He'd be a latter day Herbert Hoover. That is to say a stubborn California conservative who fails to tackle the poor economy while millions suffer. Carter was actually a fiscal conservative who was committed to a balanced budget and generally stonewalled Congress's liberal leadership. I don't think Reagan would govern very differently believe it or not. Except that he would try to implement voodoo economics, and run into a brick wall when Congress refuses to pass his tax cut. He would handle Iran similarly to Carter as well: cozy up to the Shah, encourage him to crack down on dissent, then let him into the country for cancer treatment. The hostage crisis still happens, Eagle Claw still fails, and Iran will refuse to release the hostages if they think they can get a better deal from Reagan's opponents. He'd be ranked as one of America's all time worst Presidents, and the Democrats are in power from 1981-1989 and possibly from 1989-1993.
Who could be the Democratic President from 1981-1989?
 
I honestly can't see Reagan winning the general election in 1976.

I actually agree Carter would probably beat him, but it might be almost as close as Carter vs. Ford in OTL. Reagan would of course have a divided party, but so did Ford. I can think of at least two states--TX and MS--which Ford narrowly lost and Reagan might well have won. As against that, there are several states Ford won that Reagan might have lost--ME, OR, IL, NJ, IA and maybe even MI (Ford carried it by five points but after all it was his home state). Note that in OR, IA, and ME the Eugene McCarthy third party vote was enough to give the state to Ford in OTL. IMO at least some liberals would be more hesitant to vote for McCarthy if his opponent was the "extremist" Reagan rather than the "moderate" Ford (I am talking here about how the candidates were perceived, not necessarily what they were....).

Reagan might in fact do better than Ford in the popular vote and still do worse in the electoral vote--because so much of Reagan's strength was in western states which Ford won in November anyway. Reagan might carry California much more decisively than Ford--but his extra votes there would all be "wasted" so far as the Electoral College was concerned. Also, Reagan would do better than Ford in some southern states that Carter won overwhelmingly in OTL--but Carter would still probably carry them, if more narrowly, against Reagan. So again Reagan's extra (popular) votes would be wasted.
 
Who could be the Democratic President from 1981-1989?

New York Governor Hugh Carey. Possibly with Lloyd Bentsen as VP. Many would say 1980 would be Kennedy's year, but he only ran in 1980 because he and other liberal Congressional leaders were upset with Carter's conservative governance. He didn't even want to be President anyway, that's why he flubbed his Roger Mudd interview.
 
Except they wouldn't be getting aid from the USSR, Khomeini called them 'the other Great Satan'

They wouldn't turn to the USSR even in extremis? Wasn't that the reason the US took no real action after its embassy was taken over (fear the Soviets would gain a key ally in a critical region)?

Iraq was an Soviet backed client state....

So was Syria, which favored Iran over its baathist rivals.
 

Bomster

Banned
New York Governor Hugh Carey. Possibly with Lloyd Bentsen as VP. Many would say 1980 would be Kennedy's year, but he only ran in 1980 because he and other liberal Congressional leaders were upset with Carter's conservative governance. He didn't even want to be President anyway, that's why he flubbed his Roger Mudd interview.
Why Hugh Carey?
 
Why Hugh Carey?

He was a prominent Democrat in this period, and speculation circulated around a potential run in 1976 and in 1980. He was a very successful Governor of New York who turned around the state's economy in the late 1970s. He probably would've made an effective President. Other than Carey, the Democrats don't really have anybody serious to run in 1980. Brown's candidacy would implode as it did in OTL, Scoop Jackson could get support from labor but his unpopularity with liberals would no doubt tank him. Mondale might run but without having been VP first he won't make much of an impression. Despite what Jeff Greenfield writes in his book, "Then Everything Changed," Hart won't get elected either as he is up for re-election to the Senate in 1980 and probably wouldn't risk losing his seat just to compete in a crowded Democratic primary. Ditto for John Glenn.
 

GI Jim

Banned
Only successful way I could see Reagan coming out of the 70s is if he manages a lightening and resolute war against Iran 1980. Displacing the leadership, restoring US prestige after Vietnam and then winning in Congress to get his economics passed in the early 80s. Otherwise due to the dems in the senate and congress, his economic reforms would be defeated.
 
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