The Perot Presidency

POD: Perot doesn't drop out and back into the 1992 race, maintaining his strong momentum and losing by a narrow margin. Runs again in 1996, with the same advantage of federal funding (which he qualified by his 1992 performance, even in OTL) but without the stigma in OTL attached to him after his self-sabotaged 1992 run. Thus with popular support and proper funding (and four years for people to adapt to the idea of a credible third party candidate) Henry Ross Perot wins the 1996 election.

What is his presidency like and how does it affect world events and the state of the nation?
 
If Perot didn't drop out, it's very likely he could've played spoiler to the degree of no one gets 270 electoral votes.

Then H.W. Bush gets re-elected because the House is Republican, even though he'd finish 3rd in such a contest surely. :p
 
POD: Perot doesn't drop out and back into the 1992 race, maintaining his strong momentum and losing by a narrow margin. Runs again in 1996, with the same advantage of federal funding (which he qualified by his 1992 performance, even in OTL) but without the stigma in OTL attached to him after his self-sabotaged 1992 run. Thus with popular support and proper funding (and four years for people to adapt to the idea of a credible third party candidate) Henry Ross Perot wins the 1996 election.

What is his presidency like and how does it affect world events and the state of the nation?

Perot's best chance to win was in 1992, not 1996 when the economy was booming and the incumbent was popular.
 
If Perot didn't drop out, it's very likely he could've played spoiler to the degree of no one gets 270 electoral votes.

Then H.W. Bush gets re-elected because the House is Republican, even though he'd finish 3rd in such a contest surely.

The House was actually controlled by the Democrats in 92', the Republicans didn't get control of it until 1994.

So we would have had a Bill Clinton presidency after all.
 
The House was actually controlled by the Democrats in 92', the Republicans didn't get control of it until 1994.

So we would have had a Bill Clinton presidency after all.

My mistake. Still, even if Perot doesn't win in 96, we could see a stronger, more established Reform Party as a viable third alternative. Not enough to win in 96, but they'd elect some Reprenatives, Senators and local officals.

Picture Jesse Ventura getting the nomination in 2000 for President, now -that- would be interesting.
 
The House was actually controlled by the Democrats in 92', the Republicans didn't get control of it until 1994.

So we would have had a Bill Clinton presidency after all.

I think being voted in by the House, as opposed to winning a very slight plurality as in OTL, might have an interesting effect on the early Clinton Presidency.
 
Nah, no one could raise a moral ruckus over it, he would've gotten the comparative majority of the popular and electoral vote.
 
Yes but what kind of stuff would be different if Perot won? I know politics would be different, but how would policy be driven in a Perot presidency?
 
Yes but what kind of stuff would be different if Perot won? I know politics would be different, but how would policy be driven in a Perot presidency?

Well first we're hashing out a scenario where he could get elected. That would seem to be a first step.

But to your question anyways, Perot did campaign on balancing the federal budget, integrating new technologies in the government, anti-gun control, pro-choice, and stopping the import of drugs into the country. In essence, with a bit of a Texas twist, he wanted to run the country like he ran his business. Though that's not a bad thing.
 
Yes but what kind of stuff would be different if Perot won? I know politics would be different, but how would policy be driven in a Perot presidency?

here's what wiki has to say on that

In 1982, he was called upon again by Clements to help improve the quality of the states' public education, and ended up leading the effort ("Select Committee on Education") to reform the school system, which resulted in major legislative changes. The best known of Perot's proposals which were passed into law was the "No Pass, No Play" rule, under which it was required that students have passing grades in order to participate in any school-sponsored extracurricular activities. The intent was to prevent high school sports from being the focus of the school's funding, and to emphasize the importance of education for the students who participated in sports. Another key reform measure was a call for teacher competency testing, which was strongly opposed by the teachers unions in Texas.

Perot became heavily involved in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. He believed that hundreds of American servicemen were left behind in Southeast Asia at the end of the U.S. involvement in the war, and that government officials were covering up POW/MIA investigations in order to not reveal a drug smuggling operation used to finance a secret war in Laos. Perot engaged in unauthorized back-channel discussions with Vietnamese officials in the late 1980s, which led to fractured relations between Perot and the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In 1990, Perot reached agreement with Vietnam's Foreign Ministry to become its business agent in the event diplomatic relations were normalized. Perot also launched private investigations of, and attacks upon, U.S. Department of Defense official Richard Armitage.

Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing in the early 1990s Ross Perot began speaking out about what he described as the failings of the United States government. Perot asserted that the United States "had grown arrogant and complacent after the War (World War II)" and was no longer the world's greatest nation. Instead of looking into what was to come, he argued, America was "daydreaming of our past while the rest of the world was building its future." He said:
Go to Rome, go to Paris, go to London. Those cities are centuries old. They're thriving. They're clean. They work. Our oldest cities are brand new compared to them and yet… go to New York, drive through downtown Washington, go to Detroit, go to Philadelphia. What's wrong with us?


With such declared policies as balancing the federal budget, firm pro-choice stance, expansion of the war on drugs, ending outsourcing of jobs, opposition to gun control, belief in protectionism on trade, his support of the Environmental Protection Agency and enacting electronic direct democracy via "electronic town halls,"

In July, while Perot was pondering whether to run for office, his supporters established a campaign organization United We Stand America. Perot was late in making formal policy proposals, but most of what he did call for were intended to reduce the deficit. He wanted a gasoline tax increase and some cutbacks of Social Security.

Based on his performance in the popular vote in 1992, Perot was entitled to receive federal election funding for 1996. Perot remained in the public eye after the election and championed opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), urging voters to listen for the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south to Mexico should NAFTA be ratified.
 
Yes but what kind of stuff would be different if Perot won? I know politics would be different, but how would policy be driven in a Perot presidency?

The President is from a different party, and he has nothing to offer members of Congress. They see him as a one term wonder, and they're not going to go out of their way to back him.

Essentially he would be useless (barring a veto) and Democrats and Republicans would hash it out themselves, ignoring Perot.

That said, the fact that Perot got elected would naturally swing politics in a progressive/populist direction (see Perot's strongest states: they're all in the Northern progressive belt) as both parties competed to get Perot voters for the '94 midterms (IOTL Contract With America Republicans won that battle, as well picking up Southern Democrat seats due to retirements and demographic changes, ITTL that could be different).
 
I don't see any way Perot wins in 96 over Clinton, who was very popular, but... let's say, for argument's sake, he does... He inherits a good economy. Maybe his policies help him stave off the dotcom burst just a bit. We're looking at the rebirth of a Liberal Republican agenda, a true third party, even moreso as the Republicans counter him to the right, going slightly harder than `compassionate conservatism' in 2000 (not Buchanan, but someone slightly between him and GW Bush), and the Dems trying their hand with Gore or a more liberal Senator (Harkin? Kerrey? Feingold?) in 96. Perot wins in 2000. Pushes the two traditional parties even more to the sides as he cuts a centrist swath through Washington - you start to see some Reps and Sens changing their affiliation to Reform or Independent (whatever he's calling himself).

Would be interesting to see how he handles intelligence... could 9/11 be butterflied away? If so, what do the 00s look like?
 

wormyguy

Banned
Perhaps the most promenient lasting effect of a 2-term Perot presidency is that from that point on the GOP will no longer be able to nominate a viable candidate for president, and will eventually disappear from the political scene. Ironically, Democrats might seize upon the moral conservatism that the Republicans did in OTL, in order to broaden their appeal against Perot, especially among religious Hispanics and economically liberal southerners, so that the two large American political parties are the economically conservative but socially liberal Reform Party, and the economically liberal but socially conservative Democratic Party.
 
Perhaps the most promenient lasting effect of a 2-term Perot presidency is that from that point on the GOP will no longer be able to nominate a viable candidate for president, and will eventually disappear from the political scene. Ironically, Democrats might seize upon the moral conservatism that the Republicans did in OTL, in order to broaden their appeal against Perot, especially among religious Hispanics and economically liberal southerners, so that the two large American political parties are the economically conservative but socially liberal Reform Party, and the economically liberal but socially conservative Democratic Party.

the Reform party would be socially Libertarian, there's a difference, you'd have a hand full of Liberal Dems fighting for Social change and equality, while most of the Dems are fighting against it, the Reformers are at best indifferent, feeling that it isn't governments job to do these things, or against it because the folks back home wouldn't like it.
 

wormyguy

Banned
the Reform party would be socially Libertarian, there's a difference, you'd have a hand full of Liberal Dems fighting for Social change and equality, while most of the Dems are fighting against it, the Reformers are at best indifferent, feeling that it isn't governments job to do these things, or against it because the folks back home wouldn't like it.

If I understand you correctly, by "socially liberal" I'm referring to their more progressive views about issues such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research etc. Issues such as universal health care and other new or existing entitlements I'm lumping in with "economically conservative."
 
If I understand you correctly, by "socially liberal" I'm referring to their more progressive views about issues such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research etc. Issues such as universal health care and other new or existing entitlements I'm lumping in with "economically conservative."

yes thats right.
 
Insomnia Induced Bump

This topic came to mind last night when I couldn't sleep...

I read in Wikipedia (yah, I've heard it before...) that Ross Perot was actually leading in the polls in June. Yeah, what people say and what they actually do in the ballot box don't necessarily mix, but still if something terrible happened to Clinton like a scandal that prompts Perot to stay in the race.... if Perot won every state that OTL gave him 20% of the vote, he'd win the election with 283 EVs.

Remember, it's winner-takes-all and most of the biggest states are actually worth little. It looks like a clear mandate, but is actually a squeaker. Imagine the 2000 Florida drama hitting a dozen different states!

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Results: NAFTA is defeated at least for a few years. In 1995, the Balanced Budget Amendment passed in the House and failed in the Senate by only 2 votes. Could it have passed in the States with the intense support of Perot? Could the Line-Item-Veto survive to the present day?

Even as a one-term-wonder these results would have major impact on the 1990s and 2000s.
 
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