I would be shocked, considering it's a timeline about her.
Trailblazing to Victory: The Ramifications of America's First Woman President
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I would be shocked, considering it's a timeline about her.
That's not a good reason to do things. Also, it's called Trailblazing to Victory, which has happened already as she won the election, and Ramifications of America's First Woman President, which will develop regardless of the length of her presidency.
Every presidency has its low points, doesn’t mean things will stay this way. Everyone thought Clinton was done after the 1994 midterms but he won re-election by nearly 10 points. Gerry can bounce back but we’ll see if she does.
This. I couldn’t have said it better. Anything is possible at this point with Gerry’s presidency. Heck I don’t even know if she’ll win re-election, we’ll see where things go and if it makes sense or not based on that.
It finally returns! A great update! Also interesting seeing what happens with the US allows Saddam to take Kuwait. The long term implications might be rather big... Ferraro has not had a good first year. Hopefully she can turn it around but this will be a rough term I fear. Still, if she wins reelection she probably will have solidified a left leaning supreme court.
Maybe, maybe not. We'll see where things go.
Thanks! Yeah he did but the media never reported on it during the 1996 campaign even though they knew about it so it remained outside of the public consciousness.
I'm not sure really how she gets along with other leaders although my gut wants to tell me that her and Thatcher have a rocky relationship due to ideological differences and the fact that Ferraro is a feminist (for the most part). They may both be able to relate to each being women trying join the "old boys club" but they come from different perspectives and I just feel like Thatcher wouldn't be particularly fond of Gerry. Maybe I could be wrong but that's just my feeling.
Addendum to Chapter 19: Rumblin' in the Bay
Addendum to Chapter 19: Rumblin’ in the Bay
As the Ferraro administration was embroiled in scandal, disaster would strike the San Francisco Bay Area on the afternoon of October 17. At 5:04pm, in the midst of evening rush hour, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake originating in the Santa Cruz Mountains shook the entire Bay Area for 15 seconds. While short, the earthquake would become one of the deadliest in California since the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Two sections of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed, claiming the lives of 5 drivers who were unlucky enough to be crushed by fallen sections of the bridge. Worse, however, would be the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland which had been packed with traffic at the moment the earthquake occurred. At least 50 people would be trapped in their cars under the rubble while 134 more were crushed by the upper deck of the freeway. Meanwhile in San Francisco several buildings in the Marina District, which had been built on reclaimed land following the 1906 Earthquake, collapsed claiming 9 lives as fires also broke out as a result of broken gas lines. Governor Deukmejian immediately declared a state of emergency in affected areas with President Ferraro also extending federal assistance to help deal with the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake. In total the quake killed 394 people, with 6,701 others left injured. It also resulted in slightly over $6 billion in damages and the complete replacement of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, with the new section opening to the public on Labor Day 2009 after years of delays and cost overruns.
The earthquake itself would not be worth mentioning if not for President Ferraro’s visit to Highland Hospital in Oakland with Governor Deukmejian on October 21 to visit some of those who had been injured in the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. One of those would be a 25 year-old Kamala Harris, who had just graduated with a J.D. from the UC Hastings College of Law that spring and had been trapped for 7 hours in her car before being rescued by emergency workers. President Ferraro made an impression on the future California Governor when she came to her bedside in a scene that Harris has told many times, including the following excerpt from her memoir:
All these men in black suits just walked in and stood in front of my bed and I turned to Maya and asked her “what in the world is going on?” Then I saw that unmistakable short blonde hair and I knew then what was happening, as President Ferraro with her thick Queens accent greeted me and asked how I was doing. I was speechless, I couldn’t believe the President had come to see me. Maya was also awestruck, she couldn’t believe it either. The only words that could come out of my mouth was “I’ve been better” and we both laughed as my legs, which were covered in casts, clearly showed I’d seen better days. Then Gerry asked me what I did for a living and I told her I had just gotten my law degree and was working to get admitted to the state bar so I could become an attorney. Her face then lit up and she said “ah, well us women lawyers gotta stick together” with a grin on her face as we both chuckled. She then told me of her own experience as a female attorney in the Queens’ D.A. office before taking my hand and asking me to make a promise. “Promise me you won’t let it get to you when someone tells you that you can’t do the job, that you aren’t good enough. You’re going to hear that a lot but if you work hard enough I can tell you that you’re gonna prove them wrong.” She then got up, said goodbye, and moved on to another injured survivor. I haven’t forgotten that moment since, it is etched into my brain and a constant source of strength and inspiration among many other things in my life as an example of what female leadership looks like.
"'Thanks, Gerry!' would become one of the few memes to originate in written publications in the pre-internet age, such as the National Review, as a line used by conservatives to blame President Geraldine Ferraro for anything and everything that went wrong during her presidency even if it she had nothing to do with it. It would soon be widely mocked in cartoon pages of the nation's major publications by liberal cartoonists, with everything from a burnt piece of toast to an above-ground swimming pool that had sprung a leak to a stubbed toe being blamed on the President. It's first recorded use was after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake when President Ferraro was blamed for the poor design of the Cypress Street Viaduct and the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and their resulting complete and partial collapses respectively." - Memes of the Ages by Frank Whitman
Yup, I don’t know who the 1989 World Series was between ITTL but it was neither of these teams.
Chapter 20: The 1989 Gubernatorial Elections
Chapter 20: The 1989 Gubernatorial Elections
“I would like to point out that my opponent has decided that it matters more to stand with extremist elements in his party than to stand against government intervention into the personal decisions of women. I am a father of two daughters and – heaven forbid – if they were raped I would not want the painful and difficult choice of whether to have an abortion be in the hands of politicians in Richmond. We have a tradition of freedom and individual liberty in Virginia and it is clear that someone who believes that abortion must be outlawed in all cases except if the mother’s life is at risk does not respect such a tradition.” – Douglas Wilder, October 17, 1989
“I would like to point out that my opponent has decided that it matters more to stand with extremist elements in his party than to stand against government intervention into the personal decisions of women. I am a father of two daughters and – heaven forbid – if they were raped I would not want the painful and difficult choice of whether to have an abortion be in the hands of politicians in Richmond. We have a tradition of freedom and individual liberty in Virginia and it is clear that someone who believes that abortion must be outlawed in all cases except if the mother’s life is at risk does not respect such a tradition.” – Douglas Wilder, October 17, 1989
As the first year of Ferraro’s administration unfolded there were two gubernatorial elections that were playing out in two Republican states on the East Coast: Virginia and New Jersey. Despite this, the close margin for Dole in New Jersey in 1988 and continued Democratic strength downballot – the latter of which Virginia shared – showed that neither race was solidly in the bag for Republican candidates. In fact, the opinion of the Supreme Court in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services released in June of 1989 in which a 5-4 majority overturned lower court decisions that struck down a Missouri law that restricted abortion access would open the door to further restrictions at the state level across the country. With Roe v. Wade narrowed abortion rights advocates moved on the offense and the decision would become an issue on the campaign trail in both Virginia and New Jersey as President Ferraro decried the ruling as a setback for women across America.
New Jersey would be in an interesting position at the start of 1989 with Gov. Thomas Kean resigning in order to take his seat in the United States Senate, leaving President Pro Tempore of the New Jersey Senate John Russo as Acting Governor which brought Democrats into control of the governorship once again for the first time in 7 years. It also had the potential to shake-up the race for the Democratic nomination as the campaign of Congressman Jim Florio, who had unsuccessfully run for governor in 1977 before becoming the nominee and losing to Kean in 1981, seemed to be in jeopardy with a potential challenge from Acting Governor Russo. This potential, however, would not be realized as despite rumors that Russo was considering a run the endorsements of Florio by many of the local county committees across the state as well as many prominent New Jersey Democrats seemed to confirm that the party establishment was firmly behind him and that Russo had a very slim chance of winning. Thus Florio would cruise to victory in the June primary and once again find himself as the Democratic nominee for governor. The race on the Republican side, however, would be much more interesting.
The three main contenders for the GOP nomination at the beginning were Congressman Jim Courter, General Assembly Speaker Chuck Hardwick, and Attorney General Cary Edwards. Courter was the favorite of social conservatives and evangelicals in the state, being an ardent foe of abortion and supporter of the pro-life movement, while both Hardwick and Edwards attempted to run on the record of former Governor Kean who had been able to use his popularity with New Jersey voters to get elected to the United States Senate the previous year. Edwards in particular would emphasize his close relationship with Senator Kean, having been Kean’s protégé in the General Assembly in the 1970s, then his chief legal counsel during his first term as governor, and finally as Attorney General of New Jersey since 1986. Even as he touted his achievements in overhauling the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and challenging New York in court for all of the medical waste and needles washing up on the shore of New Jersey’s beaches, his own wonkish personality that would manifest in the numbers and statistics he would rattle off on the campaign trail would cause him to struggle against his two more passionate opponents.
The race would be shaken up in early February, however, with the entrance of Christine Todd Whitman to the race. Formerly the President of the Board of Public Utilities, she had resigned once John Russo assumed the governorship and was now seeking to become New Jersey’s first female governor. A pro-choice Republican in a party that was increasingly turning into the right on the issue, abortion would immediately become a flashpoint in the race even before the Webster decision. She would also run on opposition to any tax increases and continuing Governor Kean’s work on welfare reform. In response both Hardwick and Courter were competing for the support of conservatives in the state with both heavily lobbying for the endorsement of the New Jersey branch of the Right to Life Organization to cement the support of increasingly powerful pro-life forces within the state. It seemed, however, that Courter was losing that battle as Hardwick was using his connections with officials within the state Right to Life Organization to bring himself close to clinching an endorsement. Things would turn around at the last minute, though, when Congressman Courter gave an impassioned defense of the sanctity of life at a campaign stop in Monmouth, blasting Christine Todd Whitman in particular for violating the rights of unborn children to have an equal chance at life like everyone else by supporting abortion rights. This would swing support to him and result in an endorsement by the state RLO, which marked the beginning of the end for the campaign of Speaker Hardwick as he failed to win the endorsement of the NRA which backed Edwards instead. His support would continue to diminish as many of his potential supporters moved to Courter, Edwards, and Whitman.
With Courter gathering momentum by mid-May it seemed that the nomination was his to lose as establishment Republicans remained split between Hardwick, Edwards, and Whitman. AG Edwards would attempt to appeal to mainstream conservatives in the state by coming out in support of restrictions on abortion to only cases of rape, incest, and if the life of the mother was at risk to place himself between Courter and Whitman on the issue even as Courter continued to lead in the race. Then three weeks before the primary Senator Kean weighed in and gave a full throttled endorsement of AG Edwards, calling him “the finest governor that New Jersey could ever have” and urging Republicans to support him as the party’s best chance to ensure that everything he did over the past eight years would not be undone by four years of Democratic rule. A turning point in the race had been reached as support for Cary Edwards would grow over the final three weeks of the campaign and he would clinch the nomination in the June 6th primary with 36% of the vote with Courter taking 29%, Whitman 20%, and Hardwick 9%.
As Webster turned abortion into a major issue in the race for Governor, Congressman Florio would spare no time in attacking Edwards for his support for abortion restrictions by stating that “no one has the right to infringe on the personal decisions of women” and that AG Edwards “would turn back the clock for women in the state of New Jersey.” Edwards would push back against the attacks by saying that he “wasn’t seeking to impose his views on others” but that it was important “to recognize the facts on the issue of abortion” before using statistics to make a seemingly dispassionate argument for abortion restrictions that satisfied neither pro-life supporters nor pro-choice voters who would be concerned about his position on the issue. Despite this setback, however, Edwards would constantly tout himself as the natural successor to Governor Kean’s style of governing and his own work on issues of pollution and reforming government bureaucracy that appealed to many who had supported Kean in both of his campaigns for governor and his 1988 Senate race. This would be underscored as Kean frequently appeared with Edwards on the campaign trail to make this very point, calling him a “fine example of a public servant” who reflects “what many New Jerseyans believe ought to be done to continue the state’s stellar record of economic growth while protecting the environment and ensuring quality education for our children.” Indeed, the specter of Kean loomed large on the race as even Congressman Florio would credit him with the economic growth of the past eight years while stressing that overdevelopment and pollution required the need of an activist government in order to be adequately addressed. He also promised not to raise the state income tax in the closing weeks of the election as polls continued to predict a close race in order to appeal to moderate suburbanites who would decide the election.
In spite of his efforts to ride on the tenure of Governor Kean, Cary Edwards would ultimately lose to Jim Florio by a little over 5 points as the New Jersey governorship remained in Democratic hands with the media crediting abortion as an important factor in the result. Indeed, polls in the closing days of the election showed that abortion remained a major issue and that many pro-choice voters were turned off by Edwards’ support for abortion restrictions even if they liked what he was saying on other issues.
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Incumbent Governor Jerry Baliles was widely popular in Virginia after having worked on improving the state’s transportation and education systems while pushing for economic development. As a result of his efforts to invest in infrastructure, jobs training and higher teacher salaries, and boosting international trade Virginia would have the highest per-capita income in the South and would see increasing tax revenue as a result of strong economic growth. Leaving the state in such a strong position after eight years of Democratic rule despite continuing to vote for Republicans for president, it didn’t seem unimaginable that Democrats would have an easy time holding on to the governorship for another four years as Virginia’s constitution prevented Baliles from running for another consecutive term.
The race for the Democratic nomination would not really be a race at all, as Lt. Governor Doug Wilder had secured the support of the Democratic establishment within the state and cruised to victory in the primary with little opposition. First elected to the State Senate in a 1969 special election, the first African-American to be elected to the Virginia legislature since Reconstruction, Wilder gained a liberal track record in his early days in the state senate as he supported efforts to help low-income residents of the state, back anti-discrimination legislation, and push for reforms to help juvenile criminals. However, he pivoted to the center over the course of the 1970s as he began to embrace support for stiffer prison sentences and became increasingly conservative on law and order issues. In 1985 he was narrowly elected Lt. Governor after going on the road to visit every county and city in the state, even as his 4 point margin of victory was much less than the double digit victories for Governor and Attorney General. Now he was hoping to make history not only as the first black governor of Virginia but as the first African-American to ever be elected the governor of a US state. Republicans seemed to be making that seem much more likely as their primary field developed.
Early contenders in the race were Congressman Stanford Parris and former Attorney General and 1981 gubernatorial nominee Marshall Coleman. The race would be shaken up in August of 1988, though, when Senator Paul Trible who had declined to seek re-election earlier in the year announced his own campaign for governor despite having cited wanting to spend more time with his family as a reason for not running for re-election to the United States Senate. Criticism was leveled against him that he had bowed out from his Senate race for fear of losing re-election Chuck Robb, an accusation that Trible refuted but nevertheless stuck as the primary progressed. Nevertheless he was considered the favorite for the nomination with establishment support and, as a Christian conservative, maintained support from social conservatives as well. That was, however, until the unexpected entrance of televangelist and 1988 Republican vice presidential nominee Pat Robertson into the race in early February 1989. Overnight the race was thrown into turmoil as Robertson maintained a fervent base of support among the evangelical community in the state despite blame for Dole’s loss the prior year being attributed to the choice of Robertson as his running mate. His network of supporters nationally would prove to be a source of financial support as well, as he immediately went on the airwaves to state that he was the only candidate in the race who would stand up for the family values that Virginians held dearly against liberal attempts to destroy them. Having won the Virginia primary a year before in his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for president, nobody doubted that Robertson could pull off a victory this time and dash Republican hopes of taking back the governorship.
With the race having shifted in the wake of Robertson’s entrance, all of his opponents would train their fire on the numerous controversies he had faced over the years, many rehashed from talking points that were used against him during the presidential primary a year prior. Despite this he would have the support of the Moral Majority as well as the Right to Life Organization, which rallied behind Robertson even as he, like his opponents, supported banning abortion in all cases except if the life of the mother was at risk. Robertson’s brash campaign style, however, would turn off many traditional Republicans in the state who sought a safer choice to take on Doug Wilder. Many such Republicans coalesced behind the campaign of Paul Trible, who had been able to gain the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce as well as NRA in addition to support from many local Republican politicians in the state. Despite being a Christian conservative he was much more soft spoken than Robertson and had proved that he knew how to win statewide in Virginia in a general election, something none of his opponent could claim. Electability, in fact, would soon become an issue in the race as Trible advertised himself as the best positioned to flip the governorship just as he had flipped a Senate seat in 1982. Unable to position himself as a foil to either Trible or Robertson, Marshall Coleman would drop out of the race by mid-April leaving Stanford Parris in third place for the nomination. He would not be a factor, however, as Robertson went on the offensive against Trible as an opportunist and a coward who was too afraid of losing to run for re-election to the Senate while Trible attacked Robertson as too extreme to win in Virginia while touting his own conservative record in an attempt to take support away from Robertson. On the night of the primary the results remained incredibly close but ultimately Trible would emerge victorious by roughly 5,000 votes as Robertson’s most recent foray into electoral politics again ended in failure.
There was little time for relief by Republicans, however, when the Webster decision landed and Wilder ended his early vacillations on his abortion decision by coming out as a support of a woman’s right to choose while also stressing his support for parental consent and notification which was a position held by a majority of Virginians. He would also attack Trible on the issue, pointing out that he was out of line with Virginians with his extreme position on abortion and saying that only he would protect the individual liberty that Virginian’s held dearly. Trible’s campaign would fail to respond to Wilder for several weeks, believing that abortion would not be an important issue in the race and sticking to talking points about maintaining low taxes and pushing for welfare reform. However when Wilder’s lead in the polls grew by the middle of August and he aired a powerful ad attacking Trible for wanting to put the decision of abortion in the hands of politicians and not individuals, the Trible campaign was forced to respond. He would call Wilder an “abortion extremist” citing his support for abortion in cases for sex-selection or repeated abortion as well as his own tepid support for parental consent in the past. Wilder would respond by saying that he did not support abortion in cases of sex-selection and that he was “100% in favor of parental consent” and would push for such as governor. It was at this point that the race turned increasingly nasty, as Trible painted Wilder as a “hardcore liberal” whose past attempts to aid juvenile criminal offenders showed him to be weak on the issue of crime. Wilder, meanwhile, would state his support for even stiffer prison sentences and further crackdowns on drug addicts while saying that Trible would undo the work that Governor Baliles had done to improve Virginia’s education system and would cut funding on infrastructure improvements. As election day neared Wilder would maintain a narrow but persistent lead in the polls and seemed close to making history, with enthusiastic support from black voters and many white suburbanites in the state hoping to show how far Virginia had come in the past twenty years as a beacon of an emerging “New South.” The final results, then, would be a shock to all those who hoped that a painful chapter of Virginia’s past would finally be turned over.
As the results came in it was clear that the historic nature of Wilder’s campaign had inspired strong turnout on both sides, however it was not enough to counter Republicans who were increasingly fired up to vote by the Ferraro presidency and lingering doubts by white voters linked to Wilder’s race which led to Trible’s narrow victory. Headlines stating “The Bradley Effect Strikes Again” circulated as yet again a black candidate who was polling in the lead narrowly failed to win an election. This would be further highlighted by the successful re-election of Democrat Mary Sue Terry as Attorney General and the election of car salesman Don Beyer as Lt. Governor. While his embrace of the abortion issue was cited as a key reason why the race was a close as it ended up being, it was widely believed that Wilder’s race had cost him the election. Nevertheless, it would not deter future black politicians from running for statewide office but merely serve as a reminder of the difficulties that African-Americans continued to face in gaining enough white support to win higher office.
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Addendum to Chapter 20: One Year Later
Addendum to Chapter 20: One Year Later
“I would like to welcome everyone back to ABC News’ coverage of the 1990 midterm elections. We are now able to make a key projection in the Senate race in the Commonwealth of Kentucky where we can now project that Governor Mitch McConnell will succeed Democratic Senator Walter Huddleston, who announced his retirement earlier this year. This marks the second pickup for Republicans tonight as we projected earlier that they would also win the Senate seat in Georgia formerly held by Secretary of Defense Nunn. Races in New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois remain too close to call at this time and we are still waiting for polls to close in some key states tonight in the South and West before we can get a better picture of how the night will unfold although it remains extremely unlikely that Democrats will lose control of the Senate. So far we have also projected Republican victories in a little over a dozen House seats currently held by Democrats – about 14 or so right now – with indications many key races are still too close to call and many others where the polls have yet to close. We cannot say yet if Republicans will be able to win the 50 seats they need to win control of the House for the first time in nearly forty years, as there has been some speculation about in the closing days of the campaign, but the results so far do not look good for President Ferraro and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.
There was cautious optimism in these past few days from sources close to Democratic leadership that the party would be able to stave off heavy losses as a result of a struggling economy, fallout from President Ferraro’s response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait last October, and tepid approval ratings for the President which stood at 42% as of the most recent Gallup poll. There was a sense that the President would be more of a liability than an asset for many incumbents in vulnerable seats in both houses of Congress as we’ve heard reports that many offers to hold a rally with the President were rebuffed by campaigns in districts and states that President Ferraro won just two years ago. Meanwhile both House Minority Leader Michel and Senate Minority Leader Dole have been confident that the GOP will make gains all across the country as they have called the Ferraro presidency a disaster for the country both domestically and internationally and believe that tonight will serve as a repudiation of her leadership and of the Democratic Party’s agenda. We will see if that is the case as more results come in.” – Peter Jennings, November 6, 1990
“I would like to welcome everyone back to ABC News’ coverage of the 1990 midterm elections. We are now able to make a key projection in the Senate race in the Commonwealth of Kentucky where we can now project that Governor Mitch McConnell will succeed Democratic Senator Walter Huddleston, who announced his retirement earlier this year. This marks the second pickup for Republicans tonight as we projected earlier that they would also win the Senate seat in Georgia formerly held by Secretary of Defense Nunn. Races in New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois remain too close to call at this time and we are still waiting for polls to close in some key states tonight in the South and West before we can get a better picture of how the night will unfold although it remains extremely unlikely that Democrats will lose control of the Senate. So far we have also projected Republican victories in a little over a dozen House seats currently held by Democrats – about 14 or so right now – with indications many key races are still too close to call and many others where the polls have yet to close. We cannot say yet if Republicans will be able to win the 50 seats they need to win control of the House for the first time in nearly forty years, as there has been some speculation about in the closing days of the campaign, but the results so far do not look good for President Ferraro and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.
There was cautious optimism in these past few days from sources close to Democratic leadership that the party would be able to stave off heavy losses as a result of a struggling economy, fallout from President Ferraro’s response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait last October, and tepid approval ratings for the President which stood at 42% as of the most recent Gallup poll. There was a sense that the President would be more of a liability than an asset for many incumbents in vulnerable seats in both houses of Congress as we’ve heard reports that many offers to hold a rally with the President were rebuffed by campaigns in districts and states that President Ferraro won just two years ago. Meanwhile both House Minority Leader Michel and Senate Minority Leader Dole have been confident that the GOP will make gains all across the country as they have called the Ferraro presidency a disaster for the country both domestically and internationally and believe that tonight will serve as a repudiation of her leadership and of the Democratic Party’s agenda. We will see if that is the case as more results come in.” – Peter Jennings, November 6, 1990
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