Trailblazing to Victory: The Ramifications of America's First Woman President
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Bookmark1995
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You have earned a good subscribe.
Reading this had made me breathless. I can't wait for more.
Reading this had made me breathless. I can't wait for more.
Well I think even in the 80's in local elections the Democratic Party had the advantage. So in that context it definitely would be.
And not to be that guy but being a woman (and that too a feminist Northeasterner) Ferraro would lose even committed White Southern Democrats so the margin works out.
Though I would personally increase it to around 11% but that's just personal preference.
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Bookmark1995
Banned
Could Trafi form his own 3rd party.I love the Traficant aspect. I think @Gentleman Biaggi will agree.
Decision '88 (Part 6)
Decision ’88 (Part 6)
12:00am EST
Tom Brokaw: “Hello again. As the clock strikes midnight we still do not know who the next President of the United States will be in the closest election in nearly thirty years. Bob Dole and Geraldine Ferraro are locked in a close fight this evening to reach 270 Electoral Votes, the number needed to be elected president. So far we have seen Ferraro win key victories in the important battleground states of Pennsylvania and Illinois, states that were absolutely necessary for her to have any shot of becoming America’s first woman president. Dole has held the Republican base in the South and across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West. However, he faces close races across the industrial Midwest and in the Northeast where this election will most likely be determined along with the state of California, the biggest battleground tonight. There’s truly no way to know who will win at this hour and if the race is close enough in several important states we might not even know who the winner is tonight.
Now, with all polls closed across the country we can make two more late projections. Way up to the North just off our set is the state of Alaska…”
Tom Brokaw: “…where we can project that Bob Dole will be the winner of the state and its 3 Electoral Votes. Might have had more but those two whales left the state.”
Tom Brokaw: “So Bob Dole wins the state of Alaska tonight, no surprise there.
Also in Hawaii…”
Tom Brokaw: “…we can project that Hawaii and its 4 Electoral Votes will go for Geraldine Ferraro, not a shock here in one of the most liberal states in the nation.”
Tom Brokaw: “And the state of Hawaii going for Ferraro tonight, an expected win for her but nevertheless one that matters with the election as close as it is.
And in the Electoral Vote total…”
Tom Brokaw: “…Sen. Bob Dole now stands at 212 Electoral Votes, only 58 away from the 270 he needs to win the election, and Geraldine Ferraro is now up to 175 Electoral Votes, less than 100 away from 270.
If we look at the popular vote…”
Now there are some fascinating races going on around the country in those states behind me that are blanks. Lets start with the state of New Jersey…”
Tom Brokaw: “…with a close presidential race, 91% of the vote is in and – look at that – about 858 votes separating Ferraro and Dole. In Michigan…”
Tom Brokaw: “…where 64% of the vote has been counted – look at that – just a few votes separating them. In South Dakota…”
Tom Brokaw: “…the great state of South Dakota, the land of infinite variety, and once again Dole and Ferraro are separated by just a few hundred votes with 44% reported so far, although not as many people there in South Dakota. And in Missouri…”
Tom Brokaw: “…88% of the vote has been cast and they are only separated by about 44,000 votes out of 1.7 million that is in at this time.
Still waiting for votes in some big states – Washington and California – and this election could very well come down to the state of California. No less astute of a political observer than Richard Nixon said earlier this year that it would come down to California and we’d be left with one of those cliffhangers. At this hour we can’t rule that out as many states still remain way too close to call.
Now Garrick Utley has an update for us in one of the closest Senate race we're watching tonight and a projection in another key race.”
Garrick Utley: “Yes, in the state of Connecticut where incumbent Republican Lowell Weicker is in a battle for his political life against Connecticut AG Joseph Lieberman as we’ve been seeing the lead go back and forth between these men for some time in what has turned into the tightest Senate contest this evening. As it stands right now…”
Garrick Utley: “…with 95% of the vote in Sen. Weicker currently holds on to a small lead of about 2,200 votes but it’s still way too close for us to call and we could end up with a recount if the race ends up being close enough once all of the results are in, leaving it unresolved for many days.
We also have a projection to make in the Senate race in the state of Wisconsin where the Democrat Herbert Kohl, who was the former president of the Kohl’s chain of department stores which bears his family’s name and – if you might remember – purchased the Milwaukee Bucks three years ago to keep the team in the city, faced a competitive race against the Republican Susan Engeleiter – the current Minority Leader of the Wisconsin Senate – to replace retiring Senator William Proxmire. Mr. Kohl positioned himself as a moderate populist who would bring his business experience to Washington and clean up the corruption there while Ms. Engeleiter hoped to capitalize on Ferraro’s candidacy which has energized many women across the country despite being a Republican. Well…”
Garrick Utley: “…we can project that Herbert Kohl will be elected as the next United States Senator from Wisconsin, defeating Susan Engeleiter and keeping this seat in Democratic hands. This does not change the situation as it currently stands, no net gains in the Senate for either party. However, there are also still outstanding and competitive races in Nevada, California, Washington, and a possible upset in Wyoming that have yet to be projected so far tonight but Democrats will be happy to have held their seat in Wisconsin.”
12:11am EST
Tom Brokaw: “We have a late projection to make at this time all the way up the Pacific Northwest…”
Tom Brokaw: “…where we can project that Washington and its 10 Electoral Votes will be going to Geraldine Ferraro tonight, an important victory for her in the Evergreen State which, like its neighbor to the South, hasn’t gone Democratic for the past five elections but has now been picked up by Geraldine Ferraro"
Tom Brokaw: “Now we can see the Pacific Northwest awash in red tonight, with Gerry Ferraro running strong there as this contentious election continues.
Adding that to the Electoral Vote count…”
Tom Brokaw: “…we can see that Sen. Bob Dole continues to hold 212 Electoral Votes while Geraldine Ferraro is up to 185, slowly but surely clawing her way back into contention in the Electoral College at this hour even as the national popular vote remains quite close.
We’ve also now been told that the order out there delaying the reporting of votes from California has been vacated so we should get returns from there relatively soon.”
12:20am EST
Tom Brokaw: “NBC’s Connie Chung has been busy learning more about how voters are voting in this election, Connie what have you got for us?”
Connie Chung: “I want to talk about Hispanic voters, a relatively small group – about 3% of the electorate according to our exit poll – but important in key battleground states like California and New Mexico. Now, we have this image of Hispanic voters as being first or second generation immigrants from Mexico or Central America working minimum wage, manual labor jobs near the border but this group is much more diverse than that. There are Cuban-Americans in southern Florida – many of them middle-income – Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in places like here in New York or Chicago – and they do not vote uniformly as a group. Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans tend to be more Democratic leaning while Cuban-Americans have been trending toward the Republicans in recent years.
During this campaign both Bob Dole and Geraldine Ferraro have been attempting to appeal to Hispanic voters especially as they try to win the crucial battleground state of California. Ferraro has been emphasizing her status as a second-generation immigrant, her Catholic faith, and her belief in the American Dream in order to try to appeal to this group while Bob Dole has mostly been focusing on pocketbook issue relevant to the Hispanic community as well as touting his support for the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed a few years back that provided a path for citizenship for several million illegal immigrants, most of them Hispanic, who had arrived before 1982. Well, lets take a look at the numbers to see how the Hispanic vote broke down…”
Connie Chung: “…and if we look at the figures we can see that Geraldine Ferraro overwhelming won the Hispanic vote, 71% to 29% for Bob Dole, which could be important as we watch the results coming in from California and New Mexico this evening. She has done even better among this group than Walter Mondale four years ago or Jimmy Carter in 1980 and it seems her focus on her immigrant roots and faith has helped her a lot with this group.”
Tom Brokaw: “Connie, speaking of New Mexico we can now make a projection there at this time…”
Tom Brokaw: “…and we project that Geraldine Ferraro will be the winner of New Mexico and its 5 Electoral Votes. This was a state that Bob Dole’s campaign thought they had an outside chance of winning but it seems that chance was fleeting as the state has voted for the Democrats this evening both for president and in the Senate…”
Tom Brokaw: “…a good sign for Geraldine Ferraro as she picks up a state in the Southwest.
Turning to the Electoral Vote…”
Tom Brokaw: “…Dole is at 212 Votes while Geraldine Ferraro is now up to 190 Votes but many key states still cannot be projected at this time.”
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12:34am EST
Tom Brokaw: “So, Garrick Utley, I’ve heard you have a projection for us in that very close Senate race in the state of Connecticut that we’ve been watching all night.”
Garrick Utley: “Yes, Tom, almost all of the votes have reported in Connecticut at this time, save absentee ballots which will be counted within the next few days, and we can now make a projection in this race between the incumbent Republican Lowell Weicker and his Democratic opponent Joseph Lieberman.”
Garrick Utley: “With 99% of the votes counted we can project that Lowell Weicker will be re-elected to a third term in the United States Senate, defeating Connecticut AG Joseph Lieberman. Lowell Weicker has consistently been one of the most liberal voices within the Republican caucus and he’ll continue to be for at least another six years, avoiding an upset loss to Mr. Lieberman. Now, I don’t know if Democrats would be disappointed or not with this loss as Weicker has consistently voted more in line with the Democrats than with his own party while Lieberman had the potential to be a maverick if he had been elected tonight.”
Garrick Utley: “And as you can see only 7,000 votes separate Mr. Weicker and Mr. Lieberman but our analysts are confident that Sen. Weicker’s margin is large enough not to be overturned when all absentee ballots are counted, of which they are estimated to be about 60,000 or so. Now, Connecticut automatically holds a recount if the margin is less than .5% of the vote and if Mr. Weicker and Mr. Lieberman are within 2,000 votes of each other which may very well end up being the case in this race. However, it is extremely unlikely that it would change the results of the election unless only a few hundred votes separates both men. Nevertheless, we shouldn't expect anything less from a race as dramatic and closely contested as this one.”
12:41am EST
Tom Brokaw: “And we have another state to call, this time in the Rocky Mountain West where Bob Dole has been doing quite well this evening.”
Tom Brokaw: “NBC News can project that Sen. Bob Dole will be the winner of Colorado and the 8 Electoral Votes in Colorado tonight. Colorado has always been a solid state for the Republicans and while it became a late battleground in this election Bob Dole has held on to the state for the Republicans, right next door to his home state of Kansas."
Tom Brokaw: "And the West becomes just a bit bluer as Colorado lights up on our map.
In the Electoral Vote…”
Tom Brokaw: “…Sen. Dole is now up to 220 Votes, only 50 away from the 270 needed to win, while Geraldine Ferraro has 190 votes and 80 away from 270. This is shaping up to be a real nailbiter of an election, as shown with the popular vote…”
Tom Brokaw: “…where two-thirds of the votes cast have now been reported and Dole and Ferraro extremely close to each other in a basically a flat tie with only 560,000 votes between them out of 62 million that have been counted so far. And that’s without most of the state of California reporting which could certainly end up changing that margin by the end of the night.
We also want show you where the race stands in several key states that have yet to be called. First we go to the extremely important state of California…”
Tom Brokaw: “…where 5% of the vote has now reported and Dole is currently ahead by 6 points but too little is in so not much can be said about how this state will shape up as more votes come in. In the small state of Maine…”
Tom Brokaw: “….a traditionally Republican state and with 93% of the vote counted Bob Dole is barely leading by only about 10,000 votes – almost a tie between him and Ferraro – and too close for us to call at this time. Maine is also the only state to allocate two of its Electoral Votes to the statewide winner and the rest to the winner in each congressional district and we have the potential to see a split tonight for the first time since this system was adopted in the late 1960s. In Montana…”
Tom Brokaw: “…a state hit hard by the slump in agriculture and the race is on a knife’s edge, with 26% of the vote counted Dole is only leading by about 700 votes over Geraldine Ferraro. Moving next door to South Dakota…”
Tom Brokaw: “…another state hit hard by the slump in agriculture that Dole is hoping to keep in Republican hands tonight and, once again, the race remains extremely close with 57% of the vote reporting and again, Dole leads Ferraro by just a little more than 700 votes. Finally in Ohio…”
Tom Brokaw: “…a state where Ferraro is hoping John Glenn can pull out a victory for her and so far, Dole is leading by 9,000 or so votes with 92% of the vote in at this time. I think there’s no doubt that this election will come down to the results in a handful of states where the vote, right now, is either too early to make a projection or too close to make a projection.”
12:49am EST
Tom Brokaw: “John Chancellor, it’s looking like both Dole and Ferraro still have paths to victory tonight as we continue to wait for votes to come in from these key states in the industrial Midwest and West. I think we’ll end up being here for a few more hours.”
John Chancellor: “That certainly seems to be the case this evening but really, I don’t think the polls indicated anything other than a very tight race what with how much they were moving up and down over the fall campaign. It really reminds me of ’76 when Jimmy Carter wasn’t declared the victor until after 3:00am in the morning. Now, of course, we have exit polls available to us to use in conjunction with actual returns but it seems for this one we’ll have to wait until practically every vote is counted before we’ll know who the next president will be.
Now, Bob Dole continues to have the clearest path to 270 right now just looking at what states are yet to be called. I’ve done some of the math here - he’s already up to 220 Electoral Votes and if he were to win California with its 47 Electoral Votes that’d put him up to 267, just 3 away from winning this election. Then all he would need to do is win any one of the other states that we still haven’t been able to project and he’d be elected the next President of the United States. For Ferraro it's much more difficult and she would almost certainly have to win California and then probably win both Missouri and Michigan as well as one other state in order to get above 270. This isn’t far from impossible and, in fact, polls in the closing days of the campaign had her up in California although some of those were taken before John Zaccaro’s indictment dropped and there was a bit of narrowing after that so it’s still unclear which way it will go.
I think it’s clear, though, that you’d rather be Bob Dole right now than Gerry Ferraro just looking at who has the easier way of getting to 270. I imagine, though, that Bob Dole is probably nervous with all of these extremely narrow leads, I mean just look at how many states he has narrow leads in - I’m counting about six right now – and there’s enough votes outstanding that Ferraro could theoretically win any one of them, maybe even several, and that would really complicate things for Dole if he can’t win California. We’ll just have to see what happens as more votes come in.”
Tom Brokaw: “Yes, this election is going to come down to the wire in a number of states and there’s still many more votes to count before we can get a clearer idea who’s going to pull this one out.”
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Bookmark1995
Banned
I think California is really in Ferraro's bag. Bush Sr. only barely won that state. Since Ferraro is not nearly as weak as Dukakis, she can definitely succeed there. Not to mention at lot of California's really disliking Pat Robertson.
Don't forget that's not the final results but with only some votes in so it won't reflect the final margin, which I have at about 15% which seems about right to me.
I'm not going to mince my words: Dole's fucked.
I now realize that there were still reputable liberal Republicans in the Senate like Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood that Ferraro can woo to support her mostly liberal policies from here on. And with some skillful maneuvering, she may even get many Southern Democrats to buck for some of her legislative agenda, like in universal health care, since ITTL the idea that New Deal liberalism is a failure won't happen and will thus prevent or stymie the rise of the DLC.
I wonder if it could go 269-269. That would still mean Ferraro being elected as I guess Democrats have still a majority of state delegations in the House.