What are some political PODs that have many potential butterflies, but are underused? I'm going to say John Turner winning the 1988 Election, it's a POD with many butterflies, but you don't really see people use it or even talk about it much.
Underused Political PODs
- Thread starter Hubert Humphrey Fan 1968
- Start date
Churchill Wins in 1945 but forms a more centralist Government with many of his cross party war cabinat ministers and focuses on recovering from the war as quickly as possible
People act as if Watergate was a foregone conclusion to happen when it did. But what if the break-in is never discovered because the security guard didn’t put tape on the door, and at the very least, Nixon gets to ride out his second term with Watergate, or whatever they call it, bubbling in the background like a mild annoyance?
Even if it is discovered the same time it was OTL, Nixon reacting better then he did would change things drastically.
Ike opts for Margaret Chase Smith as his 1952 running mate. Sure, the troglodytes won't care for it, but no way they'd go for Stevenson or try a third party run given Ike's immense popularity. Imagine Smith debating Kennedy in 1960...OK, she's considerably older but she knows all about Kennedy's past. In fact, there might not even be debates. Then I'd bet on President Smith on 20 Jan 1961, with Richard Nixon as Sec State. We're talking butterflies the size of B-52s here...
For a moment, I thought the thread title was "Overused PODs". In the case of underused, I guess there's not enough PODs which are not related to the US Civil War or WW2.
You mean by not covering it up and cooperating with the investigation (because as I recall, Nixon himself had nothing to do with the initial break-in; it was the cover-up that got him in trouble.) At that point, Nixon is just remembered as a guy who opened up China, was really popular, and had a total shithead for a VP, and this may even prevent a lot of the backlash against the government and programs like the New Deal and Great Society (or at least tone them down.)
"Churchill wins" POD's are actually surprisingly common given that the election was not at all close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945
Henry Campbell-Bannerman lives longer. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/FwP7kGDOQws/wWtx2MYKF4wJ
Whilst it is sometimes talked about, and I have ideas for using it in a timeline, I don't think I have seen a timeline based on a successful Operation Long Jump (if that counts as a political PoD). The potential political butterflies this could set off for all three countries, especially during the early stages of the Cold War, are quite significant.
I'm not so sure that Lieberman hurt--the Democrats did very strongly in areas of southern Florida with large numbers of Jewish voters. Gore-Lieberman did better in Broward County in 2000 than any other Democratic presidential ticket in modern times; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broward_County,_Florida and the same is true of Palm Beach County, despite the notorious butterfly ballots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Beach_County,_Florida Without Lieberman, Bush might have won Florida in a more clear-cut way. And I doubt that Kerry or Bayh would have helped Gore--MA was too "blue" and IN too "red" for a running mate to make a difference. Gore-Graham OTOH might have been enough to assure the ticket FL and therefore the White House.
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George Brown beats Wilson and become PM in 64, means a closer realtionship with Europe and most likely joining ECC rather earlier, also possible token troops in South Vietnam and probably a more secure Labour party has Brown was a better campaigner than Wilson would have pushed through a few more radical measures and for example avoided Pound in Pocket disaster by devauling while first coming into office and blaming a weakened Tory party.
On that note any and every Bush/Gore POD that involves New Hampshire, including and especially Gore picks Jeanne Shaheen as his running mate or simply -- because like HHH in '68, Gore made a storming comeback in various places in the last weeks of the race -- a large ad buy in NH that was mooted but shot down within his campaign team. In New Hampshire a few thousand Nader voters (their sum total there) really were more than the Bush margin of victory. Shift just a little and two very interesting things happen. One is that Gore wins 271-267 (ironically the same margin that propelled Bush by winning both FL and NH), the other is that the GOP raises holy hell about supposed irregularities in the New Mexico vote and The Hunting of the President kicks into really high gear, which could either cause an earlier fundamental crisis in the POTUS-Congress relationship than the Obama-Trump arc we have IOTL or cause the GOP to totally overplay their hand with moderates or both.