What if George W Bush picked John Danforth, not Dick Cheney, as his Vice-President?

John Danforth, former Missouri Senator, was reportedly recommended by Dick Cheney and the VP search committee to Bush to be his running mate. Bush however wanted Cheney and Cheney accepted, resulting in the end in the Bush/Cheney administration. What if Bush had picked Danforth instead? Danforth was a moderate, but acceptable to conservatives. He would ensure that Bush carried Missouri, though Bush won it IOTL even without Danforth. If Bush picked Danforth, how would it effect the 2000 election? Would it hurt him and lose him the election, given how close it was, or would it help him and give him more legitimacy? How would Danforth being Vice-President instead of Cheney effect Bush's presidency? Would there still be the Iraq War? How would the War on Terror be effected? How would this PoD alter US domestic politics? What if?
 
Iraq may be avoided and we wouldn't have Rumsfeld as SecDef.

Cheney was instrumental in getting Rumsfeld on as SecDef and had a pretty large hate boner for Saddam, as did Rumsfeld.

Also our Military Doctrine probably wouldn't be the crappy 'Rumsfeld Doctrine'.
 
I'm not so sure about that; after all, couldn't Bush Jr. have had some daddy issues which helped compel him to remove Saddam Hussein?

That's true,though without Rumsfeld as SecDef we may see an Iraq War that isn't so badly handled. Maybe Iraq is somewhat well off by 2008 and not full of insurgents as per OTL though I'm sure the Kurds would still be pushing for independence and there'd be issues between the Sunnis and Shiites.
 
The question here is who staffs the Bush administration. Cheney ran Bush's transistion. On a sub-cabinet level most of the appointments were selected by Cheney.

Cheney also had a unique political philosophy that had tremendous influence on how the administration acted in the first term. In Cheney's view the President could be restricted by no law and had no responsiblity to inform either Congress, the Courts, or the public at large about the decision making process. Cheney appointees pushed Bush in this direction-particularly at the Office of Legal Counsel.

Iraq probably still happens-given the likely presence of Wolfowitz-who became a Bush adviser on Cheney's advice long before Bush was looking for a running mate. But without Cheney the United States will adhere to the Geneva Conventions. You might not even have warrantless wiretapping without Cheney and Cheneyism.

Cheney also shaped the particulars of the Bush tax cuts and was instrumental in their passage.

Cheney pushed Bush in an even less environmentalist position than he was inclined at first to take.

A George W. Bush Presidency without Cheney's influence would almost be unrecognizable.
 
That's true,though without Rumsfeld as SecDef we may see an Iraq War that isn't so badly handled. Maybe Iraq is somewhat well off by 2008 and not full of insurgents . . .
hindsight, the mistake of disbanding the Iraqi army.

And didn't we try to run the whole occupation on the cheap?
 
Most likely, I think.

The question is, how much influence does Cheney exert on foreign policy? Is he powerful enough to move the US towards war with Iraq? If so, how does Cheney manage such a conflict in comparison to Rumsfeld?
Before picking Rumsfeld, Bush was stuck between two candidates, Dan Coats and Tom Ridge. It's possible Bush here would pick one of those, probably his friend Ridge, over Cheney without his influence.
 
Before picking Rumsfeld, Bush was stuck between two candidates, Dan Coats and Tom Ridge. It's possible Bush here would pick one of those, probably his friend Ridge, over Cheney without his influence.

The thing is, having Danforth & Ridge around instead of Cheney & Rumsfeld completely changes the tone of the entire Bush administration and likely leads us to one that's much closer to Bush's rhetoric on foreign policy during the campaign. I mean, 9/11 likely still happens, but I can honestly see a much more sane response to everything from there. There's even a non-zero chance we don't end up in Iraq. And hey, there are worse things than Tom Ridge, two-term SoD as nominee in 2008. :)
 
hindsight, the mistake of disbanding the Iraqi army.

And didn't we try to run the whole occupation on the cheap?



Yes,the idea of the Rumsfeld Doctrine was basically to just use the minimum amount of soldiers necessary. Also I forgot about De-Baathification.

If we avoid both of these,then also the insurgents will lack a lot of the leaders they had as ISIS reportedly has a lot of former Ba'athists in it's higher up positions. We kinda just went with the idea of 'If they're loyal to Saddam then they're the bad guys' while ignoring the fact that some of these people were not there to commit crimes but could've been doing it for a paycheck,patriotism,etc.
 
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