What If Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination in 2008?

Hillary wins

Hillary picks Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio as her running mate. McCain still picks Palin as his running mate, believing he needs a "game-changer" in such a bad political environment for Republicans. Clinton-Strickland defeats McCain-Palin in the November election, winning 1-2% more of the popular vote than Obama-Biden actually did in OTL but not carrying North Carolina or Indiana.
 
Regarding the different choice for McCain's VP. I think if it hadn't been Palin, he might have done better, not won, but done better. Everyone i know was horrified by Palin and many voted for Obama simply to avoid her.
 
She's nearly certain to win. A different glass ceiling is broken in January 2009, healthcare reform is different somehow (I'm not the man to ask for specifics) and Birtherism becomes a debate on whether 'natural-born' extends to 'a woman born of a woman'.

As for HCR, it wouldn't have been very different. In the Primaries, she was for an individual mandate, while Obama was against it. The real question is, would she have been a better negotiator than Obama.
 
I think Hillary doesn't have the charisma of Obama. Plus, the antiwar base might be upset over a lady who pushed for the Iraq war- and some disgruntled minority voters just might vote for McKinney or even Keyes. She'd still trounce McCain-Palin (or whoever else he picks), but by a smaller margin.
Foreign policy would be much the same. I'm not so sure about Domestic policy.
 
and Attorney General Obama

I can see Hillary appointing Biden to something, but she'd throw Obama under the bus as soon as she got into office. He's still a junior senator that "dared" to challenge her during the primary and would be useless to her after she won. Obama picked Clinton mainly because he wanted to establish a sense of legitimacy for his administration with the rest of the world, and to throw out someone who everyone already knows in terms of foreign affairs so he wouldn't have to waste time on that front. He also might have wanted to keep her away from him and out of the senate, where she might hold a grudge.
 
I think Hillary doesn't have the charisma of Obama.

Foreign policy would be much the same. I'm not so sure about Domestic policy.

Hillary would turn into a culture war warrior. Thus she would not pick needless fights in domestic policy regarding contraception orders and would also not initiate crude attempts to intrude in the internal governance of churches (Mount Tabor, 9-0 loss for Obama).

As a side note, she would also recognize that a continuing series of addresses to school children by an elected leader are not in accordance with historical practice in the U.S. (there is nothing inherently wrong with the addresses either). Though the matter is small, Hullary would reject the addresses as unnecessarry and out of norm

Basically, I think Hillary would receive far more advice from Bill CLinton, a master politician, and would be more prone to follow it. She would face a far easier race in 2012.
 
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