WI: Carter Wins 2nd Term

(Edited before release due to Paul V McNutt comment)
The Republican Majority in the Senate will make it difficult for Carter to do anything terribly excited on the domestic front. As the economy improves and it looks like Walter Mondale will win the election, Republicans back down on a Medicare extension,an expanded energy plan allowing for solar panel by the present day and investment in anti-AIDs funding.

Foreign Policy
Detente continues, several "Pro-American" dictators are overthrown and the Soviets are bogged down in Afghanistan.

1984 Election
With the Democrats looking to win the Presidential election in a walk, a lot of high profile Republicans stay out of the race. Senator Bob Dole would win the Republican nomination in a walk, resigning from his seat to focus on the campaign, and asked Jack Kemp to be his running mate. Walter Mondale, looking to be unique asked Senator Elizabeth Holtzman of New York to be his running mate. Mondale, gambling that he wouldn't win back the Senate, was willing to risk the Republican replacement. In the end, a good economy, a popular incumbent, and a woman on the ticket combined to bring Walter Mondale the win.

genusmap.php

Mondale/Holtzman: 51.6% - 349
Dole/Kemp: 47.8 - 189

House
Democrats: 271
Republicans: 164

Senate
Democrats: 47
Republicans: 53
Kentucky: Walter Huddleston – Democratic Hold
Minnesota: Joan Growe – Democratic Gain
New York: Jack Kemp – Republican Gain
North Carolina: Jim Hunt – Democratic Gain
Texas: Lloyd Doggett – Democratic Gain


Governors
Democrats: 32
Republicans: 18
West Virginia: Clyde M. See Jr. - Democratic Gain
Indiana - Wayne Townshead - Democratic Gain
 
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I' think George HW Bush would get the nomination. He would have been the Republican crown prince and he ran a good campaign OTL in 1988.
 
Several Republican races in the Senate were so very narrow, that I doubt a Carter wins scenario ends up with a Republican Senate.
 
Several Republican races in the Senate were so very narrow, that I doubt a Carter wins scenario ends up with a Republican Senate.

Hmm...I only flipped states where Cater actually won the state. Maybe I should have rethought it. So, slim majority in the Senate until the midterm, before a big loss in seats.
 

DTanza

Banned
I' think George HW Bush would get the nomination. He would have been the Republican crown prince and he ran a good campaign OTL in 1988.

I thought the same at the start, but think about it a little more carefully. An ambassadorship or two, CIA director, two terms in the House well over a decade earlier, and a failed VP bid. What exactly does he bring to the table?
 
I thought the same at the start, but think about it a little more carefully. An ambassadorship or two, CIA director, two terms in the House well over a decade earlier, and a failed VP bid. What exactly does he bring to the table?

Yeah, he got implausibly lucky IOTL as it is.
 
Yesterday I posted that I thought the biggest change would be "no Reaganism" -- my thinking is that there would still be a conservative backlash against runamok Johnson-style liberalism, but without Reagan as its standard bearer it might have been more moderate, and definitely would not have become as pervasive. No Reagan, no Reagan Revolution.

I'll freely admit I don't know enough about the internal machinations of the Republican Party to know who would have won a renewal of the struggle for the heart of the Republican Party in the 1980s, so I won't go there.

But, the idea of Carter 1976-1984 caught my fancy, so I'll focus on choices made in those extra four years:

  • The economy rebounds as stagflation is cured. The major aspect of curing that economic ill was Paul Volcker raising interest rates to torturous levels, and not anything that Reagan did.
  • No huge deficits. When the economy rebounds, tax revenues go up, but Carter was a conservative Dem by the standards of the time. Instead of blowing the windfall, as Moondale might have wanted to do, he inaugurates a tax cut bill of his own.
  • No orgy of Reagan-sponsored deregulation.
  • The minimum wage keeps pace with inflation for another four years, instead of being ignored for 12 years straight as happened under Bush and Reagan.
  • The B-1 bomber is cut and SDI never comes into being, but all the other Cold War weapons programs remain in place. As it turns out, the lack of 1980s research into SDI retards the development of modern anti-ballistic missile systems.
  • The U.S. still gets into sponsoring the Afghani jihadists, and perhaps even sooner.
  • Four more years of follow-through on alternative energy and raising fuel economy standards for cars. A future Republican administration wouldn't build on these achievements, but they would be unable to reverse them. The results here could have been profound: forced to build more fuel efficient cars by the government, Detroit starts reforming and retooling itself, so by the 1990s the loss of market share by American carmakers is arrested. During the 2008 financial crisis, only Chrysler goes bust. Also, world oil prices don't spike as high in the '00s because American demand went flat and stayed flat in the 1990s, and the United States becomes the world leader in solar technology, wind power, and electric-efficient product technology.
  • No intervention into Lebanon. 241 marines aren't killed in a truck bombing.
  • Grenada goes communist. Outside of the John Birch Society, no one cares.
  • Carter holds Israel's feet to the fire on following through on peace treaty with Egypt. At a minimum, Israel hands Gaza over to Egypt and keeps settlers out of the West Bank. The latter part might wind up being reversed later on, but the Palestinian problem takes on a whole different complexion in later years, as half of the Occupied Territories become an autonomous district under Hosni Mubarak's supervision.
  • The U.S. might support Iraq's war against Iran even more than it did under Reagan. Oooops!
 
1988 Election:
genusmap.php

Mondale/Holtzman: 49.55% - 260
Quayle/Headlee: 49.47 - 278

1992 Election:
genusmap.php

Mondale/Holtzman: 51% - 332
Quayle/Headlee: 47.5 - 206

I don't really have a feel beyond that. The Soviet Union would have become a Democracy/collapsed near the end of Quayle's term. Quayle tries to get some welfare reform, but is only marginally successful. The 80s is seen as a time of bipartisanship with a split Congress throughout.
 
There are those of us who remember how petty and authoritarian Jimmy Carter was. He was directly responsible for the economic collapse that took part during his administration.
If my understanding of things has been corrected, the economy was on the verge of collapse for years before Carter took office and was already staring to go down under Ford - and it probably would've happened under Nixon if he hadn't excised his economic controls.

That's not to lift Carter of his economic issues, but I think it'd be unfair to say he was "directly responsible" for it.
 
The economy gets worse and worse. The Soviet Union expands it's influence in Central America, and Pakistan. Iraq receives massive Soviet aid and Iran goes communist. The oil supply from the Middle East is cut off and Europe is pludged into an economic depression that makes them ripe for appeasement.

Carter would try and put a brave face on things, but ultimately blame the American people's unrealistic expectations and tell them that we should get used to living with less. Gas rationing in the U.S. would become a way of life. Unemployment would reach 20 percent, and inflation would make the U.S. dollar valueless.

The Panama Canal giveaway would take place much earlier, and be handed over to a pro-Soviet government. Any dissent in the U.S. would be dismissed as "wanting a nuclear war."

Whoever the Republicans nominate in 1984 would have a huge advantage, although Vice President Mondale would call them "warmongers". Mondale might face a challenge from a number of Democrats, or might get the nomination because whoever got it would look like a sure loser.

Whoever the President is in 1985 would face a huge number of challenges both at home and abroad.
This is obviously some kind of joke post, but I wanted to point out the Torrijos–Carter Treaties were signed in 1977.
If my understanding of things has been corrected, the economy was on the verge of collapse for years before Carter took office and was already staring to go down under Ford
Indeed; so soon we forget "Whip Inflation Now".
 
The economy gets worse and worse. The Soviet Union expands it's influence in Central America, and Pakistan. Iraq receives massive Soviet aid and Iran goes communist. The oil supply from the Middle East is cut off and Europe is pludged into an economic depression that makes them ripe for appeasement.

Carter would try and put a brave face on things, but ultimately blame the American people's unrealistic expectations and tell them that we should get used to living with less. Gas rationing in the U.S. would become a way of life. Unemployment would reach 20 percent, and inflation would make the U.S. dollar valueless.

The Panama Canal giveaway would take place much earlier, and be handed over to a pro-Soviet government. Any dissent in the U.S. would be dismissed as "wanting a nuclear war."

Whoever the Republicans nominate in 1984 would have a huge advantage, although Vice President Mondale would call them "warmongers". Mondale might face a challenge from a number of Democrats, or might get the nomination because whoever got it would look like a sure loser.

Whoever the President is in 1985 would face a huge number of challenges both at home and abroad.

Ahem: Two can play at that game!

And so:


No NAFTA means full industrial employment, millions of families continue to live in their homes with kids attending well-funded public schools with one parent working contentedly at the factory. (Of course, after a couple decades, the working parent takes a well-earned retirement!)

No tax-cuts means that highways and other infrastructure continue to be well-maintained to such an extent that automobile-manufacturers are encouraged to design more sophisticated cars with better performance and fuel-economy. (Truck-like "utility" vehicles are the reserve of border security patrol, forest-fire responders, wealthy hunting enthusiasts, and the eccentric.)

Carter's firm but non-adventurous stance to the Soviet invasion into Afghanistan means that the mujaheddin are ultimately crushed.

An enraged Saudi activist attempts to take his frustration out on his home country's monarchist government. The resultant destabilization is exploited by Soviet and Iraqi agents and the Saudi government is overthrown for a secular socialist reformist regime instead.

The new Saudi junta bans the wearing of the burka and makes it compulsory for all female adults to learn to drive. After all, everyone must do their part for the revolution, and all those household servants are much better off serving in the newly enlarged Saudi People's Army...

Saudi clerics who attempt to vent their fury end up somehow not being able to benefit from the People's Healthcare Coverage in a sufficiently timely fashion. (In other words, they dead.)

Lefty Carter-administration Arabists tetchily hector Israel out of providing support for "alternate" Islamist Palestinian movements.

Anwar Sadat's policy of pro-American tilt and more or less allowing Islamist activists the run of the country is jolted when Soviet emissaries present proof that they thwarted an Islamist plot to end Sadat's life. Sadat's regime puts more effort into finding violence-minded Islamist elements and asks Moscow for some Ekranoplans to use in the Mediterranean.

Well-paid air-traffic controllers and retained regulatory structure for the American airline industry means that American skies are safe and secure, and smart boys and girls know that if they're very good, they can seek careers in that stable part of the economy for as long as they can imagine.


Between the reds in Saudi Arabia and Dick Cheney falling down a well, fuel prices in America are expensive, rising to an astronomical buck-fifty by 1983 alone. The American car-makers respond with plans they have had in place for years.

In 1984, General Motors debuts its first electric car, the Chevette-based Electrovette,

gm_electro_vette.jpg



With the tax-rates on the wealthy intact, the prices of sports cars by manufacturers like Porsche, Lotus remain fairly reasonable. Porsche even brings back the four-cylinder 912 model for a third time.
 
Eagle Claw succeeds

I like the idea of a successful hostage rescue as the POD. Note that it wouldn't have deterred Kennedy from entering since it took place on 24 April, at which point primary contests had been going on for a few months. Kennedy had some earlier wins but also made a last-minute mark with June wins in California and New Jersey, which he presumably doesn't get here. I do think that takes enough steam out of Kennedy's run so that the damage to Carter is lessened. It does the same to Anderson's run.

I'd posit Shirley Hufstedler, his Secretary of Education, as Carter's SCOTUS nominee. She had prior service as both a state and federal appellate judge before that.

I don't see the GOP taking the Senate. Based on the margins, the GOP fails to pick up Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina and Wisconsin and loses Arizona (yes, Goldwater had a close shave in 1980 in OTL), New York and Pennsylvania. Their net gain of three still leaves them outnumbered 53-47.
 
A Republican gets elected in '84, though by a narrow margin, over Mondale. If not Bush then I think Jack Kemp or Howard Baker. Baker would be a sure winner given he could appeal to a lot of voters, while Kemp would basically be a young Reagan; he would have that same appeal to conservatives with additional charisma, but was atrocious at debates.
 
A Republican gets elected in '84, though by a narrow margin, over Mondale. If not Bush then I think Jack Kemp or Howard Baker. Baker would be a sure winner given he could appeal to a lot of voters, while Kemp would basically be a young Reagan; he would have that same appeal to conservatives with additional charisma, but was atrocious at debates.

What about Bob Dole? Bob Bole wants to be president. Why won't anybody vote for Bob Dole?
 
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