WI Forbes defeats Bush, wins in 2000?

[boredatwork]

Just ran across this.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=102208A

What if Steve Forbes Had Won the Election?Font Size:

By Jerry Bowyer
To the annals of contra factual history which range from Churchill's "What if Lee had won at Gettysburg", to SNL's what if Napoleon had a B-52 bomber, I have my own addition: What if Steve Forbes had won the primary and general elections in 2000? How would the world differ from the world we live in now?
Steve Forbes would not have negotiated away the supply side tax cuts in 2001. He would not have let the Democrats insist that only tax cuts for the poor and middle class be implanted immediately. He would not have agreed to defer the tax cuts of the entrepreneurial and investor class into the indefinite future. He would have (and did) recognize that we had already entered a recession before he entered the White House and would have used that fact to push the tax cuts through. The Forbes Boom would have started in 2001, not 2003. Two years of stagnation and jobs loss could have been avoided.
There would not have been a flood of excess money supply in 2003 either. The tax cuts would have made that kind of hyper stimulation through the printing press unthinkable. Even if Greenspan would have been tempted to flood the globe with dollars, Forbes would have put rhetorical (which is perfectly legitimate; the Fed is independent, but not quarantined) pressure on them to do the right thing. No cash flood means no housing bubble.
It also means no collapsing dollar, and no oil price bubble, which means no recession now.
Steve Forbes would not have signed Sarbanes Oxley. He would have rightly pointed out that Enron was a beneficiary of overregulation of financial and energy markets; that Enron gamed the regulator system to their advantage. Forbes would have vetoed Sarbox. His SEC would have jailed the Arthur Andersen partners directly responsible for the fraud, but not destroyed the global 85,000 person firm. With no Sarbox and no Enron overreaction, we would not have foisted any 'mark to market' nonsense onto financial statement preparers. The short sellers would be allowed to operate, but they would not have been allowed to write the rule book. Lehman would not have failed. The modest downturn in housing related securities (with no Fed money gusher to fill a big bubble) would have been ridden out by the vast majority of banks as had happened in the 1980s.
Steve Forbes would not have concluded that Wall Street had "gotten drunk." He would have concluded that the regulators and central bankers had slipped them a Mickey. And if they had gotten drunk, he would have prescribed AA, not prohibition. Forbes would not have waited until his sixth year to veto corrupt spending. He would not have waited until his 7th year to issue an executive order forbidding earmarks. He would have saved the Republican congress from itself.
The boom would be continuing. His chosen successor would be leading in the polls. The Dow would be rising. Unemployment would be dropping. The US would be spreading prosperity to the world right now, not financial chaos.

Obviously Jerry has a bit of an axe to grind (presumably trying to position SF for the GOP intramural scrimmage that's about to kick off), and his analogies are sloppy (the doesn't print money, the mint does, the fed messes with the money supply through rate setting and capital requirements).

Still, the POD(s) seemed interesting enough.

POD 1. Forbes beats Bush during the Republican primaries in '99.

POD 2. Forbes goes on to defeat Gore in the general election.

So... what are your thoughts on the implications?

I would assume that 9/11 still happens, but could see an argument otherwise.

As for the taxes... not sure that a Forbes presidency would necessarily have the negotiating leverage that the article's author assumes.

Beyond that... the policies sounds like those he would push (from the various speeches and position papers), but I'm not convinced that they would actually be enacted (President =/= mind controlling dictator, after all).

 

[BlackMage]

It's an interesting scenario, although I obviously look at it from a less ax-grinding scenario. Forbes was an ideologue, a true believer, a man with no governing experience and no understanding of the compromises required of office. Bush, with a Democratic Lieutenant Governor and state legislature, was actually quite a good Governor of Texas, relatively; with a former House Whip as his vice president, he understood the basic nature of how to make Congress work. Clinton, who'd been a governor for twelve years, still had terrible trouble once elected because he didn't understand those Washington rhythms -- and this was a man who was pragmatic and willing to compromise. Forbes, who'd never had to work with or within a legislature, whose corporate experience extends to a magazine targeted at a wealthy audience, and whose appeal to 'middle America' would be limited, would have incredible trouble with Congress, especially the 50-50 Senate, from the beginning. I can see nothing in the man's temperament to convince me that he wouldn't have blindly crashed through the jungle after his prized ideological projects and left nothing but rubble in his path.

The one interesting thing about him would be that he would be the first president to have been neither an elected official or a general. Aside from that, I can't see him uniting the nation as effectively as Bush did after 9/11, simply because his stronger partisan stance would have made him anathema to Democrats. The non-fiscal conservative wing of the party -- the 'Huckabee wing', if you will -- would be appalled by him, for his flip-flop on life and his relative uninterest in such issues. I think he would be a terrible President, not merely because I'm left-leaning (I would think the same of, say, a Jesse Jackson, or an Arianna Huffington, or a Keith Olbermann presidency) but because I fundamentally disagree with the notion that Mr Smith can be President.

 

[boredatwork]

glad I'm not the only one to realize that a seat in the white house does not equal carte blanche to implement one's prefered policies.

Have to agree with the analysis on ability (or lack thereof) to work with Congress. SF might've made a good sec treasury or sec commerce, but President? I'm not seeing it.

 

[Atreus]

Could he win? As far as the general election goes, forbes has no political experience, while Gore has been in politics since 1977 (representative, senator, and vice-president). Gore could probably portray as the reasonable, tested politician and Forbes as an inexperienced newcomer (although me might not).

a forbes presidency would be interesting to see created, but is far from likely.

 

[boredatwork]

Certainly isn't likely. But if there is one thing SF had available to throw at a campaign, it was a lot of $. Which makes it possible.

 

[BlackMage]

Certainly isn't likely. But if there is one thing SF had available to throw at a campaign, it was a lot of $. Which makes it possible.

Not really. He didn't have more money than Bush in 2000, because of Bush's massive conservative donor base. And once he gets to the general, personal wealth will be flattened by Gore, especially if the conservative establishment decide not to waste their money on him.

I've never heard anything to suggest he was more than a mediocre campaigner. He pretty much bought the Iowa caucuses, spending extraordinary amounts of money per vote, and still lost. The amount he'd need to spend in order to win might actually devalue US currency.