WI: Gore Runs Again in 2004?

Fair enough. I had an even more interesting idea for this timeline that I feel would be plausible, considering Bush's even greater incompetence in this timeline. While campaigning in New York City for re-election, he is assassinated by some maniac neo-con for his failures abroad. This would occur in October 2003. What would happen with Cheney as President now?
Cheney 's legacy wouldn't be as negative as OTL, because of the sympathy from Bush's assassination (and some might feel sorry for what he has to inherit) and because the uglier side of him (torture, etc.) is not uncovered. He will be unpopular for continuing Bush's failed policies and practices, though. In November, Gore would be up against Senator John McCain, because Cheney had no ambition to run.
 
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Gore wins in 2004 with absolutely no changes to the first Bush term. I'm not looking this up, but Kerry got 47% or 48%, and this was actually the lowest popular vote percentage of any Democratic presidential candidate starting in 1996. Gore really doesn't have to do much better than this. He his helped by already having beat Bush wants, and its hard to get a bunch of veterans to come out saying a journalist was showboating in Vietnam.

If Gore waits to run in 2008, Nixon style, he will need Obama not to run, but he probably beats Hillary Clinton. Her best chance is to get the African American voters she lost to Obama, and who shored up her campaign in 2016, but she completely loses the "inexperience" argument, and Gore will still get some African-American support. The general election is then not a problem.

So the only question is really what a Gore presidency looks like. Really his biggest obstacle was his obvious ambivalence about being in politics in the first place.
 
Gore wins in 2004 with absolutely no changes to the first Bush term. I'm not looking this up, but Kerry got 47% or 48%, and this was actually the lowest popular vote percentage of any Democratic presidential candidate starting in 1996.

Actually, Kerry's 48.3% in 2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004 was virtually identical with Gore's 48.4% in 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 Anyway, there have thus far only been five presidential elections since 1996, and it is rather arbitrary to assume that such a small number of elections can set a minimum or maximum percentage for a party. In any event, there is no particular reason to think Gore would be a better campaigner than Kerry--after all, he lost in 2000, despite peace and prosperity, and he did poorly in the second debate according to Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/poll/2443/instant-reaction-bush-beats-gore-second-debate.aspx

Of course Gore or almost any other Democrat could win in 2008, but that is another matter. 2004 was simply not as unfavorable a year for the GOP in terms of underlying circumstances as some people seem to think. The economy was improving. Bush's huge bump from 9/11 had largely been eroded, but the GOP was still seen as the party that was "tougher" on terrorism. The war in Iraq was not nearly as popular as it had been in 2003 but it also wasn't nearly as unpopular as it would become by 2006. All in all, a fairly narrow Bush victory is exactly what one would expect (most presidents do get re-elected, after all) and IMO Kerry neither underperformed nor overperformed. I just don't see Gore doing so much better than Kerry in Ohio as to overcome Kerry's over-two-point loss there; after all, Gore had lost Ohio by over three points in 2000....
 
Actually, Kerry's 48.3% in 2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004 was virtually identical with Gore's 48.4% in 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 Anyway, there have thus far only been five presidential elections since 1996, and it is rather arbitrary to assume that such a small number of elections can set a minimum or maximum percentage for a party. In any event, there is no particular reason to think Gore would be a better campaigner than Kerry--after all, he lost in 2000, despite peace and prosperity, and he did poorly in the second debate according to Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/poll/2443/instant-reaction-bush-beats-gore-second-debate.aspx

Of course Gore or almost any other Democrat could win in 2008, but that is another matter. 2004 was simply not as unfavorable a year for the GOP in terms of underlying circumstances as some people seem to think. The economy was improving. Bush's huge bump from 9/11 had largely been eroded, but the GOP was still seen as the party that was "tougher" on terrorism. The war in Iraq was not nearly as popular as it had been in 2003 but it also wasn't nearly as unpopular as it would become by 2006. All in all, a fairly narrow Bush victory is exactly what one would expect (most presidents do get re-elected, after all) and IMO Kerry neither underperformed nor overperformed. I just don't see Gore doing so much better than Kerry in Ohio as to overcome Kerry's over-two-point loss there; after all, Gore had lost Ohio by over three points in 2000....

Remember the points that I emphasized. Bush would have not only failed to capture Osama Bin Laden, but Saddam Hussein as well. That alone would reflect horrifically on his foreign policies. That, coupled with a moderately bad recession would damage his standing in 2004.
 
There are three other instances of a presidential candidate winning the nationwide popular vote but not being elected President, in 1824...

There was no national popular vote in 1824; seven states with 71 of 261 EV did not have a popular vote. In the states that did, voting qualifications and turnout varied enormously - Virginia with 24 electors cast 15,371 PV while New Jersey with only 8 electors cast 19,837 and Massachusetts with 15 cast 42,056.

...1876, and 1888, with 1960 as a possible fourth depending on which method you use to divide the Alabama votes cast for the mixture of Kennedy and Byrd electors.

In 1824 and 1888, the popular vote winner came back and won the next round. Tilden didn't bother in 1876.

There was a reason for that. Between election day and the electoral vote count in December, Tilden's campaign tried to bribe the election boards in South Carolina and Florida to report Tilden victories. Though the boards were Republicans, they were for sale. Negotiations took place, but neither deal could be completed before the deadline for reporting results. This came out in 1878. The Democrat HQ had communicated with their representatives by telegraph, using a cipher. The ciphered telegrams had been subpoenaed from Western Union by a Congressional committee, and then fell into the hands of a Republican newspaper, which invited its readers to crack the cipher. The readers succeeded, exposing the Democrats' attempted shenannigans. The messages were to and from Tilden's campaign manager, who was his son-in-law, and were sent and received from his office in Tilden's house. After that, there was no more talk of Tilden the reformer running again in '80 to avenge the crime of '76.
 
I honestly think 2004 is like 1976 or 1928 - an election you don't want to win.

Kerry's 2004 campaign was indeed awful (and bought into the Bush narrative); I think it's conceivable that a Gore who had learned from his mistakes could have won 2004. The problem is that *some* form of economic problem was coming, and there is little Gore (and a Republican congress) could do to mitigate this.

It's actually not impossible that George W. Bush might have tried a similar comeback in 2008.
 
I honestly think 2004 is like 1976 or 1928 - an election you don't want to win.

Kerry's 2004 campaign was indeed awful (and bought into the Bush narrative); I think it's conceivable that a Gore who had learned from his mistakes could have won 2004. The problem is that *some* form of economic problem was coming, and there is little Gore (and a Republican congress) could do to mitigate this.

It's actually not impossible that George W. Bush might have tried a similar comeback in 2008.
The only question I have for you is would the economy become even worse if it's in moderate recession by 2004?
 
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