WI: (HW) Bush won the 1988 Republican Iowa Caucus

OTL, Bush came in third behind Dole (first place by far) and Robertson. Bush reacted by hiring Lee Atwater to raise doubts about Dole’s commitment to not raising taxes. What if Bush defeated Dole and Robertson in Iowa? Would he have ever hired Atwater? What would the rest of his campaign be like?
 
OTL, Bush came in third behind Dole (first place by far) and Robertson. Bush reacted by hiring Lee Atwater to raise doubts about Dole’s commitment to not raising taxes. What if Bush defeated Dole and Robertson in Iowa? Would he have ever hired Atwater? What would the rest of his campaign be like?
Atwater was hired before Iowa IIRC, and was gonna be fired if Bush lost New Hampshire.
 
Evangelicals in/adjacent to the party might be slightly weaker? Maybe Bush'sposition being stronger in 1988 butterflies away Buchanan's primary challenge in 1992?
 
Evangelicals in/adjacent to the party might be slightly weaker? Maybe Bush'sposition being stronger in 1988 butterflies away Buchanan's primary challenge in 1992?
I doubt it. Evangelicals weren't the only right wingers pissed at Bush in 1992.
 
. . Evangelicals weren't the only right wingers pissed at Bush in 1992.
hugely important period in U.S. politics.

And after the U.S. winning the Persian Gulf War late Feb. ‘91, Bush’s approval rating was something like 85%.

What the hell happened!

Now, it wasn’t a popular war with me, for a number of reasons. And as time went on, I think more people wondered about how we built Saddam Hussein up to be a monster and then left him in power.
 
41: Inside the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, Cornell University, 2014,

Chapter 2 “George Bush and American Conservatism” by Hugh Heclo.

https://books.google.com/books?id=e... aides continued to put out the word"&f=false

“ . . . The first sign of the political disaster to come appeared in June 1990. . . ”

“ . . . Officially, White House aides continued to put out the word that the president remained opposed to raising taxes. Privately, however, there were leaks and spins from Darman and others to the effect that in considering raising taxes, Bush the statesman was going to do what was right for the country. Conservatives began to smell betrayal in the Washington air. . . ”
I think some conservatives thought Bush was raising taxes as a first resort, not as a last resort.
 
I think some conservatives thought Bush was raising taxes as a first resort, not as a last resort.

I think raising taxes wouldn't have been as big a problem for Bush if he'd went to the people and communicated why he raised taxes. Believe it or not Dan Quayle of all people had asked Bush to do this in a nationally televised address. But Bush felt that he didn't need to since - by his logic - the benefits of the deal would speak for themselves. As a result voters weren't under the impression that Bush raised taxes as a last resort for the good of the country, but instead they saw it as an act of weakness and a broken promise. A lie.

Unfortunately, Bush didn't have Reagan's communication skills or political intuition. Had he done things differently he would have probably still lost in 1992, but maybe by a smaller margin. The conservative backlash against Bush wouldn't have been nearly as strong and Clinton wouldn't be able to attack Bush's dishonesty (which helped to distract from his own messy personal life).
 
Atwater had been running Bush's campaign even before it was a campaign, back in 1985-86.

C'mon, this is basic googleable stuff.

I don't think there's any way he's winning Iowa, btw. Too much farm crisis anger for which the Bobster was a perfect vehicle, and the 1980 organisation had atrophied. Atwater effectively wrote it off at an early stage. NH was always going to be a battle.
 
I doubt it. Evangelicals weren't the only right wingers pissed at Bush in 1992.
True, but the hiccup in the 1988 primaries may well have led to the "No New Taxes" pledge, which helped sour conservatives on Bush when he agreed to raise taxes as part of the deficit reduction deal.
 
I think raising taxes wouldn't have been as big a problem for Bush if he'd went to the people and communicated why he raised taxes. Believe it or not Dan Quayle of all people had asked Bush to do this in a nationally televised address. But Bush felt that he didn't need to since - by his logic - the benefits of the deal would speak for themselves. . .
And from a deficit-hawk viewpoint, I think it was a good deal. It was something like a (?) 2 to 1 ratio of budget cuts to tax increases.
 
He gets the nomination a bit faster than OTL, doesn't make "no new taxes" pledge. You see the GOP in power until 1996, or if they luck out they stay in until 2000 or at absolute latest 2004 until a combination of voter fatigue/badly timed recessions lead voters to throw them out in favor of (non-DLC) dems. If it's 96/00 they get in, odds are it's Mario Cuomo as the most likely. 2004? Howard Dean or less likely Paul Wellstone. Rather different policy implemented since we aren't talking a continuation of Reaganism under slightly more socially/economically liberal management(Clinton, Obama) but a backlash. My gues is the first democrat is 'center-left'/having to nudge things while the second one does more on economic/social stuff.

TTL's GOP era would be 1980-96/00/04 with the ah new democratic era extending from 1996-2012/2016*, 2000-2016/2020, 2004/2016/2020**

* Even if the dems in ttl don't play with fire on culture wars as much, the combo of the internet/globalization having bad side effects means we lkely end up in a similar situation post-2016. On the upside, at least it'll be less socially conservative.
** See the point above. The 2000 guy's successor may barely be able to get his favored guy in. may. the 2004 guy? Might burn out after 12 years.
 
upload_2018-12-27_15-30-51-png.428631

U.S. Economy over time

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA

Of course, on the face of it, 1991 was a pipsqueak of a recession.
 
. . . the combo of the internet/globalization having bad side effects means we lkely end up in a similar situation post-2016. . .
Especially since Glass-Steagall was repealed by big majorities in both Houses in 1999.

90-8 in Senate, and I think largely similar in House
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/...ote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00354

Glass-Steagall had been the wall-of-separation between regular, boring, plain vanilla banking on the one hand, and wild-ass, speculative, “investment” banking on the other.

Obviously, I’m not a fan of the repeal, and here’s a Cornell professor who’s not a fan either.

When banks can't quit gambling

Los Angeles Times, Editorial, Lynn Stout, May 22, 2012

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.la...n-derivatives-volcker-20120522-story,amp.html
 
He gets the nomination a bit faster than OTL, doesn't make "no new taxes" pledge. You see the GOP in power until 1996.

First of all, he is going to make the "no new taxes" pledge whether he wins the nomination quickly or more slowly. The Republicans had learned from 1984 that it was the easiest and most effective way to differentiate themselves from the Democrats. Second, the notion that Bush lost in 1992 because he had promised not to raise taxes and then raised them is extremely dubious. Much more important is that the Reagan boom of 1983-88 gave way to the recession of the early 1990's. Unemployment, which was only 5.3 percent in November 1988, rose to a peak of 7.8 percent in June 1992 and had only slightly declined by Election Day. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/UNRATE.txt
 
Bush had a firewall in the Southern States on Super Tuesday, where Reagan was very popular, and Bush's stronger and better financed campaign was going to out-compete Dole once the nomination evolved from retail politics to the air war. Even if Dole had won Iowa and New Hampshire I doubt he would have won the nomination - he might have peeled off some of the Upper South on Super Tuesday - Elizabeth Dole's NC and the like - which is what was feared-expected had NH been a loss, but the big prizes weren't close. Additionally, Dole's campaign was pretty shambolic organisationally - attrition would have eventually worn it out.

The nomination would have been prolonged, and might have lasted until May or June, but I still think Bush would have won in the end.

As I said above, Bush was never going to win Iowa given the mood there - tellingly, Dukakis won it comfortably in November by nearly ten points.
 
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