WI: John McCain wins GOP nomination in 2000

If McCain responded more effectively and struck a nerve with the nation in response to the smear campaign waged against him, it could backfire on Bush and he'd sweep to the nomination. He'd likely win the general election, especially since Bush had a slight lead IOTL until his past drunk driving was revealed days before the election. 9/.11 would still happen, as I don't buy the idea that electing a different president would prevent it. I think McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, so no Bush tax cuts. I'm not sure what would happen with Iraq, but if they invaded it McCain would manage it much better, perhaps even making it a positive and relatively stable country(though that's stretching it, but the US incompetence after defeating Saddam was spectacular and completely preventable). McCain wins again in 2004, and perhaps he is able to use his bigger political capital, popularity and experience in Congress to pass some big idea like immigration reform. The financial crisi would happen as IOTL, so the Democrats would win a narrow victory in 2008. From there, they likely are unable to amass a strong enough congressional mandate to pass Obamacare or the stimulus, though they might pass something else if the Republicans are more moderate than IOTL. Most likely they win 2012 but with a less reviled GOP and butterflies it's probably a tossup like IOTL 2004 or 2000. By now there is very little I can accurately predict.
 
McCain/Lieberman 2000 has that ring of consensus landslide -- think Obama '08 or Bush '88 -- to it, doesn't it? It was my first take, too. Consider, though, three factors in replacing Bush 2000 with McCain:

1. You're replacing one of the very best campaign strategists of the modern era (Karl Rove) with some combination of Mike Murphy and Rick Davis, who aren't;

2. You're potentially butterflying away the Ralph Nader candidacy, which forced Gore to spend money in liberal strongholds like Oregon (!) and generally impacted the view of Gore throughout the general election; and

3. You're potentially strengthening a third-party conservative run.

If you want to argue that Nader and Buchanan run anyway, then the question boils down to whether the superior candidate skills of McCain 2000 outweigh the superior infrastructure and strategic skills of Bush 2000. Here's just one decision to think about: Rove spent serious money campaigning in Tennessee (11 EV), New Hampshire (4 EV), and, most insanely, West Virginia (5 EV), despite the facts that those states were (a) Al Gore's home state, (b) a state Clinton-Gore won by 10 points in the last election cycle, and (c) a state Clinton-Gore won by 15 points in the last election cycle and a long-standing Democratic stronghold that voted for Dukakis in '88.

No other Republican candidate would have spent time and money in those three states in 2000, IMO. IOTL, Bush 2000 won NH by 1%, TN by 4%, and WV by 6%; without Rove calling the shots, I think all three of those go uncontested by the Republicans. On the flip side, Gore isn't going to contest neighboring New Mexico (a narrow OTL victory) and its 5 EV, and Lieberman probably helps McCain win Florida outright. That puts the Gore/Kerry base as 282 electoral votes ITTL.

The next closest Gore 2000 states are Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oregon; the latter two were close only because of Ralph Nader eating into Gore's left flank. If you give McCain-Lieberman Iowa, that brings Gore/Kerry down to 275 EV.

After that, the next plausible battleground is Pennsylvania, which gave OTL's Gore + Nader a collective 52.7% of the vote, or a 6.5% lead over Bush. Could that be the basis for an alt-2000 analogue, where teams of lawyers rush to Harrisburg to count hanging chads? Would moderate Republican Governor Tom Ridge order a statewide recount?
 
McCain/Lieberman 2000 has that ring of consensus landslide -- think Obama '08 or Bush '88 -- to it, doesn't it?

Except that Lieberman was actually a pretty conventional Democrat in 2000. A little bit more conservative than other northern Democrats, but not much. Even his famous scolding of Clinton over Monicagate was meant to give the Democrats an opportunity to condemn Clinton's conduct while still voting against impeachment. The national security issues that would drive a breach between Lieberman and the Democratic party had still not emerged in those pre-9/11, pre-Iraq days. In fact, until Gore came out against the projected Iraq war in 2002, his foreign policy record was that of a liberal hawk, entirely satisfactory to Lieberman.
 
The basic problem with McCain becoming Republican nominee in 2000 is that he was relying too much on Independents and crossover Democrats. They can be useful, but only as supplements to Republican voters. You can't win the Republican primaries without Republicans!

Really, the best way for McCain to become the GOP nominee in 2000 is for GW Bush not to become Governor of Texas in 1994. My own POD for that is to have Clayton Williams win the governorship in the close race of 1990 (maybe he doesn't make the infamous rape joke). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_gubernatorial_election,_1990 Williams will presumably run for a second term in 1994, so the earliest Bush could become governor is 1998, which would give him too little experience in office to be a plausible presidential candidate in 2000.

Without Bush, the GOP Establishment in 2000 does not have a strong obvious candidate of its own--Liddy Dole does not look like a very strong candidate to me. So Republicans might be more willing to vote for McCain, especially if he puts more emphasis on the many issues on which he was a conventional conservative Republican rather than the few (like campaign finance) on which he wasn't.
 
Lieberman was not going to be McCain's running mate. He wouldn't be asked (the last thing McCain needed after winning an insurgent campaign against the establishment candidate was to pick someone from the other party as his VP) and he wouldn't have accepted if asked (his break with the Democratic mainstream wasn't until the Iraq War; until then he was generic centrist New England Democrat). Even when he started to alienate himself from the party, it was mostly over foreign policy issues originally. The Lieberman of 2000 was a very different man than that of today.

It's worth remembering that foreign policy was not a big deal in the 2000 election. Sure, we know that terrorism was going to become the major issue in a little less than a year, but in 2000 the major issues were things like Social Security (Gore's famous "lock box"), taxes (Bush's tax cuts), education, etc. 2000-era Lieberman had no major disagreements with the Democratic mainstream on any of these positions.

So McCain likely chooses some perfectly acceptable mainstream Republican running mate (maybe even Bush himself). He always had a much better relationship with the press than Gore did, so he likely gets even more favorable coverage than Bush did in the run-up to the election. On the other hand, neither of his presidential campaigns exactly demonstrated great competence as a campaigner. He likely still wins (assuming he avoids any massive blunders like in his 2008 campaign), although not in a landslide (but with enough margin that the Florida recount debacle is avoided).

His presidency could go in any of a number of different ways; he was always fairly hawkish (one would hope that as a president he would avoid bombing Iran/starting a war with Russia over Georgia/all the various other insane military ventures he advocated OTL when he was a Senator, but who knows). On the other hand, he would have a somewhat different suite of advisors, who might be less strongly advocating invading Iraq from day 1.

EDIT: Or on reread, basically what David T said.
 
What kind of POD would be needed for this? How would it affect the Dem side? Can he win in the general election?

For the PoD, I suggest this:
1. Mark McKinnon or his camera guy crashes into a police officer's car at high speed, not long after shooting a commercial for Bush. (OTL, they nearly avoided crashing. The officer let them off after hearing McKinnon worked for Bush.)
2. This not only sets the Bush campaign on the defensive for the crash, but also deprives Bush of a commercial attacking McCain, which forced McCain to cut out negative ads- something Bush never stopped. (The commercial said that Bush "twist(ed) the truth like Clinton."
3. Between this negative spotlight and Bush having to rebound from a New Hampshire loss, Bush's campaign may be facing more negative actions (especially after his visit to Bob Jones University or his embrace of Thomas Burch).
4. Result? Bush loses SC, and pulls out not long after.
 
Assuming Ralph Nader is still in the race, could McCain win in states like Minnesota and Maine?
 
Assuming Ralph Nader is still in the race, could McCain win in states like Minnesota and Maine?

That's true. Heck Nader arguably cost Gore New Hampshire (which McCain most likely wins ITTL) and Florida IOTL.
 
That's true. Heck Nader arguably cost Gore New Hampshire (which McCain most likely wins ITTL) and Florida IOTL.

Herron and Lewis estimate that Nader voters in Florida would have gone for Gore over Bush by about 60%-40%. Assuming that they are correct, and that this result can be extrapolated to other states, Nader cost Gore Florida (and therefore the election) but not New Hampshire (where Nader voters would have had to go about 2-1 for Gore for Gore to carry the state). http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf

(The distinctive thing about the Herrin-Lewis study is that it relies not on exit polls but on how Nader and Buchanan voters in Florida *actually voted* for the other offices on the ballot. The conclusion is that Nader and Buchanan voters, far from being "extreme" were rather moderate. Nader voters, as I noted, were only about 60-40 for Gore over Bush; Buchanan voters, even excluding Palm Beach County with its notorious "butterfly ballots," were only about 58-42 for Bush over Gore.)
 
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