WI:McCain Doesn't Pick Palin

Hmm... according to Game Change, McCain wanted Joe Lieberman to be his running mate very badly but scrapped the idea when Karl Rove blew a gasket. Suppose he tells Rove to go *uck himself and picks Liberman anyway.

Joe Lieberman agrees to run and is allowed to be McCain's running mate after a brief struggle at the GOP convention, where the right-wingers become outraged and walk out. This strengthens McCain's position as a maverick and a different kind of Republican that steps out of the shadow of George Bush. It also reinforces the experience argument that he threw under the bus OTL by choosing Palin. McCain does much better in 2008, making the election very close, but probably still loses to Obama and Biden due to a combinaiton of voter fatigue with the Republicans that comes from Independents and due to pissing off an entire faction of his own party.

Sarah Palin continues to be the Governor of Alaska with no changes (probably voting for McCain and Lieberman in the General Election) and runs for re-election in 2010. She wins a second term, which ends in 2015. After that, it's wide open. She could retire from politics and stay home with her kids, she could try to enter the naitonal stage by running for the US Senate/House of Reps in the next election after her term, or heck, she could even try running for President in 2016, when McCain's/Obama's theoretical second term would be up. If she chooses the second option, she'd probably win and continue on as a Senator/Congresswoman until she retires. If she chooses the third option, I could see her being either a surprise darkhorse candidate, or an anologue to Tim Pawlenty. Has a somewhat strong showing in the polls and looks good on paper, but ultimately loses to a stronger candidate like Jindal or Huntsman.
 
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Joe Lieberman agrees to run and is allowed to be McCain's running mate after a brief struggle at the GOP convention, where the right-wingers become outraged and walk out. This strengthens McCain's position as a maverick and a different kind of Republican that steps out of the shadow of George Bush. It also reinforces the experience argument that he threw under the bus OTL by choosing Palin. McCain does much better in 2008, making the election very close, but probably still loses to Obama and Biden due to a combinaiton of voter fatigue with the Republicans that comes from Independents and due to pissing off an entire faction of his own party.

Yeah, I think the net effect of Lieberman is the same as if McCain takes Pawlenty -- it reinforces the arguments McCain was already making (which got him nowhere) and demoralizes the right-wing Republican base.

We already know (from 2000) that Lieberman is a pretty terrible campaigner and debater. Do you really think the tens of thousands of people who came out to Sarah Palin rallies in October of 2008 would come out to hear Joe Lieberman? "Joe the Plumber" doesn't care for a Connecticut Democrat any more than he cares for Obama.

In other words: although it's fairly counter-intuitive, I think Palin was probably the best running mate on McCain's short list. After picking her, McCain solidified his relationship with the right wing of his party -- a constituency that had been calling him a RINO just weeks before, mind you -- managed to pull off his best campaign media stunt ("Joe the Plumber"), and finally got people to start showing up at his rallies (which directly translates into actual votes on the ground).

Palin's downsides -- as well-publicized as they were -- were almost entirely impacted towards voters who were never going to vote for John McCain anyway. As I pointed out earlier, voters in the middle almost *never* vote on the basis of Vice Presidential nominees; they didn't desert George Bush in 1988 when he picked Dan Quayle, and they didn't desert McCain in 2008.

Really, any of these other picks, and McCain loses by wider margins.
 
If McCain picked Lieberman he would have alienated much of the Republican base. I doubt he could a majority of the Republican Convention delagates to vote for a pro choice liberal. McCain would lose by a bigger margin.
 
If McCain picked Lieberman he would have alienated much of the Republican base. I doubt he could a majority of the Republican Convention delagates to vote for a pro choice liberal. McCain would lose by a bigger margin.

Could be the basis for an interesting Democrat-wank timeline.

I'm not sure further changes to the Presidency would affect Obama much at all; even under the best-case scenario you're talking about adding MO (+11 EV), MT (+3 EV) and GA (+15 EV); that would give Obama/Biden 394 EV to McCain/Lieberman's 144, which isn't materially different than OTL. There just isn't much room, structurally, for Obama to win much more than he did in OTL.

However, you've got two pretty close races in the Senate that the Democrats lost in 2008 -- Saxby Chambliss (R) over Jim Martin (D) in Georgia by 3%, 49.8-46.8, and Mitch McConnell (R) over Bruce Lunsford (D) in Kentucky, 53-47.

As I suggested earlier, with a bad VP pick by McCain, it's pretty easy to envision Obama's coattails (and a suppressed Republican turnout) getting Jim Martin the extra 3.2% he needs to clear the 50% threshold in Georgia and win the Senate race without a runoff. It's a lot harder to envision Lunsford making up six points in Kentucky (where Obama got crushed), but a truly apathetic Republican base might be enough to do it.

In the House, the Democrats won 21 seats in 2008. Depress Republican turnout by 6%, and you add 16 Dem pickups. Most of these are just padding -- in Alaska-AL (Ethan Berkowitz over Don Young, CA-3 (Bill Durston over Dan Lungren), CA-44 (Bill Hedrick over Ken Calvert), CA-50 (Nick Leibham over Brian Bilbray), FL-25 (Joe Garcia over Mario Diaz-Balart), IL-10 (Daniel Seals over Mark Kirk), KS-2 (Nancy Boyda holds her seat against Lynn Jenkins), KY-2 (David Boswell over Brett Guthrie), LA-2 (Bill Jefferson holds his seat over Joseph Cao), LA-4 (Paul Carmouche over John Fleming), MO-9 (Judy Baker over Blaine Luetkemeyer), NE-2 (Jim Esch over Lee Terry), PA-6 (Bob Roggio over Jim Gerlach), and SC-1 (Linda Ketner over Henry Brown, Jr.), for example.

But there are two significant long-term effects here. In WA-8, Daily Kos fave Darcy Burner defeats Dave Reichert and becomes the voice of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

And, of course, the most significant of them all: in Minnesota's 6th district, Elwyn Tinklenberg defeats freshman incumbent Michele Bachmann. (OTL, Bachmann won by just 3% in 2008.)

So there you have it: a perfect Dem-wank. Obama wins a landslide, gets a filibuster-proof majority and then some in the Senate, 61-39, a 273-162 majority in the House, and trades a feisty firebrand of the extreme right (Michele Bachmann) for a feisty firebrand of the extreme left (Darcy Burner).
 

bguy

Donor
Without an obvious sop to the right -- and Pawlenty, regardless of his actual credentials, is pretty clearly not the "signal" they wanted -- my guess is that Republican voter turnout would have been further depressed.

Nationwide I agree with you that Republican turnout is probably somewhat lower if McCain picks Pawlenty over Palin, but wouldn't Minnesota be the one exception to that trend? McCain didn't even try to carry the state OTL, but surely Pawlenty is going to insist on campaigning there. (Pawlenty's 2012 prospects are non-existant if he gets wiped out in his own state in 2008.) Given how close the Franken-Coleman race was OTL, any increase in GOP effort in the state should be enough to flip that race to Coleman.

As for Palin, she finishes out an uneventful term as Governor of Alaska before losing to Sen. Mark Begich in 2014. Jonah Goldberg continues to send her moderately creepy emails on an almost-daily basis. (And I agree with a previous poster: 30 Rock never gets greenlighted at NBC.)

Why would Palin lose in 2014? She had insanely high approval ratings in Alaska before becoming a national figure and should be able to easily maintain those ratings unless she ends up as the GOP's vice presidential candidate in 2012. (Which is actually fairly likely, since much of what was attractive about her as a Veep candidate in 2008 will still apply ITL in 2012, only with the added bonus of her having an additional 4 years of gubernatorial experience.)
 
Democrats hate Lieberman as much as Palin, so no help there.

Also, Lieberman is the quintessential Beltway insider. If McCain had nominated him in place of a real conservative, the Tea Party movement would have gone to any length to defeat him in 2010.
 
The biggest effect might be no Tea Party.

Palin always struck me as someone who simply took advantage of being around for the Tea Party's rise rather than playing a role in its creation, she's a bog standard conservative rather than a full-on teabagger like Bachmann or Perry.

The Tea Party was a reaction to Obama's policies, people like Palin just followed the wave of crazy.
 
I agree that McCain probably chooses Pawlenty. There would have been a floor fight/walkout by social conservatives if McCain chooses Lieberman. Not worth it, and not something McCain would do in what was a very close election at that point. A McCain/Pawlenty ticket makes very little difference in the end, as the economy largely determined how voters made their choices. The best result is that we don't have to deal with Sarah Palin anymore, and that the Tea Party lacks a credible candidate who can win the GOP nomination in 2012, except for Perry who is borderline Tea Party IMO.
 

Indiana Beach Crow

Monthly Donor
(And I agree with a previous poster: 30 Rock never gets greenlighted at NBC.)

30 Rock premiered in October 2006 and had two critically acclaimed and award winning seasons under its belt by this point. So no change there. SNL loses out on some easy political satire without a Palin VP nomination, and since they've never had anyone who could do a decent Obama impression, they continue to be irrelevant all through the campaign season, just like they are in non-election years normally.
 
30 Rock premiered in October 2006 and had two critically acclaimed and award winning seasons under its belt by this point. So no change there. SNL loses out on some easy political satire without a Palin VP nomination, and since they've never had anyone who could do a decent Obama impression, they continue to be irrelevant all through the campaign season, just like they are in non-election years normally.

Not only did 30Rock have an Emmy for best comedy in 2007, Fey herself already had a best actress nomination.

She also starred in a movie which opened #1 at the box office in April, 2008, months before Palin was even nominated as VP.

Of all the things in this country you can rightly blame on Palin, Fey-mania is not one of them.
 
Nationwide I agree with you that Republican turnout is probably somewhat lower if McCain picks Pawlenty over Palin, but wouldn't Minnesota be the one exception to that trend? McCain didn't even try to carry the state OTL, but surely Pawlenty is going to insist on campaigning there. (Pawlenty's 2012 prospects are non-existant if he gets wiped out in his own state in 2008.) Given how close the Franken-Coleman race was OTL, any increase in GOP effort in the state should be enough to flip that race to Coleman.

McCain lost Minnesota by more than 10 points in OTL. I don't see any way that Pawlenty -- who squeaked to the Governorship with a somewhat less-than-impressive 46.7% plurality (and under 1% margin of victory) in 2006 -- can make up that margin.

And if the McCain campaign insists on throwing more resources at Minnesota, those will come at the expense of the campaign elsewhere, perhaps putting, I don't know, the Dakotas into play?

In 2008, McCain needed to pick a running mate who a) was strongly endorsed by the far-right of the Republican party and b) was completely unconnected to the Bush administration. Sarah Palin met those criteria.

Are there others who could have met those criteria and also been less awful than Sarah Palin? Maybe. Mike Pence comes to mind -- and Indiana is probably a lot more salvageable for McCain than Minnesota. As far as I know, the McCain folks never really considered Pence.

John Thune, Mark Sanford, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, and Haley Barbour all fit this mold to some degree. None are particularly exciting choices, I know, and even under ideal conditions it's tough to imagine McCain being able to change the fundamental dynamics of the '08 election much.

Best case scenario, then, is McCain/Pence, which manages to swing North Carolina (+15 EV), Indiana (+11 EV), Nebraska-2 (+1 EV), and Florida (+27 EV), as well as make Ohio "too close to call" for much of the night. This means Obama probably can't declare victory at 11:01 pm when polls close in California in TTL.

The net effect of those gains would be 227 EV for McCain/Pence to 311 for Obama/Biden, which would take the election out of landslide territory -- not that Obama ever really got credit for a landslide in the first place.
 

bguy

Donor
McCain lost Minnesota by more than 10 points in OTL. I don't see any way that Pawlenty -- who squeaked to the Governorship with a somewhat less-than-impressive 46.7% plurality (and under 1% margin of victory) in 2006 -- can make up that margin.

I'm not saying having Pawlenty on the ticket will let McCain carry the state, just that it will be enough to let Coleman win the Senate race. I agree that Obama still easily wins Minnesota.
 
As for Palin, she finishes out an uneventful term as Governor of Alaska before losing to Sen. Mark Begich in 2014. Jonah Goldberg continues to send her moderately creepy emails on an almost-daily basis.


Why would Palin lose in 2014? She had insanely high approval ratings in Alaska before becoming a national figure and should be able to easily maintain those ratings unless she ends up as the GOP's vice presidential candidate in 2012. (Which is actually fairly likely, since much of what was attractive about her as a Veep candidate in 2008 will still apply ITL in 2012, only with the added bonus of her having an additional 4 years of gubernatorial experience.)
Everyone but me is apparently forgetting the Branchflower Report. Palin was under investigation for several violations of the law. She only got off the hook because Abuse of Power is not a crime in Alaska, unlike, say Illinois. Palin's popularity declined severely IOTL after her run as VP began.
 
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