WI: Reagan doesn't recover in the 2nd debate with Mondale?

What if Reagan doesn't recover in his second debate with Mondale with his age joke, and appears to be confused again and has a few more gaffes? How (or would) he recover before the election? Would he still win in 1984? How would Mondale and the Democrats try to capitalize on it without trying to outright say the president is senile? How would it effect foreign policy (would people be afraid the Soviets would try to take advantage)?
 
REAGAN: I will not exploit... exploit... uh...

MONDALE: Mr. President, is something the matter?

REAGAN: I... can't quite remember where I was going with that.

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Reagan wins by a healthy margin, but not a landslide. Mondale probably gets Massachusetts and a few key liberal states back, and Reagan's mental health is called into greater question. Reagan '84 is more unbeatable than Nixon '72 really, but ultimately, you can't really make Mondale win short of removing or replacing Reagan.
 
I would think the Reagan campaign would have to do something to try to repair the damage done though.
 
I think people forget just how bad Reagan was in that first debate: claiming that he "started going to church here in Washington", although the debate was held in Louisville, Kentucky, referring to military uniforms as "wardrobe," and -- worst of all -- admitting publicly to being "confused" throughout the debate.

This was October 7, 1984. The second debate was October 21, just two weeks before the election.

Now, that's probably not enough to cause anyone to lose to Walter Mondale, but my guess is that you'd see wholesale and widespread panic in the Reagan campaign. He's probably shed as much as 10 points over a two-day period -- Obama dropped 3-4% on the basis of his lackluster debate performance in 2012, for purposes of comparison -- maybe even enough to throw enough states into "Leans Mondale" + "Too Close To Call" to total 270 EV.

The press would declare it a whole new ballgame, anybody's race to win (which is always in the press's interest, regardless of the candidates). The fundamentals would still strongly favor Reagan, but the entire tenor of the campaign -- which has been "REAGAN IS INEVITABLE" for all of 1984 -- will change.

And there's just two weeks to go!
 
The Reagan campaign would probably go into a full out panic; they'd launch a gigantic ad campaign to swing back whatever voters had been lost, and probably try to get Reagan to make a few speeches competently to prove he hadn't lost it. But Reagan would never be in any serious danger of losing to Mondale; his lead was too great for that to happen.
 
Does this looks like a plausible alt-1984 result, after Reagan's two debate screw-ups?

genusmap.php


Reagan-Bush 408 EV

Mondale-Ferraro 130 EV

While Mondale still loses, he's seen as having put up a good fight against impossible odds, while Reagan is considered to have been lucky that the economy was doing well and there were no major foreign policy crises.
 
Mondale wins everything but Reagan's home state of California.

Nope. The last refuge of Reagan's shattered political career would be the deep mountain states. CA swung against Reagan in 1984 in OTL.

In any case unlikely unless Reagan really screws up the second debate - accidentally admits he worships Satan or is going to launch a nuclear war the day after the election if re-elected. (And people take him seriously) A near 50-state sweep is not easy to turn around in just two weeks...

teg
 
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