WI: Reverse 2012, Obama the challenger vs. Romney the incumbent

Just like it ways on the tin. How do we get this kind of a scenario? How does Romney handle the Recession, and Iraq and Afghanistan? How does the campaign go? Is it close, or does Romney fail where Obama succeeded? How do the 2010 midterms go? How is the economy on election day? Enjoy
 
Just like it ways on the tin. How do we get this kind of a scenario?

Kind of a stretch, given how stacked the deck was against the GOP in 2008...

I guess a couple things need to happen:

1a) Obama turns down overtures to run in '08, which has the knock-on effect of leaving Hillary's campaign in its original somewhat dysfunctional state. Feuding personalities. Unclear chain of command. And so on.

1b) Obama runs, but doesn't win the nomination in such a way that sours African-American voters on the Clintons.

2) McCain drops out. Maybe he has a health scare? Romney would run a tighter campaign, or at least one that doesn't make oddball missteps like "suspending" itself in the aftermath of the banking collapse.

3) Hillary picks John Edwards as her veep. His cheating heart serves as an October surprise.
 
Get Kerry to do better in 2004. The Democrats are blamed for the Recession instead of Bush, and Romney the challenger beats Kerry the incumbent in 2008. Four years later, the youngish Senator from Illinois wins the Democratic nomination, going up against President Romney.
 
Get Kerry to do better in 2004. The Democrats are blamed for the Recession instead of Bush, and Romney the challenger beats Kerry the incumbent in 2008. Four years later, the youngish Senator from Illinois wins the Democratic nomination, going up against President Romney.

This is exactly what I had in mind when I saw the title to this thread. This is the best way to make this scenario happen. The only other way to do it is have Gore win in 2000, serve two terms, have Romney win in 2008, and have Obama beat him in 2012. Only problem with that however is that if Gore doesn't invade Iraq, how does Obama successfully get into national politics? If you think about it (and I say this as someone who voted for him), Obama owes his victory in 2004 and owes his winning the Democratic nomination in 2008 to the Iraq war.
 
This is exactly what I had in mind when I saw the title to this thread. This is the best way to make this scenario happen. The only other way to do it is have Gore win in 2000, serve two terms, have Romney win in 2008, and have Obama beat him in 2012. Only problem with that however is that if Gore doesn't invade Iraq, how does Obama successfully get into national politics? If you think about it (and I say this as someone who voted for him), Obama owes his victory in 2004 and owes his winning the Democratic nomination in 2008 to the Iraq war.

Well, he'd have a decent shot at winning the Senate nomination in 2004 regardless of the war, given that he was a charismatic liberal and an African-American in a state whose primary voters are disproportionately liberal and African-American.

His OTL '08 run couldn't have happened without his opposition to the Iraq War. But in 2012, he'd have been in the Senate for 8 years, and would be credible even without war opposition. Now, you could say it'd be harder to defeat Hillary in 2012 without the war in the way, but 8 years in the Senate would make it harder for Hillary to hit Obama with the experience card, and the changing demographics of the Democratic Party, in favor of the non-white electorate, would also benefit him.

OTOH, getting the WH to flip back to the Democrats after just one term out - following 16 years in power - would be difficult.

Also, without the '04 Democratic nomination open, Carol Moseley Braun might run for her old Senate seat (as she had been expected to do), instead of making a quixotic presidential bid, and Obama might opt out thinking he'd be unable to carry the AA vote in the primary.
 
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