WI: The Great Recession occurs before the 2008 Primaries?

Pretty much as the tin says, what if the Great Recession has happened in then second half of 2007 or first two months of 2008 prior to the beginning of the 2008 Primaries?
 
McCain loses even worse, maybe Ron Paul gets a bit more. Obama wins the primary by a slightly bigger margin. If you have the crisis hit in 2007, by 2008 you'll have the greater job loss and unemployment setting in, making it even worse for the GOP. In addition, it helps Obama's presidency given that there will be some measure of recovery by 2009 and 2010 compared to OTL.
 
Edwards' "Two Americas" campaign message would probably be strong enough to propel him to a win in Iowa, which would seriously hurt Obama's momentum, and infuse Edwards' campaign with the legitimacy and fundraising that he needed to take on Clinton down the stretch. Edwards had basically been giving this speech since 2004, and made liberal economic policy the centerpiece of his campaign long before any other candidates, Dem or GOP. My assumption is that you'd have a three way race for a while on the Democratic side, and maybe more consideration of the Obama/Edwards fusion ticket that was discussed at length in Game Change.

Now, if Edwards is still viable when the Hunter stuff comes out, everything gets scrambled and it's hard to say how it shakes out, especially if Edwards loses momentum, but still has a load of delegates and could play kingmaker at the convention in a Hillary 40%, Obama 40% Edwards 20% delegate situation.

A longer term butterfly --- if the recession starts earlier, then the failed "recovery summer" of 2010 actually happens in 2009, and maybe Democrats don't lose get the OTL "shellacking" if people are starting to feel the recovery by late 2010.
 
In the re-shuffle this provides, I think Hillary might win,

especially if Obama still makes his statement ""They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them . . . ," which was a full-blown blunder, and in fact the suspicion among conservative-leaning citizens that this is what he was really like, dogged him throughout his presidency.

Over time, Hillary might be viewed as the safer candidate who's going to do enough of the right things to fix the economy. Just like Bill was viewed as the safer candidate in '92 as compared to Paul Tsongas or Jerry Brown.
 
I posted about this a few years ago:

***
Let's wave our hands and make the Great Recession start a year early. Lehman Brothers falls in September 2007, and by early 2008 the US economy is hemorrhaging 500,000 jobs a month. This obviously will have many important effects. But right now I only want to discuss one: the effects on the 2008 US elections. The Democrats will doubtless win in November 2008 as unemployment peaks around then. But the question is: *which* Democratic candidate for the presidency will win?

My guess is that this scenario will help Hillary Clinton and hurt Barack Obama in the presidential primaries. Less emphasis on hope and change and more of an "OMG we've got to get someone who can fix this" with Hillary's evocation about how good the economy was under her husband's administration being more persuasive than in OTL. Obama might of course try to rebut with things like "But your husband supported repeal of Glass-Steagall" but (1) I don't think the public will care that much about such details, and (2) Obama has never been particularly convincing as an economic populist. Indeed, Obama simply does not as of 2008 have any real economic record and was not planning to run on the economy (which was--at least superficially--in pretty good shape when he decided to run). In the early part of his campaign, he put a lot of emphasis on Hillary's vote for the Iraq AUMF--something which will be a lot less important in this ATL, as voters focus more on the economy.

Perhaps Edwards with his economic populism will benefit for a while, but by the time of the convention the news of his extramarital affair will be out, and that will kill his chances.

I do see one strong case for saying that Hillary's defeat was inevitable in 2008 regardless of the state of the economy--her puzzling neglect of most of the caucus states. But perhaps with a stronger Edwards candidacy, she would pay more attention to them.

Meanwhile, what is the effect on the GOP primaries? McCain never seemed to have wanted to focus on the economy. Does the recession help Mitt Romney with his "I'm a businessman, I can turn the economy around"? Or on the contrary does it make the portrayal of him as a heartless plutocrat who enjoys laying people off more convincing? (Granted this portrayal is more persuasive to Democrats than to Republican primary voters, but in 2012 it seemed to have some resonance for a while even among the latter.) Huckabee's social issues are eclipsed, but he also had an economic populist side. Of course Giuliani's "vote for me because 9/11" becomes even more irrelevant than in OTL...

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ects-on-2008-us-presidential-election.336055/

***

It would be tempting for me to revise this after the experience of the 2016 election, but I don't think it would be justified to do so. 2008 was not 2016--in 2008 HRC did best with precisely the sort of white working class voters she lost so heavily in 2016.
 
-snip-

It would be tempting for me to revise this after the experience of the 2016 election, but I don't think it would be justified to do so. 2008 was not 2016--in 2008 HRC did best with precisely the sort of white working class voters she lost so heavily in 2016.

I do agree that she did best with the WWC and I think an earlier recession would only amplify that and help her win back some of the WWCs who had voted Republican previously as they lose their jobs under GWB
 
It would be tempting for me to revise this after the experience of the 2016 election, but I don't think it would be justified to do so. 2008 was not 2016--in 2008 HRC did best with precisely the sort of white working class voters she lost so heavily in 2016.

On the flip side, an earlier recession also amplifies Obama's change message. With that said, without an early win in Iowa, black voters are slow to see him as truly viable, and thus he doesn't roll up Super Tuesday which really put him in the driver's seat. I'll say those factors cancel each other out.
 
My guess is that this scenario will help Hillary Clinton and hurt Barack Obama in the presidential primaries. Less emphasis on hope and change and more of an "OMG we've got to get someone who can fix this" with Hillary's evocation about how good the economy was under her husband's administration being more persuasive than in OTL. Obama might of course try to rebut with things like "But your husband supported repeal of Glass-Steagall" but (1) I don't think the public will care that much about such details, and (2) Obama has never been particularly convincing as an economic populist. Indeed, Obama simply does not as of 2008 have any real economic record and was not planning to run on the economy (which was--at least superficially--in pretty good shape when he decided to run).
.

1) I don’t see why the public wouldn’t care about things like the Clintons track record of being close to Wall Street in this situation- they clearly did in a much better economic situation in 2016.

2) Obama (and his campaign) could be very convincing as economic populists when they wanted to be- see his Cooper Union speech in 08, the way they used Bain against Romney in 12, etc.
 

SsgtC

Banned
That'd be nice. You think House and Senate would get enough Dem majority for them to try and do more ambitious things?
How much more ambitious can you get than they already were? Ramming through healthcare reform without a single vote from across the aisle (IIRC) was pretty damn ambitious. That bit them later when Pelosi's "We have to pass it to find out what's in it" comment started to come up more often. There's not a whole lot more that they could have done realistically
 
How much more ambitious can you get than they already were? Ramming through healthcare reform without a single vote from across the aisle (IIRC) was pretty damn ambitious. That bit them later when Pelosi's "We have to pass it to find out what's in it" comment started to come up more often. There's not a whole lot more that they could have done realistically

You kidding? They let the GOP make over 100 adjustments to the thing. Hell, the healthcare reform was basically the GOP's approach to it since Nixon's[/o] era and it wasn't like OTL Democrats had a majority in the Senate or House. They really didn't.

There was more tey could've done if they didn't suffered the big losses they did.
 
In the re-shuffle this provides, I think Hillary might win,

especially if Obama still makes his statement ""They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them . . . ," which was a full-blown blunder, and in fact the suspicion among conservative-leaning citizens that this is what he was really like, dogged him throughout his presidency.

Over time, Hillary might be viewed as the safer candidate who's going to do enough of the right things to fix the economy. Just like Bill was viewed as the safer candidate in '92 as compared to Paul Tsongas or Jerry Brown.

Agree. People might be more reluctant to trust a neophyte during a crisis - and in the fall of 2007, there is no "fire the Republicans" sentiment to offset it. "It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush" is a much more effective tagline in that scenario.

Interestingly, the bitter gun clinger remark didn't seem to hurt O, at least not in the tracking polls. The conventional wisdom is it cost him votes he otherwise could have won, but he did slightly better in the tracking polls in the second half of April:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat..._Democratic_Party_2008_presidential_primaries

Might be that the infamous remark just confirmed what the skeptics already suspected. If that's the case, those votes were already in Hillary's column, but the remark increased his support among the urban elitist/limousine liberal set.
 
On the Republican side, does Huckabee style populist economics gain traction?

It might. But he had to contend with McCain, whose maverick brand appealed to Republicans who were dissatisfied with Bush. Romney had the country club Republicans. Didn't leave a lot of room for Huck.
 
Agree. People might be more reluctant to trust a neophyte during a crisis - and in the fall of 2007, there is no "fire the Republicans" sentiment to offset it. "It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush" is a much more effective tagline in that scenario.

I don't see any reason why that would be the case- an earlier recession means that 2008 is more of a change election, not less, especially when even back in 2007-08 there was an absolute mountain of examples tying the Clintons to the financial elite.
 
I don't see any reason why that would be the case- an earlier recession means that 2008 is more of a change election, not less, especially when even back in 2007-08 there was an absolute mountain of examples tying the Clintons to the financial elite.

But you have a candidate who played an active role in the last successful administration - and that success is fresher in the minds of the voters.
 
But you have a candidate who played an active role in the last successful administration - and that success is fresher in the minds of the voters.

Also the administration who passed policies that contributed massively to the downturn in ways that are even easier to point out ITTL- for example, Citigroup (during part of 07 headed by ex Clinton Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin) will be getting a really unpopular bailout right in the middle of primary season.

The shine is going to come off the Clinton years right quick ITTL.
 
Also the administration who passed policies that contributed massively to the downturn in ways that are even easier to point out ITTL- for example, Citigroup (during part of 07 headed by ex Clinton Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin) will be getting a really unpopular bailout right in the middle of primary season.

The shine is going to come off the Clinton years right quick ITTL.

This is of course, assuming Clinton will be voted into 2008 and the fact everyone thinks she would is a bit arrogant. What if Obama or Edwards got in?
 
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