With no Dukakis, who gets the nomination in 1988?
- Thread starter Gordian
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I'd write-in Mario Cuomo, who would be even more pressured to run in 1988 minus Dukakis. If Cuomo holds his tongue (he declined before Dukakis ran) and appears to be the only strong, Northeastern candidate he might go for it.
If I had to pick from the options given though, probably Dick Gephardt as he may win New Hampshire after Iowa. The closest guy to beating him in Iowa was Paul Simon, and that guy would get creamed by Bush. I mean, look at him:
If I had to pick from the options given though, probably Dick Gephardt as he may win New Hampshire after Iowa. The closest guy to beating him in Iowa was Paul Simon, and that guy would get creamed by Bush. I mean, look at him:
I'd write-in Mario Cuomo, who would be even more pressured to run in 1988 minus Dukakis. If Cuomo holds his tongue (he declined before Dukakis ran) and appears to be the only strong, Northeastern candidate he might go for it.
If I had to pick from the options given though, probably Dick Gephardt as he may win New Hampshire after Iowa. The closest guy to beating him in Iowa was Paul Simon, and that guy would get creamed by Bush. I mean, look at him:
I don't think he would've. '88, while winnable for the Democrats, favored the GOP and given the fact that he didn't run in '92 (which in hindsight was winnable for the Democrats) thinking Bush was going to win based on the success of the Gulf War, and instead planned to run in '96. I think he would've sat '88 out with or without Dukakis.
Cuomo would certainly have to be more willing to take risks, yes, or at least have a better situation to start with.
The liberals don't really have much place to go after Hart implodes. Sure there's Biden, but given reasons others have stated it's difficult for him. People would be reluctant to support Jackson, and that pretty much leaves Gore, Gerphardt, Babbit, and Simon, who all either aren't liberal enough or too weak of a candidate. If anything, the OTL draft Cuomo crowd would be larger, and maybe the thought reaches him that Democrats will remember him as the man who let Bush win?
Eh, either way. 1988 economically speaking was a bit of a poisoned chalice (although not to the extent of 1928, 2004, or even 1972 and 1976), and was very crucial internationally. I don't see any Democrats at the time (except Hart, who is a no do due to Donna Rice) handling foreign affairs as well as Bush 41 did (and I say this as a Democrat). So with that and with the economy going into recession in the fall of 1990 (although the recession ended in March of '91), a Democrat is just as likely if not more likely to lose in '92 as Bush and if a Democrat did win in '88 and lose in '92, the early '90s would be seen as a repeat of the late '70s, so I'm glad Bush won that year, as it led to Clinton in '92.
I agree, 1989-1993 will be difficult for any President to handle, especially the Democrats who risk being Carter'd once again. And I concur that Clinton was worth Bush I. 
If anyone hasn't read What It Takes they really should
This, this, a thousand times this. Without a doubt the greatest campaign book ever written. So, so good.
I'm not that much of a fan of Bush, Sr. on the international front.
He led us into an unnecessary war against a two-bit dictator, and what was left on the table was a real and expanding peace with the former Soviet Union, potentially a whole series of solid trade deals, as well as a peace dividend here at home for American citizens.
He led us into an unnecessary war against a two-bit dictator, and what was left on the table was a real and expanding peace with the former Soviet Union, potentially a whole series of solid trade deals, as well as a peace dividend here at home for American citizens.
The war was necessary. It was bad enough that Saddam went into Kuwait , but if we sat on our hands, he very well could've went into Saudi Arabia, and then he would've had control of two very oil rich countries, and two that the Western world relied on for their oil. If we hadn't did what we did, and he cut us off of the oil, it would've been a disaster of epic proportions. Granted, they (the Bush administration) gave Saddam mixed signals before he invaded Kuwait, but once it happened and diplomacy failed, we had no choice.
As for Russia, the Cold War officially ended in late 1991, how much could Bush have realistically achieved in a little over a year? Your criticisms of him there would probably be better placed on the three succeeding administrations.
Comrade, you should be aware that Wikipedia has Jesse Jackson as coming second statistically, and that don't mean he was a realistic prospect for the nomination.
The teleological obsession with Gore on this board is really weird. He wasn't a first-tier candidate in '88, and there's no real reason to believe he would be one in this scenario. Gore veering off the map to the right was due to space being given up by the old southron bench, Sam Nunn and the like, not due to the positioning of the wider field. I guess we're looking at third place in New Hampshire ITTL, but Gore made a professional campaign out of coming third in Northern states IOTL, with well-documented results.
Hell, a stronger Gephardt really fucks him up in the South ITTL. He may not even make it out of Super Tuesday.
But as you yourself note, Dukakis was responding to Cuomo, not the other way round. The Duke had that one signed off by his fellow northeastern governor before he ran.
Sorry, but this shows a serious problem with your understanding of that race, if you think Paul 'Bring back the WPA' Simon couldn't have occupied the position of a serious liberal standard-bearer, which was, uhm, what he did IOTL. 'He looks strong', as Saint Mario himself said of the great man.
You realise that The Duke was one of the 'seven dwarfs' IOTL, right? That the utter collapse of the front-runner didn't tempt Cuomo to re-consider?
You make the people who voted for Hart in the poll look cautious and conservative.
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Well if the thread is about keeping Dukakis out of the race, Cuomo would certainly would be a way to do it. Course we'd be looking at a very different race.
My apologies if I described Simon the wrong way, I don't know the man.
Seems to me that Simon's greatest adversary here would be his more liberal opponents who would cost him critical support in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Gerphardt, the closest candidate trailing him. Of course, if Simon is the established frontrunner in Iowa AND New Hampshire he'll be targeted earlier on no doubt.
My guess is that he wouldn't want to go back on his OTL commitment of not running? I don't recall many politicians jumping back into the primary if they have clearly ruled it out. If Cuomo's still on the fence then he would be more inclined to hop in, right?
As I remember, the world community was largely in agreement that the invasion must not be allowed to stand, but was in disagreement as to the remedy. The U.S. and the UK favored military action. The rest of the allies generally favored giving sanctions enough time to work.
Now, sanctions were not exactly anything to write home about. With the very broad sanctions, including on things such as medicines (!) (!), different people have argued that the damn sanctions killed more children than the 1991 Persian Gulf war itself. And noncombatants generally, children being a good indicator and a canary in the mine so to speak, as well as obviously important in their own right.
And after the Feb. '91 Coalition victory, the sanctions continued all the way to the second Persian Gulf war starting in March 2003. This period of more than a decade is when most of the children died. It's like poor exit strategy, as well as perhaps a failure to improv and adapt to actual situations, gave the people of Iraq the worse of both worlds. Remember when the 'Oil for Food' program was in the news? And former MP George Calloway was against sanctions, and so was a lot of other people.
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And then after the war, the situation where President Bush called upon the people of Iraq to rebel and then didn't back them up, that was a pretty bad situation, too. Now, it could be said, well, he didn't directly say that he would back them up. But forgive the people of Iraq for thinking he implied it.
And this kind of thing can stick in a person's craw. To take an example, it's one thing to escalate a situation and fire on an adversary's boat when you don't need to. But it's another to ignore a distress signal in a situation other than active hostilities. Human beings are complex and somehow the second is more personal.
Maybe in twenty-five years when the people of Iraq have had a representative democracy for quite a while and are doing well, and I hope this will come, a U.S. president will give a brief, simple, heartfelt apology for not backing up the rebellion. And I hope this apology will be easily and graciously accepted, but that's up to the person being apologized to.
And this kind of thing can stick in a person's craw. To take an example, it's one thing to escalate a situation and fire on an adversary's boat when you don't need to. But it's another to ignore a distress signal in a situation other than active hostilities. Human beings are complex and somehow the second is more personal.
Maybe in twenty-five years when the people of Iraq have had a representative democracy for quite a while and are doing well, and I hope this will come, a U.S. president will give a brief, simple, heartfelt apology for not backing up the rebellion. And I hope this apology will be easily and graciously accepted, but that's up to the person being apologized to.
I agree with you on this. This is one fault of Bush Sr, we either should've never had them rebel or backed them up, although I think backing the rebels could've backfired to. Iraq post 1991 was one of those "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't" kind of things, but I think Dubya's invasion proved you're more damned if you do anything.
TinyTartar
Banned
I've always thought that the call to rebel was not necessarily aimed at fomenting a popular insurrection that if we are being honest, would likely be allied with Iran, who was very much an enemy back then.
I always thought that Bush was talking more to the Iraqi Generals who had seen their armies annihilated by the foolishness of Saddam leading them into a war against the West right after a long war against the Iranians. I think Bush was calling for a coup and he ended up getting genuine popular revolt. Keep in mind he was a foreign policy lifer who had seen and participated in the Cold War's proxy wars. Coups were often framed in the terms he used to call for revolt.
I agree that if he was to call for such a revolt, there was a responsibility to see the thing through, but that would not have gone much better than what happened OTL. The only difference is that Sunni Islam in Iraq would not be as radicalized as it was during the 90s with Saddams back to faith movement.
I think you're on to something. We wanted a coup among the generals, who most of all would be friendly to American corporate interests.
A mistake along several different dimensions.
A mistake along several different dimensions.