With no Dukakis, who gets the nomination in 1988?

With no Dukakis, who gets the nomination in 1988?


  • Total voters
    88
In OTL in Texas in the governor's office:
Bill Clements (R) 1979-1983
Mark White (D) '83-'87
Bill Clements (R) '87-'91
Ann Richards (D) '91-'95
George W. Bush (R) '95-2000*

*Bush stepped down as Texas governor on Dec. 21, 2000.
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/governors.html

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So, perhaps in an ATL, Ann Richards wins in '82 and wins re-election in '86. Then wins the Democratic nomination in '88, be a heck of a race in the general.
 
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Generally if you want to advance people's careers you have an easier base than Texas :). The wiki is basically right on this one:

After the incumbent Texas State Treasurer, Warren G. Harding (no relation to the former U.S. president of the same name), became mired in legal troubles in 1982, Richards won the Democratic nomination for that post. Winning election against a Republican opponent in November that year, Richards became the first woman elected to statewide office in more than fifty years.

Only after she won again in 1986 was she even considered for a bigger role. No way she somehow jumps into the Governor's race a decade early, without a POD involving her getting elected in the 1970s to something else (edit: which is exponentially harder in said '70s, given that she remains a woman (sigh)). The lack of experience is easily forgiven in a rich white guy, certainly not a woman no matter how good she was at her job.
 
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Now, when Bill Clements won in 1978, he was the first Republican to win the Texas governorship since Reconstruction. That would make it all the more of a challenge since the good ol' boy network and the Democratic establishment would want to run a "safe" candidate. But they don't control everything. Plus, if they try and control things too tightly, they can inspire a reaction in the other direction.

Sissy Farenthold* ran in the Democratic primary for Texas Governor back in the early '70s. She ran from the liberal wing and I think did kind of okay. If Ann Richards had run as a centralist in '82, especially if she ran early and strong, well, who knows.

*Frances "Sissy" Farenthold lost 46 to 54% against Dolph Briscoe in the 1972 runoff for the Democratic nomination for Texas Governor. Both had run as reform candidates following the Sharpstown Bank scandal.

https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/state/gubernatorial-campaigns/

http://www.texasobserver.org/when-the-democrats-roamed/
 
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If anyone hasn't read What It Takes they really should :).



Although that's certainly an interesting scenario in of itself of him winning the nomination but dying before the general or alternatively just after.

Imagine Paul Tsongas becoming president or vice president for a comparable tl. (I liked Paul Tsongas a lot when he was running.)
 
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.


In the Middle East, not counting Israel of course, Saddam Hussein was voted Most Likely To Squash Al Qaeda Like A Grape. Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before the Iraqi security infrastructure was deflated and decidedly not replaced with a newly funded version of itself.

If Saddam had taken Saudi Arabia, I imagine it would have been a very brutal time of secularization and oppressing anyone with beliefs leaning otherwise. That and lots of women lining up for their new driver's licenses.


As for Iraq-Arabia cutting off our supply of oil, well, what's he going to do with all that oil besides sell it? He has to pay for molding Saudi Arabia in his image somehow.
 
In the Middle East, not counting Israel of course, Saddam Hussein was voted Most Likely To Squash Al Qaeda Like A Grape. Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before the Iraqi security infrastructure was deflated and decidedly not replaced with a newly funded version of itself.

If Saddam had taken Saudi Arabia, I imagine it would have been a very brutal time of secularization and oppressing anyone with beliefs leaning otherwise. That and lots of women lining up for their new driver's licenses.


As for Iraq-Arabia cutting off our supply of oil, well, what's he going to do with all that oil besides sell it? He has to pay for molding Saudi Arabia in his image somehow.

Erm, did the 1991 Iraqi Army have the capability to defeat Saudi Arabia in an invasion? The supply situation would be worse than abysmal, plus they're just coming off of the Iran-Iraq war. I highly doubt Saddam's just going to up and take over the whole Arabian Peninsula...
 
Erm, did the 1991 Iraqi Army have the capability to defeat Saudi Arabia in an invasion? The supply situation would be worse than abysmal, plus they're just coming off of the Iran-Iraq war. I highly doubt Saddam's just going to up and take over the whole Arabian Peninsula...

For what it's worth, Iraq's army at the time had about one million soldiers, including the 150k in Kuwait admiring the view into Saudi Arabia,
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-13/news/mn-465_1_iraqi-army

From LA Times, August 1990,
Already Iraq's army is the fifth largest in the world, a million men and growing, larger in raw numbers than the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined. Currently mobilizing still more men, U.S. analysts now believe, Baghdad soon will have boosted that force by half, handing weapons and uniforms to three of every four men between the ages of 15 and 49. And each of these soldiers is held to a standard of unquestioning loyalty to one man: Saddam Hussein.


This article, below, appears to agree with your point of view, logistics versus getting to the interior etc., etc., http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-greatest-fear-what-if-saddam-had-invaded-saudi-12589


Of course a story about Saddam taking over Saudi Arabia could be morbidly entertaining, one giant leap for secular humanism, or something like that.
 
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