Those who were "almost" President of the U.S.

This thread might mostly be speculative, but I think it has the potential to be fun, while of course having Senate-level analysis.

At every presidential election, American citizens choose the better of two (sometimes more) candidates. Especially in the years since 1932, the presidency has grown significantly in power and authority.

Every presidential election is a crossroads between two divergent futures for America, or so we believe.

How might the history books have been different if Whats-His-Name won the presidential election, instead of You-Know Who? That's what I hope to discuss in this thread. If they would have really been that different at all.

Here is the list:

1 John S. McCain III (2008, Barack Obama)
2 John F. Kerry (2004, George W. Bush)
3 Albert Gore Jr., Ralph Nader (2000, George W. Bush)
4 Robert J. Dole (1996, Bill Clinton)
5 Henry R. Perot (1992, Bill Clinton)
6 Michael S. Dukakis (1988, George H.W. Bush)
7 Walter F. Mondale (1984, Ronald Reagan)
8 George S. McGovern (1972, Richard Nixon)
9 Hubert H, Humphrey Jr. (1968, Richard Nixon)
10 Barry M. Goldwater (1964, Lyndon Johnson)
11 Adlai E. Stevenson II (1952/1956, Dwight Eisenhower)
12 Thomas E. Dewey (1944/1948, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
13 Wendell L. Willkie (1940, Franklin Roosevelt)
14 Alfred M. Landon (1936, Franklin Roosevelt)

15 Alfred E. Smith (1928, Herbert Hoover)
16 John W. Davis, Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1924, Calvin Coolidge)
17 James M. Cox (1920, Warren Harding)
18 Charles E. Hughes Sr. (1916, Woodrow Wilson)
19 William J. Bryan (1896/1900/1908, William McKinley and William Taft)
20 Alton B. Parker (1904, Teddy Roosevelt)

21 James G. Blaine (1884, Grover Cleveland)
22 Winfield S. Hancock (1880, James Garfield)
23 Samuel J. Tilden (1876, Rutherford Hayes)
24 Horace Greeley (1872, Ulysses Grant)
25 Horatio Seymour (1868, Ulysses Grant)
26 George B. McClellan (1864, Abraham Lincoln)

27 John C. Breckinwidge, John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas (1860, Abraham Lincoln)

28 John C. Frémont (1854, James Buchanan)
29 Winfield Scott (1852, Franklin Pierce)
30 Lewis Cass (1848, Zachary Taylor)
31 Henry Clay Sr. (1832/1844, Andrew Jackson and James Polk)

32 Rufus King (1816, James Monroe)
33 DeWitt Clinton (1812, James Madison)
34 Aaron Burr,Charles C. Pinckney, George Clinton (1800/1804/1808, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison)

35 Thomas Pinckney, Samuel Adams, Oliver Ellsworth, George Clinton (1796, John Adams)

36 George Clinton (1792, George Washington)

37 John Jay, Robert H. Harrison, John Rutledge (1789, George Washington)







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First up...

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/John_McCain_official_portrait_2009.jpg] [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Sarah_Palin_portrait.jpg]

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/ElectionMapPurpleCounty.jpg]


John Sidney McCain III, the Republican Senator from Arizona, lost the 2008 election to Barack H. Obama by 365 to 173. His running mate was Sarah Louise Heath Palin, Governor of Alaska. Well-known hero and POW from the Vietnam conflict, a "maverick" in the Senate for many years.

There as a long, tough primary season for both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Other major Republican contendors were Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson.

Other major Democratic contendors were Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel.

I don't think anyone here needs me to recap this election that much.

What direction would the country have gone in if McCain had b

 

Henry Clay was actually on the ballot a whopping five times without ever getting elected. I recall this solely because it became a running gag in my US History class (EG "In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected over incumbent Jimmy Carter..." "And longtime presidential candidate Henry Clay").

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On topic, I'd speculate that if McCain had won while the Democrats still took their super majority, we would see very little getting done in Washington, perhaps even more so than right now. I'm not sure it'd make a huge difference aside from the direction of our war policies.

 

The only thing that McCain and Congressional Democrats agree on that I can think of is climate change. It would be gridlock like 2007-2009 still.

 

Well to answer that particular question, I would say McCain undoubtably would have acted as an impediment in the way that Bush was from 2006-2008. Remember that military funding bill that he killed because it specified a deadline to his private little war? This is the first time that the US has had a majority congress and president to match them in a long time and McCain would only have constricted how much progress could have been made.

The real question here is what would have happened if Bush had become president in 2000... he did? But Al Gore had won that election!

If that election hadn't been stolen, we might be able to still call this nation a republic and democracy would still have some meaning. Bush's selection as president is without doubt the single worst thing that's happened to this state since the civil war. If Al Gore had been president, then any question of what the current president would have done wouldn't matter. We'd not be engaged in a pointless war. 9/11 might have happened regardless, but it wouldn't have been used for propaganda purposes. With a Republic majority in the house and senate, Gore might have been a lame-duck president, but ANYTHING would have been better than that war criminal that stole the election in 2000.

 

Would it be worth pointing out that there was considerable questions of voter irregularities in the 1960 election that led to Kennedy becoming president, and under his presidency, the number of troops in Vietnam increased dramatically, to lead to involvement peaking after LBJ's reelection? And Vietnam was, I'd say unquestionably, worse for the country than the Iraq blunder has been, with the POSSIBLE exception that Vietnam lowered the voting age to 18.

Clearly that war criminal doomed us by having the Chicago political machine steal Illinois and having LBJ deliver Texas, with some precincts and counties having more votes than registered voters.



Or, we can just accept that the 2000 election happened and move from there without the hyperbole.

 

I know I'm getting ahead of things, but I just have to ask...


Wendell Willkie?





WENDELL WILLKIE???





[image=http://i37.tinypic.com/x1iz9j.jpg]


WENDELL WILLKIE - WENDELL WILLKIE - WENDELL WILLKIE - WENDELL WILLKIE - WENDELL WILLKIE!!!!!!!!!!!





Wendell...

 

Just wait until we get to some of their photos...


Since I think we have a consensus that McCain would have just resulted in more stalemates (and it is still being rather early too), and since this is already getting sidetracked by the 2000 election, I'll move on to the next one one the list...




[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/John_F._Kerry.jpg] [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/John_Edwards%2C_official_Senate_photo_portrait.jpg]

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Cartogram-2004_Electoral_Vote.PNG]

John Forbes Kerry, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, lost the 2004 election to incumbent George W. Bush by 286 to 251. His running mate was Johnny Reid Edwards, Senator of North Carolina. Well-known Vietnam veteran who became an anti-war activist, he had served in the Senate since 1985.

Kerry and Edwards were said to not have the best running-mate relationsip.

Besides them, the others in the 2004 Democratic primaries were Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, Joe Lieberman, Dick Gephardt, Carol Moseley Brown, and Bob Graham.

Kerry wanted to leave Iraq, although he voted for it as Senator. He supported abortion rights and civil unions, opposed privatizing Social Security, opposed capital punishment except for terrorists, supported free trade agreements and gun control laws, and promised stronger action on global warming. An expert in Foreign Relations. Kerry and McCain, both veterans of the Vietnam conflict, urged normalization of relations in the 1990's and succeeded. Went on after the failed presidential bid to sponsor the new GI Bill. Was considered a possible contendor for Obama's Secretary of State.

It was the first presidential election since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Afghanistan war, and the Iraq war. Iraq, national security, terrorism, respect in the world, and "moral values" were the main issues. The economy and healthcare were smaller concerns. Anti-war activists supported Kerry, Christian conservatives supported Bush. Kerry was painted as an elite and a flip-flopper, who would be an uncertain leader in a post-9/11 world. Both Kerry's military service in Vietnam, and Bush's military service in the National Guard at the time, were called into question. There was also a lot of leftover anger on the left for the close call in Florida from the previous presidential election.

Minor party candidates received fewer votes, dropping from a total of 3.5% in 2000 to approximately 1 percent:
-Ralph Nader ran as an Independent (also Reform Party and Populist Party)
-Michael Badnarik ran as the Liberterian Party candidate
-Michael Peroutka ran as the Constitution Party candidate (also Alaska Independence Party)
-David Cobb ran as the Green Party candidate
-Leonard Peltier ran as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate
-Walt Brown ran as the Socialist Party candidate
-Róger Calero ran as the Socialist Workers' Party candidate

High voter turnout. First election since 1988 where the victor won over 50% of the popular vote, 50.73% to Kerry's 48.27%. Although the election was close, nearly half of U.S. voters lived in a county where Bush or Kerry won by 20 percentage points or more. Bush won every county in Utah and Oklahoma while Kerry won every county in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Hawaii. The West Coast, Northeast, and most of the Great Lakes region for Kerry; and the South, Great Plains, and Mountain States for Bush. This election was the first time an incumbent president returned to office while his political party increased its numbers in both houses of Congress since Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election. It was the first time for a Republican since William McKinley in the 1900 election.

One faithless elector in Minnesota cast a ballot for John Edwards as president.




What direction would the country have gone in if Kerry had been elected in 2004 to become the next President of the United States?

 

If McCain had won there'd be more done in congress right now simply becuase the Democrats would be more willing to negotiate. McCain himself is essentially a moderate and, while I'm not sure the US's reputation abroad would have improved to the point it has (not fully recovered, but better) he'd probably have battled his own party more than the Democrats.

Unfortunately McCain values some bad political allegiances. Lieberman would no doubt have gotten a windfall out of his election and frankly, the last thing the nation needs is Lieberman with more power than he has.

And Sarah Palin in the VP office would be absolutely rediculous. Full stop.

Otherwise though, his election after GWB still would have been a net gain. Had he taken the whole contest in 2000, the US would have been an incredibly healthier country than it is now. Probably for no other reason that the very allegiances I spoke of above weren't as strong back then. There WAS no Sarah Palin, and Lieberman was affiliated with Gore.


Had Kerry been elected it's tough to say if the nation would have been ALL that better off. He deserved to win, certainly, but the damage had been done by that point. It's pretty likely he would have greenlighted the surge since that was largely McCain's influence and the two are pretty amicable -- but the surge went through anyway and Kerry probably wouldn't have implemented it any faster.

Frankly, the real difference that could have been made would have been if either John McCain or Al Gore had won in 2000 instead of GWB. Of course, that Gore had Lieberman on the ticket is probably enough for me to favor McCain in that scenrio.

 

I find it REALLY hard to figure out what would've happened had Kerry been president in large part as his campaign really didn't give me an idea of what he was going to do. He seemed to be running for president in 2000, not 2004, because he focused on what he WOULD HAVE done on things that happened during Bush's first term, rather than what he'd intend to do in the next term.

Foreign policywise, at least with Iraq and Afghanistan, I think once you reach 2004, those were fairly well set.

 

All things considered, Kerry should have won in 2004. It was when a majority of Americans actually voted for Bush that I truly lost all faith in the US. It didn't matter what Kerry neglected to mention about what he would do; they should have known enough about what Bush had done in order to demand he be impeached. But to want him to continue raping their county?

If that were so, then Bush is EXACTLY what such fools deserve. The minimum Bush voters could have done was spare the rest of us stupidity.

 

Kerry made it pathetically easy for Bush to win. I don't know about the rest of you, but as an independent voter as a general rule, both Kerry and Bush came off as arrogant windbags to me, and frankly, Kerry simply wasn't offering anything that made me go "yeah, this guy should win."

It seemed like his entire platform was "I'm not Bush, so vote for me."

 

Anyone other than Bush was good enough for the US. Although Kerry could have done so much more, he shouldn't have had to. While Kerry may have passed for arrogant, Bush had proven himself to be an enemy to the State... or utterly incompetent. A rock would have made a better president than that chimp in a suit.

 

Oh, I agree on that one, but Kerry simply didn't do a good job of explaining why he'd be a better President, and then made doofy statements like "the army is for people who can't go to college." While I doubt he meant that "the army is for stupid people", it's the kind of statement that can be deeply misconstrued, and very probably was.

Basically, Kerry failed at convincing anybody outside of the people who'd vote Democratic irregardless of who the candidates that particular year that he should be President.

 

It's probably a separate issue as to if Bush should be impeached (I don't think he should have been as I don't think he did anything that qualifies FOR it) but my view was that at that time for 2004-2008 Bush wasn't going to have the strength to do much and he'd just spend his second term trying to get Iraq/Afghanistan under control but no new screw ups.

Though personally, I still regret not voting for Badnarik that election year, and I've made it a point since then to vote for the person that I think SHOULD win every election since then.

 

Basically, Kerry failed at convincing anybody outside of the people who'd vote Democratic irregardless of who the candidates that particular year that he should be President.

... and that is somehow worse than the thorough job Bush had already done at convincing people he ALREADY WAS a bad President?

It's like going to a law firm considering to switch lawyers and saying to Kerry, 'sorry sir, your presentation was lacking' -- which may or may not have been true, but at the same time you're hooing and hawing over his imperfections while the current lawyer handed in his proposal written in crayon.

By saying that Kerry didn't run as glitzy an election campaign as Clinton, Obama or McCain is essentially lowering the bar for GWB.

 

Thanks, that is exactly what I was going for. Even before the second election, there were more than enough signs that Bush had exploited the US citizens and military for his own private little war.

Maybe instead of voting for who would make a good president, the American people should instead vote for who they don't want for president. Instead of saying 'yeah, John Kerry gets my vote' instead say you don't want either candidate for president. It would not be the same as not voting, but making it clear that you don't like a particular candidate(s) and that your vote could actually act against the candidate you hate.

 

Maybe instead of voting for who would make a good president, the American people should instead vote for who they don't want for president. Instead of saying 'yeah, John Kerry gets my vote' instead say you don't want either candidate for president. It would not be the same as not voting, but making it clear that you don't like a particular candidate(s) and that your vote could actually act against the candidate you hate.

Well the thing is I just don't BUY these arguments about Kerry not winning. They're largely false rationalizations. If you're stuck with someone doing a bad job, you remove him. Simple as that. The only reason you wouldn't is if it was clear the next person would do an even WORSE job. And unless that person was Sarah Palin, I don't see why there would be any hesitation for not replacing Bush with John Kerry, John McCain, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, his own father, Michael Dukakis... the list is pretty long here, people.

When Bush won in 2000, I'm not as big on the 'stolen election' thing. sure, I don't know the legal mumbo-jumbo that landed Bush in the White House... but anyone complaining about that is ignoring the clear Elephant in the room (pun intended) that Gore and Bush were essentially even in electoral votes. This would not have been possible if there were not a heck of a lot of people voting for George Bush.

And yes, while it was sort of lazy for people to think Bush would do the job his father had, Bush Snr. DID do a pretty good job. The Bush Snr. years enjoyed some great foreign policy accomplishments, comparitively speaking, and the man handled the fall of the Soviet Union quite well. Many voters, it could be argued, didn't know what they were getting with him.

...mind you, I said that COULD be argued. The election with Kerry proved that wasn't really the case.

The fact of the matter is, there was NO WAY most of those states would have voted for Kerry. Only the ones Obama later won were really in some way up for grabs, and probably North Carolina and Virginia weren't in reasonable play just yet.

It didn't matter how bad of a candidate Bush was. He was still guarenteed a number of wins based solely on his Conservative credentials. Kerry was not particularly gurenteed the same: Bush won every county in states he wasn't even a previous resident of. Kerry won everything in Massachusetts... but then he was FROM Masachuetts. RI is so small it begs the notion of statistical anomoly because of it, and much the same can be said of Hawaii.

It's pretty clear what was going on and what's still going on. As a liberal, your own natural base will judge you on how well you do your job. As a Conservative, your own natural base will judge you on how much of a Conservative you are. For evidence of this, we need only to look at the breakdown of Nixon and Reagan's lopsided electoral wins, some of the most convincing in Americna history. Such victories would have been impossible for any Democratic candidate since before Lyndon Johnson held the Presidency.

Conservatives then might say "that's a lie: if a liberal did a bad job, they wouldn't throw him out if GWB were pitted against him in an election". Yes, that's true, but it's also a straw man: the only reason they wouldn't vote for him is becuase of the very little outreach to Liberals Bush would be percieved as having. Almost the entire field of Republicans in 2008 you could not say the same about: Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Guliani and even Mike Huckabee... all of them would have the potential to absolutely CRUSH a liberal president doing a bad job. It's true GWB and Sarah Palin would not since they'd be considered the lesser of two evils in a city like Boston -- but the reasons for that should be obvious.

A Republican needs only a moderate amount of tempering to be a viable candidate to practically run the board in a Presidential election given a horrible encumbant. The best the Democrats can hope for is to run perhaps 60-70% of it under the same circumstances.

 

I feel like Kerry would have been a worse president than Bush in regards to foreign policy. Bush's decision to implement the "Surge" in Iraq was what allowed us to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. If Kerry were president, we would have likely retreated from Iraq in defeat. Maybe Kerry would have handled Afghanistan better, but I'm not confident about that.

On the domestic front, John Kerry might've avoided Bush's mistakes in regards to the financial crisis and the Hurricane Katrina response, he also might not have. He would've chosen two liberals for the Supreme Court instead of Roberts and Alito, which I guess would've made a difference in some rulings.

I supported John Kerry in 2004, even though I couldn't vote. My reasons are basically the ones Gonk and Darth_Yuthura stated: Bush had done a poor job, so it was time for a change. I feel quite justified in my decision. However, I feel like Bush did a much better job in his second term, especially in 2006 and later. As I mentioned, I like the fact that he achieved success in Iraq in the face of strong adversity, and his appointment of Secretary Gates was also pretty great. So, knowing what I know now, I would have voted for Bush in 2004. That partly reflects my focus on foreign policy.

From a purely political standpoint, Kerry lacked the necessary charisma and skill to run a good campaign in 2004. The Democratic party would have done much better to nominate one of the other candidates. I supported Wesley Clark in the primary, and I think he would have won in the general election.

 

I agree that Kerry was a lukewarm candidate for a lot of people in 2004. I'm glad I couldn't vote then, because I'm not sure who I would have voted for, part of me at the time wanted to give Bush a second chance and more time to fix up the mess he made. I basically tuned out the campaign coverage that year, it didn't interest me at all.



I'll get to the famous 2000 election, with Al Gore (and Ralph Nader too) once I get a chance, probably tomorrow. I've been busy lately. But I really can't wait to get to some of the older "almost" Presidents and campaigns, some of them were really interesting to read about!

 

What victory?

The government is still an unstable coalition, there are still major attacks, there are still 100,000+ troops there and we still spend 100+ billion dollars a year.

 

Shhhh! Let them think it's a victory so we can move on(.org)

 

Success in Iraq? On the contrary, Bush did a lot worse in his second term up to 2006. When the Democratic party took the majority of congress, they essentially de-clawed Bush's ability to cause damage. He still had the ability to keep progress from happening, as he did when he vetoed a bill that would have provided military funding for the troops overseas... simply because he didn't want his private war to end in Iraq.

I'm not bad mouthing Bush for being utterly incompetent; I'm saying that he was a criminal throughout his presidency. Kerry, for whatever he would have done, hadn't committed war crimes. Bush had.

The financial crisis wasn't solely caused by Bush, although he certainly augmented the problem. We can't assume the crisis wouldn't have happened if Kerry were in office. It just would have been less severe if the US weren't engaged in a pointless war and squandering billions to contractors in Iraq. You can blame Bush and his cronies for starting the war in Iraq, though.

Oh and hurricane Katrina might have been avoided, had US forces not been engaged in Iraq.

 

Sorry, but the surge was a great success in Iraq which has ultimately pulled it back from the brink. I can't imagine what a mess it would be right now had the Democrats had their way.

Had McCain become President, I don't think things would be too different from the way they are now. There would have been another big stimulus bill, causing large deficits. A second deployment of troops would probably have been sent to Afghanistan all ready. I don't think there would have been a diplomatic push for dialogue with Iran, but I don't believe McCain would be trying to pick a fight either. There would be no health care reform in the works. Palin would likely be marginalized as Vice President. America's image around the world would probably remain pretty poor.

Had Kerry become President, given that the Iraq War and Afghanistan still hadn't been fixed and the fact that the economy took a serious nose dive during the election, he would have probably lost in 2008 so who knows who would be in the White House right now.

I often wonder how things would have changed had not Gore been President from 2001, but Colin Powell.

 

Success (or relative success) in Iraq was a combination of the surge, and essentially the Shi'ites winning the "civil war" and forcing the Sunnis to make peace. Pretty much it got so violent that the Sunnis decided to move out of the country....ethnic cleansing if you will. Anyway, the Sunnis decided to turn against Al-Qaeda and here we are now.

Also, presidents have a tendency to see things differently once they're in office. John F. Kennedy continuously criticized the government during his campaign for allowing the Soviets to take the lead in developing missile technology, only to realize that the Missile Gap was nonexistent upon taking office. Obama right now has retained many of the national security measures that Bush undertook (but with a lower profile and different name). What's there to say that Kerry wouldn't have authorized the surge if analysts said it would work?