2008: President Kerry vs. Mitt Romney

[Alben Barkley]

READ SCENARIO CAREFULLY AS THIS IS NOT A NORMAL ELECTION.

John Kerry narrowly wins Ohio and the presidency in 2004, despite narrowly losing the popular vote. This results in a swift bipartisan effort to replace the Electoral College with the National Popular Vote to decide the presidency. A Constitutional amendment is ratified and goes into effect in time for the 2008 election.

Kerry has scaled down the US presence in Iraq, an overall popular move, but the Great Recession is still creeping up on the nation. Moreover, John Edwards is hit by the scandal of an extramarital affair while his wife was dying of cancer. Kerry replaces him with Hillary Clinton on the ticket for his re-election campaign.

Republicans nominate Mitt Romney in 2008; he narrowly defeats John McCain, who led a more hawkish faction of the party but is unable to secure the nomination as the party overall is uneasy about making the election a referendum on war and foreign policy again, preferring to focus on economics and domestic policy with a more traditional conservative like Romney. Due to concerns about the women vote after the announcement of Hillary Clinton replacing Edwards, Romney is advised to choose the little-known Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.

Despite lukewarm approval ratings for the president, the Kerry/Clinton ticket leads most early polls. However, the gap narrows dramatically following the September crash. Kerry regains the lead following a devastating Vice Presidential debate in which Hillary Clinton is widely perceived to have trounced the inexperienced, gaffe-prone, and ill-prepared Sarah Palin. This bounce fades over time, however, and the polls are neck-and-neck in the final stretch of the campaign. Romney blames Kerry for the crash and claims his business skill is needed to fix the country; Kerry blames Bush and claims that someone with ties to big banks like Romney is the last thing the country needs.

Since popular vote is now all that matters, the candidates spend most of their time in large states like New York, California, Texas, Florida, etc. Both, however, seek to boost turnout of core voters in other areas of the country as well.

How does this go down?