1884 Western Alliance Convention

[Deus Naturae]

Weaver/Smith

Is Smith/Harrison or Harrison/Smith not an acceptably liberal ticket for you? Weaver is a nativist, after all.

Weaver would help push one of the major parties in a more economically liberal populist direction.  However, I'll abide by the results of the convention, at the end of the day what matters is beating Cleveland not petty partisan differences  I will admit that Weaver's position on immigration is unfortunate, but I think his positives outweigh his negatives.  We're probably going to be entering an era in which the political debate will be dominated by liberal populism vs. corporatism.  I think folks like Weaver, Bryan, Debs, and especially John P. Altgeld (who will hopefully become President at some point) are better suited for that fight than men like Gibson, Harrison, and Smith (and I don't mean that has a knock on any of those individuals).  On a different note, will present-day Mormons be really liberal in this timeline?  That'd certainly be an interesting (and welcome) development.  I suppose time will tell

Well, the Mormons turned economically conservative basically because the Feds told them that that would be one of the requirements for Utah's admittance as a state and the re-opening of the LDS temples (as they had been closed during the 1870s-80s due to the Feds legally dissolving the church for illegal practice of polygamy).

How exactly did that work? The feds literally just told them to "become economically conservative?"

[Deus Naturae]

Weaver/Smith

Is Smith/Harrison or Harrison/Smith not an acceptably liberal ticket for you? Weaver is a nativist, after all.

Weaver would help push one of the major parties in a more economically liberal populist direction.  However, I'll abide by the results of the convention, at the end of the day what matters is beating Cleveland not petty partisan differences  I will admit that Weaver's position on immigration is unfortunate, but I think his positives outweigh his negatives.  We're probably going to be entering an era in which the political debate will be dominated by liberal populism vs. corporatism.  I think folks like Weaver, Bryan, Debs, and especially John P. Altgeld (who will hopefully become President at some point) are better suited for that fight than men like Gibson, Harrison, and Smith (and I don't mean that has a knock on any of those individuals).  On a different note, will present-day Mormons be really liberal in this timeline?  That'd certainly be an interesting (and welcome) development.  I suppose time will tell

I think Harrison and Smith are pretty economically leftist/populist, and Bryan and Debs will come along in about ten years or so. Perhaps we could have Bryan serve 1897-1901 and Debs ascend to the Presidency upon his tragic death, with some random one-termer chosen to fill the gap between Harrison and Bryan? Also, Altgeld was born in Germany, though he does sound cool.

A key difference between Harrison and the populists of the time was that Harrison favored sharp tariff hikes, whereas populists like Bryan wanted to do the opposite. In addition, Harrison supported an imperialist foreign policy. He had more in common with William McKinley than William Bryan.