1996: Antonin Scalia as Dole’s running mate

[mianfei]

A few weeks ago, I read that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was considered as a possible running mate for Bob Dole in 1996.

The question made me think:

• how would this have changed the 1996 election?
• would Scalia have tried to run for the Republican presidential nomination later?
• how – given that Scalia would have had to step down from the Supreme Court to run for Vice-President – would this have changed Supreme Court history?

Unless Scalia could have generated the sort of partisan shift in rural America that Bush Junior did in 2000, I doubt much change at the state level in the election (though Polk County and Yamhill County in Oregon would certainly have had Republican streaks since 1968 broken).

Regarding the Supreme Court – where there were no vacancies between 1995 and 2004 – the effect might have been much larger, not just in the short term.

What are your thoughts?

[Alben Barkley]

The ticket would have still easily lost, perhaps by even more than it did with Kemp if anything (Scalia was a diehard ideological conservative in a way Kemp was not), and Clinton would have been able to nominate someone else to replace him who would probably still be on the Court. Citizens United, among other things, might have been decided differently. Also Bush v. Gore if that still happens.