The Presidency of America's Maverick

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Good update. Rudy has the NY Governorship in the bag ITTL

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Good update. Liking this McCain TL in the 2000s

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CNN's Very Early look at the 2008 map:

Blitzer :When CNN covers the upcoming presidential election this year we will have a new feature to make following the election easier . Let’s go over to John King who will explain more about

King : Yes the feature is something we are calling the magic wall and as you can see right now it’s showing you the map of the 2004 election but we can show you every election map going back to 1980. Let’s just do that right now , as you can see 1980 and 1984 were massive landslides for President Reagan , 1988 was a semi landslide for President Bush , 1992 and 1996 were pretty decisive wins for President Clinton , 2000 was a close win for President McCain and 2004 was a solid win for the President.



King : Now what we can also do is click on a state , and given many of our hosts  are from New York more than any other state let’s go with that . As you can see New York went to Senator Biden by a solid 13 point margin in 2004 and the last time a Republican won that state was back in 1984. As you can see there was a lot more red on the map in 1984 than 2004 and now lets look at some of the counties in the New York and Long Island Areas. One county is Nassau county which is a county which was basically 50/50 in 2004 while if you go back to 1984 , you can see Ronald Reagan won that county by nearly a 24 point margin. By the way from 1984 to 2004 the entire state moved 21 points towards the Democrats so there you begin to see why New York is so Democratic now. Now lets look at Queens one of the 5 broughs in New York and you can see while yes in 1984 the Democrats won that county it was only by 7 points while fast forward 20 years later the Democrats won that county by a whopping 39 points.

So now looking at this map you can see why New York has become so solidly Democratic and on these election nights when we are going through these battlegrounds we will go through these counties coming in and then compare it to how those counties were like in not only 2004 but in previous elections as well. This will give us a good idea of how actually a state is going versus just relying on the overall numbers.

Blitzer: So John how is next year's presidential election map shaping up to be

King: Keep this in mind that we are still a long way out so things can change massively especially since we dont know how the economy will look like then but if I had to roughly move every state that I believe could be winnable outside a landslide this is how Id just the map so let me move these states to tossup.




King: Now while some may argue that Colorado isnt really a battleground and neither is West Virginia my response is while yes most likely Colorado will lean Republican by the general election campaign and the same is true in reverse for West Virginia but I could potentially see scenarios where there are tossups.

Blitzer: If assuming the election were this November instead of next what would you say states from here are likely to lean one parties way regardless of candidate in a close race


King: Well in a close race Id say you most likely would see the Republicans win states such as Florida, Tennessee , Colorado and Nevada which would move them up to 219 electoral votes and the Democrats would win states such as West Virginia, Arkansas, Michigan , Maine state wide, and either  which would give the Democrats 184 electoral votes. Now yes that does make their path to 270 harder but keep in mind that the path this far out of an election always looks harder for the party not holding the White House so I wouldnt read much of it especially since a close race means that one of Pennsylvania or New Jersey for sure would lean towards them and for the sake of this argument lets say New Jersey since it was closer in 2004 which would mean Democrats would start out with 199 electoral votes only 20 behind.

Blitzer: Im seeing that a lot of the battleground is in the Midwest a region which many say almost always votes on the economy

King: Yes which is why I will say much of this election depends on how the Republicans deal with this recession cause if they dont deal with it well it could sink them in the Rust Belt and Midwest . If that happens and now suddenly Democrats become favored in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa the Democrats now suddenly have 267 electoral votes meaning they only need one state from the rest of the map to win the presidency.


So while candidates yes matter, Ill say how the McCain Administration and Republican Congress deal with the economy matter more cause if they handle it badly it likely wont matter how good the Republican nominee is.

The 90s coalition holds up well entering the 2008 race

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Colbert and Trump in the Democratic Primary! Grabs popcorn.

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Great timeline. A two-term McCain presidency in the 00s.

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Going to be an interesting election season with Trump in the Democratic race

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Hillary beating Trump…in a primary!

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Labour Lose Majority in UK Elections but remain in power through a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats:



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTE6cTBrGcA

Labour Party (Gordon Brown): 318 Seats(-66)
Conservative Party(David Cameron): 240 Seats(+67)
Liberal Democrats(Nick Clegg): 63 Seats(+5)
Others: 29(-2)

Result: Labour Short by 8

Overall Government: Labour-Liberal Democrat Coalition


Cooper: Voters across the United Kingdom yesterday delivered a blow to the UK's governing Labour Party , bringing them down from majority status to plurality status. As a result of these results, their Prime Minister had to make a deal with the leader of a third party in order to remain in power through a coalition government. With us now is Jonathan Freeland from the Guardian to discuss more about the results. So Jonathan why did Labour lose their majority and was it a mistake for them to call this election.

Freeland: Well the fact is after 11 years of having massive majorities , fatigue does start to set in and we saw that all through last year when former Tony Blair's poll numbers declined heavily and it seems to have effected Gordon Brown as well. Was it a mistake, its hard to say as if the trend line continued they very well could have been ousted from power two years from now while with this coalition government they will at least be in power for another 5 years.

I will also say that while it does suck to lose a majority this result is better for them than a narrow majority would have been like which was realistically the only other option as they were not gonna keep their large majority.

Cooper: Why is that

Freeland: Well for the simple reason  that if they had a small majority , the left flank of their party that has been frustrated with how Labour has governed would have had power in a small majority government and that could have resulted in a lot of infighting in the party which voters in the UK do not like and that easily could have resulted in the party collapsing. Now with a coalition government they do not need to worry about that and they potentially have a chance to actually to shake of voter fatigue as this is a change.


Cooper: Now I know in the UK party leaders are usually ousted after losing elections so what happens to David Cameron now

Freeland: While the Conservatives didnt gain as much as they wanted the fact is they actually won more votes than Labour nationwide and still made significant gains nationwide. Due to this David Cameron almost certainly will remain the party's leader and probably lead them to their next election in 2012 or 2013 .


Cooper: Thanks for coming on

Gordon Brown doing a Theresa May calling a snap election and losing his majority

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Hillary has Bills’s coalition holding up entering the 2008 fall campaign

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Hillary in 2008 with Bill’s 1992 holding

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Florida called for Bush early

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Going to come down to several states in the South

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The exit polls were well off. Can’t believe how close this election is

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A 269-269 tie. Didn't expect that at all.

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Dubya and Hillary naming potential cabinet picks for their potential administrations

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A Bush/Rockefeller administration

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It’s an awkward situation for outgoing President McCain to meet Senators Clinton and Bush during their transitions and to prepare for their administrations

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VP Rockefeller

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Mike Castle giving the decisive delegate to Hillary and once again, a Clinton beats a Bush

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In 2000 McCain loses FL but wins the EC and PV

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Dubya would love a rematch