Barack Obama's career if he lost the 2008 nomination

[brucejoel99]

For one thing, Hillary was not picking Obama to be her running-mate for the same reason that he didn't pick her to be his in real life: their primary had been so acrimonious & there was just so much bad blood by the end of it that there was no way either was gonna be the other's VP. (And, not to mention, all of the signs at the time indicated that she was more-or-less pretty dead-set on Bayh.) Similarly, there's nothing that indicates that she'd be interested in &/or intrigued by the idea of a "Team of Rivals" like Obama was in real life - remember, she was completely floored when Obama approached her about State, & had fully expected to just return to the Senate & continue her work there - so it's not like he'd be ending up as anything in what would've presumably been her Clintonworld-stacked Cabinet either. So, most likely, he'd do the same thing that she'd expected she'd be relegated to by her defeat in real life: return to the Senate & move forward from there.

Moreover, I just don't see him running for Governor of Illinois in 2010 either. Yes, it'd finally put some executive experience on his resume, but I doubt the lack thereof would've really been what the blame was cast upon had he failed to beat Hillary, & not only would settling for "just" the Illinois Governor's Mansion kinda feel like a bit of a downgrade after having - in this scenario - come so close to the White House, but doing so would potentially open himself up to getting bogged down by everything that Illinois politics entails, which just feels like too much of an unnecessary & potentially hindering risk to take if his focus still remains on the Oval Office. Besides, remaining in the Senate still easily affords him the national platform on federal policy that had already managed to get him so close to the White House to begin with, so the most simple thing for him to do would be to just get re-elected in 2010 (for which being the popular incumbent helps).

Presuming that everything else (e.g., Dems lose the House in 2010, Hillary beats Romney in 2012, Dems lose the Senate in 2014, Trump runs in 2016) otherwise mostly stays the same, the 2016 primaries are really only ever a contest between Obama & VP Bayh, & despite going up against the literal VP, the former never really loses his front-runner status, given his inherent advantages (the hitherto aforementioned "his turn" mentality that would likely be prevalent, his still-existent strong national platform that could arguably compete with an incumbent VP's, his celebrity-like charisma, the desire to elect the first Black President, etc.) & the lack of any constituency for Bayh, let alone anything even resembling a personality on his part. Obama picks Kaine - who was an Obama supporter from the start in real-life's 2008, & who was then 3rd on the VP shortlist behind Biden & Bayh - to be his running-mate, & his being Obama allows them to do what Hillary couldn't in real life: win the Democrats their 3rd-consecutive term in the White House. VP Bayh gets to run Obama's State Dept. as a consolation prize, similar to what Hillary was expected to do for Biden had she won in 2016, & despite having to run for re-election after 12 straight years of Democratic rule, actually managing COVID competently gets him the rally-'round-the-flag effect that pretty much every world leader except for Trump got in real life, enabling him to win again. At this moment, he'd be 104 days into his 2nd term, overseeing federal vaccine-distribution & managing the economic recovery as best as he can & as much as the still-Republican Congress allows him to (i.e., nothing as big as the ARP).