Timeline-K: The American political landscape after the Kerry presidency

[its_gi_brown]

2008 United States presidential election

NOTE: 2004 goes down very similarly to OTL, except Kerry wins 284 to 254 and with 50.2% of the popular.

Things weren't doing so well for the Democrats in 2008. Although 2004 was seen as an incredible upset and something that turned the American electorate upside down, John Kerry was in trouble. He tried frantically to stop the housing bubble from growing, but George Bush's deregulating of the banking industry had started a chain of events he couldn't fully stop. Thus, the bubble popped, but it wasn't as bad at it would have been under a Bush second term. Ignoring his plummeting approval rating and his rapidly shrinking chances of reelection, Kerry devoted his presidency to alleviating the effects of the recession. He and John Edwards were re-nominated without much difficulty, despite his low approval with moderate voters, as he was still relatively popular with the Democratic base.

The Republican side of the aisle was chaotic. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and other big Republican names knew that whoever became the nominee would likely win in 2008 against a faltering Kerry. After a surprisingly strong debate performance from Rick Perry and Mike Huckabee, their poll numbers rose significantly, but McCain's surprisingly strong victory in the Iowa caucuses and Romney's subsequent drop-out and endorsement of McCain gave him a badly-needed boost. Unfortunately, however, he couldn't keep the momentum, and his poll numbers sagged as Perry's rose. Paul dropping out and endorsing McCain kept them almost at a dead heat, but when Huckabee dropped out, his supporters went mostly to Perry, giving him the edge he needed to win. He kept the edge going into Super Tuesday and won almost every key primary, solidifying his lead. McCain dropped out and endorsed him. He led a united party going into the Republican Convention, where he announced an unexpected running mate: David Dewhurst, the incumbent Lieutenant Governor of Texas under Perry. When asked his reasoning for choosing Dewhurst, he replied: "David and I have spent five years serving Texas together. There's nobody I would trust more for Vice President than him."

The general election campaign was surprisingly laid-back. Kerry did not actively campaign much, as he dedicated almost all of his time to working to end the recession. Perry also campaigned lightly, as he expected to win the presidency with ease. During the debates, Kerry said one unexpectedly honest line that gave his campaign a badly-needed boost. When asked about the status of the economy and why he should be trusted to keep running the country, he responded: "Thank you for the question, ma'am. Let me be completely honest. A lot of Americans can't put food on the table, and they expect an answer from me, so here is that answer. I am not okay with things as they are now. I am working tirelessly to end this. I need another term and a Democratic Congress if you guys want to really recover. Time and ammunition is all I need to get this country back on track."

In the end, Perry did win by a decent margin, although Kerry preformed slightly better than expected. He was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. In his inauguration speech, he promised an end to the recession via American enterprise, an America more vigilant against the terrorist threat, and an America more involved and willing to defend its interests abroad.

NOTE: Kerry is generally remembered favorably and thought of as a good president who was smart, hardworking, and level-headed in a terrible situation, and his work is widely understood to have mitigated the recession considerably.

Electoral vote

Perry: 321
Kerry: 217

States carried

Perry: 34
Kerry: 16

Popular vote

Perry: 52.0%
Kerry: 46.8%


I, James Richard Perry, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.


Cabinet of Rick Perry, President of the United States

Vice President of the United States: David H. Dewhurst
Secretary of State: Richard Armitage
Secretary of the Treasury: Sheila C. Blair
Secretary of Defense: David H. Petraeus
Attorney General: Debra W. Yang
Secretary of the Interior: Luis D. Fortuno
Secretary of Agriculture: George E. Perdue
Secretary of Commerce: Olympia J. Snowe
Secretary of Labor: Michael S. Steele
Secretary of Energy: Sarah Palin
Secretary of Education: Lisa G. Keegan
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Michael D. Huckabee
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Steven C. Preston
Secretary of Transportation: Timothy J. Pawlenty
Secretary of Homeland Security: Thomas J. Ridge
Director of the Environmental Protection Agency: Sherwood L. Boehlert
Veterans' Affairs Administrator: George L. Green
White House Chief of Staff: Mark Salter

[its_gi_brown]

2012 United States presidential election


Things were looking pretty good for the Republican Party after their comfortable victory in 2008. They controlled Congress, the national mood was improving rapidly, President Perry enjoyed high approval ratings, and the economy was recovering, even if it was noticeably slower than expected. That last point caused President Perry grief, as his approval ratings stagnated and declined, but his numbers weren't yet underwater. As the midterms came and went, the GOP took an expected hit as the incumbent party, but it was a normal sized hit for an incumbent party. A chaotic Democratic primary approached on the horizon, each one desperate for the nomination.

The 2012 Democratic primaries were a showdown in every sense of the word. As President Perry's approval rating stabilized, most big Democrats decided not to enter except for Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, who battled it out aggressively for the nomination. In debate after debate, they clashed against every issue under the sun, and voters seemed almost evenly split between them. As a former Vice President, it was generally agreed that Edwards had the edge, but the party still feared a deadlocked convention. After a crushing victory in the Super Tuesday primaries, Hillary Clinton read the writing on the wall and dropped out, endorsing Edwards reluctantly. Edwards sailed towards the convention as the presumptive nominee until disaster struck. Rumors had been circulating for a long time that Edwards had been involved in an extramarital affair with a staffer, but they were never really believed, until the woman in question had a child. When confronted with the question, Edwards initially strongly denied all of the accusations, but it was over for him. He admitted that he was the father, and dropped out of the race. Now there was only one person left in the race, a dark horse governor named Ted Strickland from Ohio, who had never really expected to be the nominee and was just campaigning to get his name and ideas out. Fearing being labeled as opportunists, the big names of the Democratic Party stayed out, anticipating the unknown Strickland would lose and they could just run in 2016. The few people who re-entered the race never really stood a chance against Strickland, who had been in the race for several months and had enjoyed rapidly snowballing support in the absence of the big names. Strickland cruised the last remaining stretch to the Democratic National Convention easily. At the convention, his speech was loaded with populist language, promising to protect the American worker from wage cuts, offshoring, and unchecked laissez-faire capitalism. His speech was generally praised, except by right-wingers, who called it "open communism". He chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as his running mate, to balance out the ticket, both ideologically as geographically, as Kaine was a more orthodox candidate and was from a southern state.

At the start of the general election campaign, Strickland trailed Perry, but after campaigning aggressively, he started to close the gap, going from 42% in late September to 47% in early October. He was gaining ground fast due to his aggressive campaigning style. He was very competitive in the Rust Belt, namely Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin, which were seen as crucial to a Strickland win, but he trailed noticeably to Perry in sun belt states such as Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, because Perry was from the Southwest, and his stances on free trade attracted voters there. President Perry soon recognized the threat Strickland posed to him and started campaigning a lot more in swing states, and was mostly successful in reducing the amount of ground Strickland gained to a bare minimum, but he was still improving, to the frustration of Perry's staff. The debates didn't move the needle either way in any major capacity. By late October, Strickland trailed Perry 50 to 48%, and in a last-moment effort to close the distance, he did a marathon of visits and speeches over the last two weeks, until the two were virtually tied.

On election night, the two candidates were virtually tied in the popular vote totals all night long, but Perry led in most swing states, namely Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, and even Wisconsin and New Hampshire. However, as the night went on, the vote totals shifted in favor of Strickland, and he narrowly pulled off an upset against Perry.

Electoral vote

Strickland: 294
Perry: 244

States carried

Perry: 26
Strickland: 24

Popular vote

Strickland: 50.0%
Perry: 48.8%


I, Theodore Strickland, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.


Cabinet of Theodore Strickland, President of the United States

Vice President of the United States: Timothy M. Kaine
Secretary of State: William B. Richardson III
Secretary of the Treasury: Timothy F. Geithner
Secretary of Defense: John J. Hamre
Attorney General: Janet A. Napolitano
Secretary of the Interior: Jay R. Inslee
Secretary of Agriculture: Thomas J. Vilsack
Secretary of Commerce: Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary of Labor: Richard A. Gephardt
Secretary of Energy: Philip R. Sharp
Secretary of Education: Arne S. Duncan
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Thomas A. Daschle
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: James E. Clyburn
Secretary of Transportation: Edward G. Rendell
Secretary of Homeland Security: Raymond W. Kelly
Director of the Environmental Protection Agency: The Lorax
Veterans' Affairs Administrator: Joseph M. Cleland
White House Chief of Staff: Glenn R. McDougal

[LAB-LIB]

You know I don't think I've ever seen a timeline where Kerry wins reelection. It would be interesting to see one.