what if Bill never got head from Monica?

[© tweed]

what if Bill never got head from Monica?

[Reaganfan]

what if Bill never got head from Monica?

The Oval Office rug might be in a museum instead of a dumpster?

[Erc]

Hillary and (whoever Al Gore's VP would have been, because it wouldn't have been Lieberman in that case) would be duking it out for the nomination?

[King]

Option 4 as I assume that = no change.

[Mr. Morden]

Gore would be president, and HRC (probably) never would have run for senate.

[Torie]

I don't think it made much difference really.

[© tweed]

Gore would be president, and HRC (probably) never would have run for senate.

you don't think it would have been very difficult for Gore to win re-election in 2004?

[Mr. Morden]

Gore would be president, and HRC (probably) never would have run for senate.

you don't think it would have been very difficult for Gore to win re-election in 2004?

Does 9/11 still happen?  If so, Gore's chances of being reelected are probably better than 50/50.

(It would be interesting to know whether Clinton's anti-terror policies in the late 90s would have been different w/o the Lewinsky thing distracting him.)

[© tweed]

Gore would be president, and HRC (probably) never would have run for senate.

you don't think it would have been very difficult for Gore to win re-election in 2004?

Does 9/11 still happen?  If so, Gore's chances of being reelected are probably better than 50/50.

do you think MSM would have been just as kind to Gore post-9/11 as it was to Bush?  I'd think not.  nor do I think the GOP rank-and-file would rally behind Gore in the immediate aftermath like the Dem rank-and-file rallied behind Bush, even if just for a few months - it had a lasting effect.

[Mr. Morden]

do you think MSM would have been just as kind to Gore post-9/11 as it was to Bush?

Yes.

[© tweed]

do you think MSM would have been just as kind to Gore post-9/11 as it was to Bush?

Yes.

even if so (since there's no real way to prove or disprove my point there), you didn't give thoughts on the second part of my statement.

[Mr. Morden]

I don't know what the GOP rank-and-file does.  It's probably divided.  Anyway, I assume that Gore invades Afghanistan and ousts the Taliban as in real life, and that that's hugely popular.  Regardless of what else happens after that, that presumably gives him a better than 50/50 chance of winning reelection.

On the other hand, if McCain (a McCain not weighed down by Iraq, as in 2008 in the real timeline) had been able to get the GOP nomination in 2004, he probably would have had a better chance than any other Republican of beating Gore in an election focused on national security.  Would McCain have been able to get the GOP nomination in 2004 in this scenario?  I don't know.  There are good arguments on both sides of the question.

[Wakie]

No difference.  The GOP spent millions of taxpayer dollars to invesitgate Whitewater.  They unconstituitionally expanded the scope of the investigation when that didn't yield anything.  They would have just kept going indefinitely until they fund something.

[© tweed]

I don't know what the GOP rank-and-file does.  It's probably divided.  Anyway, I assume that Gore invades Afghanistan and ousts the Taliban as in real life, and that that's hugely popular.  Regardless of what else happens after that, that presumably gives him a better than 50/50 chance of winning reelection.

On the other hand, if McCain (a McCain not weighed down by Iraq, as in 2008 in the real timeline) had been able to get the GOP nomination in 2004, he probably would have had a better chance than any other Republican of beating Gore in an election focused on national security.  Would McCain have been able to get the GOP nomination in 2004 in this scenario?  I don't know.  There are good arguments on both sides of the question.

most people seem to think it would have been Rudy or GWB re-run.  you can make solid arguments for either.

[Proud Paleoconservative]

what if Bill never got head from Monica?

or Monica head from Bill?

[Erc]

I personally think Gore would have suffered from some of the same problems the elder Bush did; despite a probable boost after 9/11, he'd have borne the full political brunt of a lagging economy (back on its feet by 2004, sure, but not stellar) and failures in the War on Terror (again, about the same level of success as in our timeline, but a failure to do anything post-December 2001 + a probable failure to catch Bin Laden + Gore's likely reluctance to boost military spending considerably means he's very vulnerable on the issue).  In the end, there are 12 years of Democratic administrations, and the voters are likely to not be viewing them very kindly by that point.

Gore wouldn't lose as badly as Bush in 1992, certainly--no Buchanan-equivalent, no Perot-equivalent, no "read my lips" moments.  But he'd likely lose by a similar margin that Kerry lost by (in the first close re-election defeat since 1892?).

As for who the Republican nominee would have been...
Normally I'd say, the Republicans aren't too kind to giving their losers a second shot.  However, their only two previous losers in recent memory weren't exactly in the position to try (Goldwater got thrashed and Dole was too old...and the previous one, Dewey, was able to pull it off).
Bush might have been able to come back, especially if the race in 2000 had been exceptionally close (which it had to have been).  However, I'd imagine his star would have faded, and a national security focus would have dulled it even more.  That said, with the only two other obvious candidates being McCain & Rudy, Bush may have been the default choice for various elements of the party.

Other outside possibilities...Jeb, even if it would be a bit strange.  I wouldn't even rule out Dick Cheney (if he was Bush's VP pick)...he's got the gravitas, the name recognition, and the conservative credentials.  He's a bit unlikeable, and a lot may depend on how he held up against whoever Gore picked as his VP.


For the sake of argument, let's say Rudy / Santorum defeats Gore / Kerry in 2004, narrowly.  For a variety of reasons, Rudy's likely to be pretty vulnerable in 2008.  2006 saw your usual anti-Presidential swing in Congress (though nowhere near the sort of defeat it was in our timeline--that, plus a larger Republican win in 2002 means the Republicans still have firm control of Congress).

The likely leading figures for the Democratic nomination...at first glance, Kerry (the former VP) and Hillary would be the obvious choices.  However, with Clinton's legacy perhaps tarnished by Gore's rather mediocre term and loss, there would likely be a certain desire for someone not associated with those administrations.

The obvious candidates (from our perspective) would not be a factor.  John Edwards would have lost his re-election bid in 2004 (if he had ever been elected in the first place).  Obama, although perhaps now a Senator, would not have had the same incredible string of luck that is now propelling him to the Presidency.  Dean is a possibility...although his rise in our timeline was another example of incredible luck, one that isn't likely to be replicated four years later.

Most likely, Kerry & Clinton bash each other to death, and someone else gets lucky and takes the nomination.  Warner is a likely possibility, though the Democrats could just as easily have taken a turn to the left.

[TheGlobalizer]

It made her even more unelectable, so I said she would have done better.

Personally, I don't care that he got a BJ in the OO, but I'm not trying to invite him back for an encore, either.