This was what happened in 1996
Let's say, hypothetically, that a few things were different:
- The economy was going into a recession and unemployment was rising.
- After the first WTC attacks and Oklahoma city, there had been another foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil, raising the specter of Terrorism.
- The Lewinsky scandal happened in the middle of all of this.
So Powell, who is certainly not a scoundrel, with impeccable military credentials and an extraordinarily calm and reassuring demeanor gets the Republican nomination.
Is it possible that after all of this, Clinton could actually win bigger than he really did in '96?
I ask this because it seems like the states that Clinton won can largely fit into 2 categories. The first being states that were in the process of becoming solidly Democratic states (Kerry states), which may have already been too partisan to elect a Republican under most circumstances. The second were states that we might consider a bit too racist to elect a black man in 1996, states which even with all the problems for Republicans in '08, still voted for McCain, or only narrowly voted for Obama (MO, LA, AZ, KY, WV).
Further, many of the states that went for Dole did so by small margins. 12 of Dole's 19 states gave Clinton more than 40% of the vote.
From Reagan through Bush Jr. (Republicans' best years since Hoover), Republicans relied on the following states for a basic EV cushion that in '96 would've been worth 135 EV's:
Now, it seems that we'd have quite a conundrum in lots of these states. Would Wyoming really vote for a black man in '96? Would it really vote for a failing scoundrel? Would it buck both of them and vote for Perot? All seem unlikely...
