George W. Bush V John Kerry 2008

[pbrower2a]

There would have to be some fundamental changes in political reality -- most notably that America has become an outright dictatorship.  One would have to start with the elections of 2006 that in real life brought huge losses to the Republican Party but in this reality brought real gains.

So the GOP would have to have made gains in the House instead of huge losses, that GOP incumbents won re-election, that GOP Senate incumbents (except for Lincoln Chaffee, defeated in the primaries by a hard-line GOP challenger who subsequently wins) win, and that the GOP actually wins the governorship of Ohio (rewarding Kenneth Blackwell for arranging a first re-election for Dubya) and a couple of Senate seats in Michigan and New Jersey.

Ratification of the 28th Amendment takes place in a climate of terror, but the Democrats still exist and play by the new rules. The rules are that the Opposition shows up at debates but that the Ruling party controls the polls where things matter. Mainstream news media compete to praise the Great and Glorious Leader who must bring America through dangerous times. The times are dangerous, and the media tell Americans that the economic recession proves the need for GOP leadership on the economy -- tax cuts for the super-rich, business subsidies, and tax shifts to the non-rich, an abolition of the minimum wage laws, and all sorts of goodies. Bush can run for a third term, and he wins in a landslide, picking up everything but D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii. 

Real power has of course gone to the leadership of the Party Apparatus, and political decisions are really made at the Party Conventions.

[pbrower2a]

Bush wins by an even larger margin than in 2004.

Even bigger -- because if the GOP could have gotten a repeal of the 22nd Amendment after 2000, then that would have indicated such huge majorities for the GOP in the House, Senate, and in State legislatures that it could amend the Constitution at will. That would imply a dictatorship. Our elections would then be as interesting as those in the old German Democratic Republic, a/k/a East Germany. There might be the formality of an opposition but it would be impotent and likely vetted by the GOP. People like Charles Rangell and Maxine Waters -- maybe William  "Cold Cash" Jefferson -- would still be in Congress, but votes like theirs would count for little, and any speeches that they make would serve to demonstrate that there is some freedom of expression.

Amending the Constitution of the United States is a difficult procedure; it was so designed for good reason. The Constitution is the wrong forum for legislative change. By 2008 the Constitution might even be amended to allow representation of corporations, and we would have such expressions as "The Senator from Exxon-Mobil" or "The Senator from Wal-Mart".   

[pbrower2a]

There would have to be some fundamental changes in political reality -- most notably that America has become an outright dictatorship.  One would have to start with the elections of 2006 that in real life brought huge losses to the Republican Party but in this reality brought ral gains.

So the GOP would have to have made gains in the House instead of huge losses, that GOP incumbents won re-election, that GOP Senate incumbents (except for Lincoln Chaffee, defeated in the primaries by a hard-line GOP challenger who subsequently wins) win, and that the GOP actually wins the governorship of Ohio (rewarding Kenneth Blackwell for arranging a first re-election for Dubya) and a couple of Senate seats in Michigan and New Jersey.

Ratification of the 28th Amendment takes place in a climate of terror, but the Democrats still exist and play by the new rules. The rules are that the Opposition shows up at debates but that the Ruling party controls the polls where things matter. Mainstream news media compete to praise the Great and Glorious Leader who must bring America through dangerous times. The times are dangerous, and the media tell Americans that the economic recession proves the need for GOP leadership on the economy -- tax cuts for the super-rich, business subsidies, and tax shifts to the non-rich, an abolition of the minimum wage laws, and all sorts of goodies. Bush can run for a third term, and he wins in a landslide, picking up everything but D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii. 

Real power has of course gone to the leadership of the Party Apparatus, and political decisions are really made at the Party Conventions.

I don't think the intent of the original poster was to have you you start with your left-wing hack/conspiracy theory scenario.

The purpose was to ask how the election of 2008 would have gone under similar political conditions as in real life with the 2 mentioned candidates....Bush and Kerry.

Repeal of the 22nd Amendment (I assume during the Bush administration) in itself implies a huge change in the political realities. It of course never happened. Had the 22nd Amendment been repealed or never been enacted, then the scenario wouldn't invite such assumptions on my part. I wouldn't have such a strange scenario for the simple reason that the conditions would be very different.

Amending the Constitution is a difficult process, and in practice it requires either overwhelming support from both Parties and support in 38 states (38 state legislatures dominated by the same Party is highly unlikely) or huge majorities for one Party in both Houses of Congress.

More normal circumstances? Kerry, warts and all, wins... barely. Kerry and Dubya were arguably the weakest pair of candidates for President in any American election for at least 85 years.

   

[pbrower2a]

It's clear that repeal of the 22nd Amendment would have been difficult unless everything were in line --  at the least it would require that three fourths of the States approve. Because a repeal of the 22nd Amendment would imply the possibility of a highly-unpopular incumbent President (18 states had never voted for him, and his popularity was on the decline), such would be impossible unless the GOP got control of 38 state legislatures.

[pbrower2a]

Bush would lose even worse than McCain if he were nominated in 2008. However, if Bush could legally run, I wouldn't put it past him to do anything he could to serve his lust for power, even with his abysmal approval ratings.

Indeed -- a third term for Dubya (or even the first term of a hand-picked successor) would indicate a dictatorship. Maybe not a despotic executive -- but that of Karl Rove as Party Boss operating much like a General Secretary of a Communist Party in power. I would assume that the Republicans actually won the 2006 midterm elections through some fraud. After those elections, Karl Rove found that he could no longer dictate orders to the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and expect those orders to be obeyed.

The 2006 midterm elections, even though they did not change the President, may have been the most important elections in American history.