If the 2000 Election hadn't been Stolen

[BluegrassCat]

Matt Yglesias provides an interesting counterfactual of what he thinks would have happened if the will of the voters had been honored in the 2000 election instead of stolen by a partisan SCOTUS vote.

I'm not sure 9/11 would have happened at all had Gore been president (after all the Clinton administration was already warning about bin Laden, while Bush ignored the signs and went on vacation) but the other assumptions seem pretty reasonable. We likely still would have experienced market deregulation, a housing boom, and the ensuing economic crisis leading to a GOP win in 2008. But we'd have definitely stayed out of Iraq, had a much better environmental policy, and a deficit half the size of what it is. Overall a much better deal for the country. *sigh*

"The first few months of the Gore administration would have been dominated by everyone remarking on how stupid it was of Vice President Lieberman to have insisted on staying on the ballot in the Connecticut Senate race, thus meaning that would could easily have been a 50-50 Democratic Senate was instead a 51-49 Republican Senate. Various efforts to entice Jim Jeffords into switching parties would fail and you’d have largely seen gridlock until 9/11 produced a massive rally ’round the flag effect. Lots of voices would argue in favor of invading Iraq, but other voices would urge against it. Ultimately, the path of least resistance would prove to be putting a ton of boots on the ground in Afghanistan (hawkish) in a way that made an invasion of Iraq logistically infeasible (dovish) thus sort of splitting the baby. November 2002 would have been a debacle for Republicans who’d have been badly divided between a Gore-hating base and Gore-loving swing voters.

Post-election, you’d have finally had some legislative dealmaking and gotten something resembling No Child Left Behind and some kind of prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. Also probably some incremental stuff on health insurance — a patients’ bill of rights, a big SCHIP expansion, etc. By 2004, low interest rates and the housing boom are good enough to let Gore get re-elected over John McCain. In his second term, he appoints a staggering four Supreme Court justice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter, securing what proves to be his most important legacy. But by late 2007, the economy is sliding into recession and Republicans hungry for victory nominate moderate Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (after a timely conversion to the anti-abortion cause). When the recession turns into a full-blown financial panic in the fall of 2008, Romney trounces Vice President Lieberman and shows that moderation is the GOP path to victory. The huge “lockbox” surpluses are expended in a massive counter-cyclical payroll tax cut such that unemployment peaks at 8.5 percent and starts slowly falling. Meanwhile, President Romney spends most of 2009 wrangling with congressional leaders, eventually agreeing to a major universal health care initiative modeled on the CommonWealth Care plan. Nevertheless, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (the Gore administration never launches the investigation of Gov. Spitzer that led to his downfall) plans to sue, arguing that an “individual mandate” to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional given the non-availability of a public option."


http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/29/307341/tales-of-the-gore-administration/

[Silcc69]

nb4 you know makes a lame azz joke.

[Stavros]

Leave aside the unwelcome to many but actual fact that Presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College and not the popular vote; and that for that reason the election in 2000 was not stolen: had Al Gore won in 2000:

in 2001, Gore suffers a heart attack and dies; he is replaced by Joseph Liebermann who makes an historic trip to Israel to declare his intention to make it the 51st State of the Union. At a public rally in Jerusalem he is shot dead by a religious fanatic and replaced as President by the Speaker of the House, Denis Hastert.

Since I don't know much about Hastert, I can't imagine what his Presidency would have been like on or after 9/11, but since the 9/11 'Truth' movement believe it was organised by Bush and Cheney anyway, they must also have organised the 'bogus' election of 2000 -in other words, had Gore been elected 9/11 would not have happened.

This is for a film pitch, right? The one where Dustin Hoffman plays Hastert...?

[BluegrassCat]

Leave aside the unwelcome to many but actual fact that Presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College and not the popular vote; and that for that reason the election in 2000 was not stolen: had Al Gore won in 2000:



Let's leave aside that misconception. The electoral college votes are derived from the state popular votes. Gore won the Florida popular vote, the national popular vote and the election. And for that reason the 2000 election WAS stolen.

[Silcc69]

Let's leave aside that misconception. The electoral college votes are derived from the state popular votes. Gore won the Florida popular vote, the national popular vote and the election. And for that reason the 2000 election WAS stolen.


Electors are free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.[2] (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/#cite_note-1)[3] (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/#cite_note-2)

[BluegrassCat]

Electors are free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.[2] (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/#cite_note-1)[3] (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/#cite_note-2)

Yes, but in practice almost every state's electoral votes go to the candidate who won the statewide popular vote. Gore won the FL popular vote, but lost the one that ultimately mattered: the Supreme Court's.

Good SNL bit on the what if. A little ridiculous, a little bittersweet.


Hulu - Saturday Night Live: Parallel Universe@@AMEPARAM@@http://www.hulu.com/embed/ZOSM4uFfUM3mzOri9yppqw@@AMEPARAM@@ZOSM4uFfUM3mzOri 9yppqw (http://www.hulu.com/watch/1451/saturday-night-live-parallel-universe)

[gmercer]

There are many assumptions there that I don't think would have happened. First, the rally around the President post-9/11, probably wouldn't have happened considering the behavior of the modern day Republican party. They would have immediately blamed him for the attack, and their news propaganda wing would jump on it, and they would have been calling for investigations and impeachment. That would have been their political weapon for the 2002 midterm, where they pick up more seats in Congress than in real life.

Who knows if the Fed would have lowered interest rates and held them down for so long like they did under Bush. Some people thought they were keeping it low for so long to help him in the 2004 election. So if rates were slightly higher the housing bubble may have been smaller, or at least taken longer to play out.

McCain probably would have been the nominee in 2004 because of his military credentials, and the fact that Republicans have a tendency of nominating the guy who came in second the last time. But would Gore have beaten him? I'm of the opinion that McCain would have won, especially since Democrats would have been in the Whitehouse for 12 years. But for the sake of the article let's say Gore wins. That means no Democratic wave in 2006, so the Republicans would have held Congress his whole Presidency. I agree that Gore would have appointed judges to replace Rehnquist, Souter, and Stevens, but not O'Connor. She would have held on to her seat until another Republican took office. But that would still mean a 5-4 "liberal" Supreme Court.

Romney would not have been the nominee in 2008. George "Macaca " Allen would have run in 2004 for the nomination from the far right position, and narrowly lost to McCain, who would have been closer to the 2000 Maverick, than the 2008 bitter old man who had to sell out to the religious loonies version of himself. A really moderate McCain losing in 2004 would mean a sharper turn to the right for their party in 2008, and Allen who survives his 2006 re-election because of no Democratic wave, easily beats the moderate Romney.

Obama and Hillary would read the tea leaves and figure out that no Democrat could win in 2008 so they sit out. I guess Lieberman could win the nomination by default. But Allen easily defeats him in the general.

With Republicans controlling Congress and the Whitehouse, their version of stimulus would probably just be a payroll tax holiday, since that was the only idea they were floating around at the time. Of course it would be even less effective than the stimulus. We've had the holiday for the last year and it hasn't made a dent in unemployment. Meanwhile without the aid to the states that was a big part of the stimulus, many states would have been laying off hundreds of thousands of workers in 2009 and 2010, instead of recently. There would be no bailout of the auto companies so they'd enter chapter seven in early 2009, causing massive layoffs. So the unemployment rate would have spiked somehwere in the 12-13% range. The deficits would still be massive since most of it is a result of both lower revenues due to the recession, coupled with automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance, food stamps, and Medicaid. The Bush tax cuts would have been implemented in 2009 as the Allen tax cuts, so the deficit would probably be close to what it was in real life. Of course Republicans wouldn't be complaining about them since they're in charge.

Nothing would have been done on healthcare. Republicans had no desire to fix the system when they had complete control, so why would they suddenly do something in 2009? The only reason the drug plan was passed was so Republicans could pander to the Senior vote, so they wouldn't have allowed Gore a win on that one.

A dismal economy, and Republican refusal to do anything other than ineffective tax cuts, would mean a Democratic wave in 2010 where they win the House and fall a couple seats shy in the Senate. Democrats would win control of several State legislatures and Governorships around the country so they'd be controlling redistricting.

Hillary probably wins the nomination over Obama in 2012 since there was no Iraq War vote to hold against her, and Florida and Michigan wouldn't have moved their primaries causing those votes to not count. She picks Obama as her running mate. With unemployment still above 10% Allen gets crushed in a landslide, as Hillary calls for a huge government jobs program centered on infrastructure repair as part of her campaign, while Allen pleads to just let the tax cuts take time to work their magic. Republicans would be in no position to complain about the cost of Clinton's program, or it's effect on the deficit since they just ran up the biggest deficits in US history.

Anyways, I still think McCain would have won in 2004, Democrats win back the House and but not the Senate in 2006. If the housing bubble and the crash get delayed just a couple of months, then McCain gets re-elected, and we spend another 4 years under him with a dismal economy. So that means big wins for Democrats in 2010, and then a landslide victory for them in 2012.

[hippifried]

Woulda, shoulda, coulda... Perhaps... Maybe...

If the Mongol hordes had managed to roll unabated across Europe, the Arabs probably would have been the first Afro-Eurasians to establish trade with the new world.

[onmyknees]

Matt Yglesias provides an interesting counterfactual of what he thinks would have happened if the will of the voters had been honored in the 2000 election instead of stolen by a partisan SCOTUS vote.

I'm not sure 9/11 would have happened at all had Gore been president (after all the Clinton administration was already warning about bin Laden, while Bush ignored the signs and went on vacation) but the other assumptions seem pretty reasonable. We likely still would have experienced market deregulation, a housing boom, and the ensuing economic crisis leading to a GOP win in 2008. But we'd have definitely stayed out of Iraq, had a much better environmental policy, and a deficit half the size of what it is. Overall a much better deal for the country. *sigh*

"The first few months of the Gore administration would have been dominated by everyone remarking on how stupid it was of Vice President Lieberman to have insisted on staying on the ballot in the Connecticut Senate race, thus meaning that would could easily have been a 50-50 Democratic Senate was instead a 51-49 Republican Senate. Various efforts to entice Jim Jeffords into switching parties would fail and you’d have largely seen gridlock until 9/11 produced a massive rally ’round the flag effect. Lots of voices would argue in favor of invading Iraq, but other voices would urge against it. Ultimately, the path of least resistance would prove to be putting a ton of boots on the ground in Afghanistan (hawkish) in a way that made an invasion of Iraq logistically infeasible (dovish) thus sort of splitting the baby. November 2002 would have been a debacle for Republicans who’d have been badly divided between a Gore-hating base and Gore-loving swing voters.

Post-election, you’d have finally had some legislative dealmaking and gotten something resembling No Child Left Behind and some kind of prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. Also probably some incremental stuff on health insurance — a patients’ bill of rights, a big SCHIP expansion, etc. By 2004, low interest rates and the housing boom are good enough to let Gore get re-elected over John McCain. In his second term, he appoints a staggering four Supreme Court justice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter, securing what proves to be his most important legacy. But by late 2007, the economy is sliding into recession and Republicans hungry for victory nominate moderate Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (after a timely conversion to the anti-abortion cause). When the recession turns into a full-blown financial panic in the fall of 2008, Romney trounces Vice President Lieberman and shows that moderation is the GOP path to victory. The huge “lockbox” surpluses are expended in a massive counter-cyclical payroll tax cut such that unemployment peaks at 8.5 percent and starts slowly falling. Meanwhile, President Romney spends most of 2009 wrangling with congressional leaders, eventually agreeing to a major universal health care initiative modeled on the CommonWealth Care plan. Nevertheless, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (the Gore administration never launches the investigation of Gov. Spitzer that led to his downfall) plans to sue, arguing that an “individual mandate” to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional given the non-availability of a public option."


http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/29/307341/tales-of-the-gore-administration/

Get that man a Kleenex...


Lamest Gore exaggeration: Telling union workers that his mother used to lull him to sleep by singing "Look for the Union Label," a song that was not written until he was 27. It's amazing what can happen to those memory cells when you inhale.

[Ben]

Al Gore would've been better than Cheney. And let's be honest: Cheney was the President... :)
Cheney was, well, too extreme for my liking.
I think Sarah Palin would've been better than the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice gang -- :)

Is It Too Late for Palin 2012 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR5vRe22_Vg)

[BluegrassCat]

Get that man a Kleenex...


Lamest Gore exaggeration: Telling union workers that his mother used to lull him to sleep by singing "Look for the Union Label," a song that was not written until he was 27. It's amazing what can happen to those memory cells when you inhale.

Man, OMK can't resist from making my point about conservative dishonesty. Is there a single post of his that doesn't contain an untruth? Gore's remark was a joke that he told to a union audience, laughs and all. Remember jokes? Oh that's right, conservatives lack the self-awareness to appreciate humor that doesn't involve racism or someone getting hurt.

[BluegrassCat]

Btw, thanks for the very thoughtful post Mercer. One point where I disagree is that I think you overestimate the GOP intransigence in a Gore administration post 9/11. Sure, there would have been some but not like what we've seen with Obama and I think the Dems could have won majorities in both houses in 02 on the residual good feelings.

I think you have a point about Gore potentially losing re-election after 12 years of Democratic administrations. But McCain has never been very charismatic or presidential (read tall & good-looking) and unseating a sitting president is tough, especially in a tolerable economy. If 9/11 happens, I would bet Gore is re-elected, if not then he isn't.

Still, whatever path you imagine to follow Gore's inauguration, it's hard to see it not being vastly better than what we got.

[BigDF]

Get that man a Kleenex...


Lamest Gore exaggeration: Telling union workers that his mother used to lull him to sleep by singing "Look for the Union Label," a song that was not written until he was 27. It's amazing what can happen to those memory cells when you inhale.As a retired union member, I continue to cringe whenever I receive my union endorsed ballot in the mail previous to the election. But really now, that election is 11 years past and the idea that a President Gore could have prevented 9/11 is pure fantasy anyway. The one politician who might have been able to have prevented 9/11 is Bill Clinton who refused to allow the military to kill Osama bin Laden when they had a shot at him and that is pure speculation.:geek:

[KCBob4TS]

Maybe if Al Gore had won his own state. Maybe if the current president hadn't been such an embarrassment he might have gone out campaigning for Al Gore. And of course there were those attack dogs keeping Blacks from going to the polls.