A True October Surprise (A Wikibox TL)
- Thread starter lord caedus
- Start date
It's been like that to some extent in OTL in Canada, but they still have FPTP there. Political inertia is terrifyingly strong.
An actually competitive South would be interesting in electoral terms, to say the least.
As of 1989, the only times a "wrong winner" was elected on the federal level in Canada were the two elections in 1983 & 1988. IOTL the only "wrong winner" election was in 1979 but that obviously had a different result ITTL.
But the political system is not really under strain at this point from a legitimacy crisis or anything like that. Neither the PCs nor the Liberals are pushing for electoral reform, largely out of, as Daltonia said, inertia and also political consideration (neither of the two parties at this point would really benefit from changing the voting system).
Thanks.
I can see you're new, so just let me say that usually TL authors don't take requests from their readers to alter their TLs to suit the readers' tastes.
Also, Huddleston hasn't really *done* anything ITTL yet other than kill a potential free trade agreement. Maybe you'll change your mind by the time 1992 rolls around.
Thanks!
I can see you're new, so just let me say that usually TL authors don't take requests from their readers to alter their TLs to suit the readers' tastes.
Also, Huddleston hasn't really *done* anything ITTL yet other than kill a potential free trade agreement. Maybe you'll change your mind by the time 1992 rolls around.
Oh I know, just a sort of passing remark. I'll wait and see if I do change my mind when '92 comes in.
I might do one or so, but I'm not making congressional elections an ongoing series like presidential elections or certain foreign elections.
Interlude: Edmund Muskie, George Bush, Bob Dole
Since there isn't a non-Canadian/UK foreign election for the 1980s, here are the infoboxes for the presidents between Humphrey and Huddleston:
Part 18: Huddleston Presidency (1989-1992)
President Huddleston would begin his term with on a positive note. The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the new president began a strong push through of the party's agenda that had been blocked by the presence of a Republican in the White House. Secretary of State Mondale opened negotiations with Panama that resulted in the Huddleston-Noriega Treaty that would see control over the Panama Canal given to Panama on December 31, 2004. This resulted in a fierce outrage from conservatives in the Senate, whose filibuster attempt failed as a result of the lack of cohesion among them. The Department of Health and Human Services began a strong push to educate the public on relevant health matters, including HIV/AIDS, drug use and, to the consternation of the president, who had previously been a strong advocate of cigarette companies in the Senate, the health risks of legal vices like smoking and drinking. The Department of Energy's similar effort to calm post-Kahuta fears about nuclear power were unsuccessful and Huddleston bowed to political pressure to implement a moratorium on nuclear power plants, which greatly set back the national effort begun under President Humphrey to move towards more renewable energy sources...
The international situation Huddleston inherited as in a state of flux. The Warsaw Pact's decay during his term was rapid: by the end of 1989, Germany was reunited for the first time since the end of World War II and the communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary had fallen. Romania's brutal and egocentric dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown in a revolution and shot, while the Polish communist government, fearing a similar Romania-style revolt with a simmering population tired of martial law and the repressive nature of the regime, abruptly caved into to their opponent's demands of free elections and and end to the command economy, all in exchange for the implicit understanding that former regime leaders would not face criminal prosecution for any actions they had committed.
The People's Republic of China was faced with its biggest challenge since the uncertain period immediately after Mao Zedong's death when protesters, largely university students fed up with official corruption and the lack of human and political rights, began a massive pro-democracy protest in Beijing in 1989. The protests captured world attention and the subsequent response by the Communist Party to send in the army to crush the peaceful protesters led to the permanent souring of western opinion on Deng Xiaoping, who had previously been popular in Washington for his economic reforms and leading the PRC into open negotiations with the United States.
By 1991, the Soviet Union was the only member of the Warsaw Pact to remain communist and, despite the hopes of pro-democracy reformists within the USSR, the Communist party-state apparatus remained strong, ruthlessly quashing any deviation from the party line. Little change to the Soviet economy, which needed deep structural reforms, had taken place and Grishin refused to deviate from standard Soviet economic policy of gigantic investments in the military and heavy industry with a pittance for consumer goods even as his Council of Ministers repeatedly warned of the dire long-term projections for the Soviet state should this pattern continue....
In the face of the transition away from a bipolar world, Huddleston ignited a political firestorm when he proposed the Secure Borders Act in 1991. The act would drastically reduce immigration into the United States and make it impossible for illegal immigrants to become citizens. The bill, which liberals condemned as a backdoor to prevent non-white immigration to the United States, saw a massive backlash within the Democratic Party against Huddleston, who had previously been backed by almost all of the congressional caucus. Liberal Democratic opponents of the act were joined by an unusual assortment of allies: the almost-deceased liberal Republicans who had clung to survival, business-oriented Republicans and Hispanic members from both parties (except for Cuban-American representatives owing to the special policies regarding Cuban immigrants). Organized labor largely followed the president's lead, with teacher's unions notably breaking the fold to oppose the act.
In the end, the act narrowly passed the House after Speaker Tom Foley was able to keep enough members of his divided caucus from voting against the act, sending the bill to the Senate. There, with the chamber's liberals and pro-business Republicans staunchly opposed, the bill died, damaging Huddleston politically and playing no small part in shaping events for the 1992 presidential election...
When Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg died in January 1990, it had been nearly nine years since the composition of the Supreme Court changed and Huddleston's victory in 1988 would allow at least part of the liberal/liberal-leaning majority to be replaced with younger members. After Goldberg's death, Chief Justice Brennan, who had been on the court for nearly 35 years, announced his retirement, citing his age (83) and ill health. Huddleston, correctly gauging the mood of the Senate, picked another southern moderate, Gilbert Merritt to become the new chief justice and a liberal, Stephen Breyer, to take Goldberg's place. A year later, Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first black Supreme Court justice, retired and Huddleston replaced him with the nation's second black justice, Harry Edwards.
The international situation Huddleston inherited as in a state of flux. The Warsaw Pact's decay during his term was rapid: by the end of 1989, Germany was reunited for the first time since the end of World War II and the communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary had fallen. Romania's brutal and egocentric dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown in a revolution and shot, while the Polish communist government, fearing a similar Romania-style revolt with a simmering population tired of martial law and the repressive nature of the regime, abruptly caved into to their opponent's demands of free elections and and end to the command economy, all in exchange for the implicit understanding that former regime leaders would not face criminal prosecution for any actions they had committed.
The People's Republic of China was faced with its biggest challenge since the uncertain period immediately after Mao Zedong's death when protesters, largely university students fed up with official corruption and the lack of human and political rights, began a massive pro-democracy protest in Beijing in 1989. The protests captured world attention and the subsequent response by the Communist Party to send in the army to crush the peaceful protesters led to the permanent souring of western opinion on Deng Xiaoping, who had previously been popular in Washington for his economic reforms and leading the PRC into open negotiations with the United States.
By 1991, the Soviet Union was the only member of the Warsaw Pact to remain communist and, despite the hopes of pro-democracy reformists within the USSR, the Communist party-state apparatus remained strong, ruthlessly quashing any deviation from the party line. Little change to the Soviet economy, which needed deep structural reforms, had taken place and Grishin refused to deviate from standard Soviet economic policy of gigantic investments in the military and heavy industry with a pittance for consumer goods even as his Council of Ministers repeatedly warned of the dire long-term projections for the Soviet state should this pattern continue....
In the face of the transition away from a bipolar world, Huddleston ignited a political firestorm when he proposed the Secure Borders Act in 1991. The act would drastically reduce immigration into the United States and make it impossible for illegal immigrants to become citizens. The bill, which liberals condemned as a backdoor to prevent non-white immigration to the United States, saw a massive backlash within the Democratic Party against Huddleston, who had previously been backed by almost all of the congressional caucus. Liberal Democratic opponents of the act were joined by an unusual assortment of allies: the almost-deceased liberal Republicans who had clung to survival, business-oriented Republicans and Hispanic members from both parties (except for Cuban-American representatives owing to the special policies regarding Cuban immigrants). Organized labor largely followed the president's lead, with teacher's unions notably breaking the fold to oppose the act.
In the end, the act narrowly passed the House after Speaker Tom Foley was able to keep enough members of his divided caucus from voting against the act, sending the bill to the Senate. There, with the chamber's liberals and pro-business Republicans staunchly opposed, the bill died, damaging Huddleston politically and playing no small part in shaping events for the 1992 presidential election...
When Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg died in January 1990, it had been nearly nine years since the composition of the Supreme Court changed and Huddleston's victory in 1988 would allow at least part of the liberal/liberal-leaning majority to be replaced with younger members. After Goldberg's death, Chief Justice Brennan, who had been on the court for nearly 35 years, announced his retirement, citing his age (83) and ill health. Huddleston, correctly gauging the mood of the Senate, picked another southern moderate, Gilbert Merritt to become the new chief justice and a liberal, Stephen Breyer, to take Goldberg's place. A year later, Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first black Supreme Court justice, retired and Huddleston replaced him with the nation's second black justice, Harry Edwards.
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reading through the thing again, ive got to say your wikiboxes are pretty much perfect, you should really do more of these
how do you change the colour bar underneath the leaders portraits? for example, having the UK Democratic bar purple instead of Alliance Orandey/Yellow?
how do you change the colour bar underneath the leaders portraits? for example, having the UK Democratic bar purple instead of Alliance Orandey/Yellow?
Thanks.
To change the color in election infoboxes, you have to go to where it says "|party_colour" and type in "no" (which means that it won't autolink the assigned party color). Then for each party you have to enter the hex code for the color you want into where it says "|colour1"/"|colour2"/etc.
Part 19: United States presidential election, 1992
President Huddleston's push for the Secure Borders Act had enraged several factions in his party, who had never really accepted Huddleston as the party's standard-bearer and a primary challenger emerged in the form of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson of Illinois. Jackson believed that he would be joined by others of the party's liberal wing to make his campaign a credible challenge to the president, but a combination of political calculation (replacing a moderate sitting president for a stridently liberal black man who had never held elective office) and Jackson's own inflammatory statements about Jews (notably referring to New York City as "hymietown") kept the campaign a combination of vanity project and protest against Huddleston that stood no chance of taking the nomination. Nevertheless, Jackson succeeded in damaging Huddleston and made the Democrats wary of the fall campaign.
On the Republican side, the party's top-tier candidates had previously been content to sit out 1992, viewing facing Huddleston as an uphill struggle with no clear chance of success. However, the Secure Borders Act had caused the president's approval ratings to sink to approachable levels and several, like Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, attempted to jump in to the primary field at the last minute. The results, like the 1980 Democratic primaries, were disastrous. The Republican Party's rules about winner-take-all primaries and a very divided vote led to the frontrunner (and eventual nominee) becoming Illinois Congressman Phil Crane. Crane selected Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran as his running mate, making the ticket the most conservative the Republicans had nominated in over two decades.
Crane had been a vocal right-wing member of the House Republicans for over a decade and his selection as the Republican nominee led to the party's moderate and nearly-defunct liberal wing to bolt. Along with Jackson supporters, they coalesced around former Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker, whose independent candidacy would be a vehicle for liberal dissatisfaction with the two major parties. Weicker's campaign initially hoped to name Jackson as the vice presidential nominee to increase cross-party appeal, but Jackson declined, planning on making a bid for the presidency in 1996 as a Democrat. Instead, former Illinois Congressman John B. Anderson, a fierce Crane critic, came out of retirement to be Weicker's running mate.
The election campaign was one of the oddest on record. The death of Soviet leader Viktor Grishin in April and the establishment of a troika (with Mikhail Gorbachev, Grigory Romanov and Viktor Chebrikov sharing power) caused foreign policy to take the center stage, which benefited Huddleston. The Crane campaign was also hurt by Dan Crane, Phil Crane's younger brother and fellow congressmen, having lost re-election in 1988 after it had emerged that he had an affair with a 17 year-old intern and the candidate's refusal to distance himself from his brother. The Huddleston campaign also attempted to mollify left-wing critics by announcing a plan to discuss implementing a negative income tax.
Weicker, surprisingly for an third-party candidate, polled as high as 15% in some polls, but his support slowly bled away as Election Day approached, with most votes going to Huddleston as Crane floundered.
Weicker was unable to win a single state, but his presence caused Crane to win several states that otherwise would have likely went to Huddleston had the former senator not run, preventing a crushing Democratic victory. As it was, Crane failed to win his home state of Illinois and for the first time since 1964, the majority of the South went Democratic. The congressional elections saw a massive Democratic victory, with the party controlling 62 seats in the Senate after the election and a majority of nearly 40 seats in the House.
On the Republican side, the party's top-tier candidates had previously been content to sit out 1992, viewing facing Huddleston as an uphill struggle with no clear chance of success. However, the Secure Borders Act had caused the president's approval ratings to sink to approachable levels and several, like Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, attempted to jump in to the primary field at the last minute. The results, like the 1980 Democratic primaries, were disastrous. The Republican Party's rules about winner-take-all primaries and a very divided vote led to the frontrunner (and eventual nominee) becoming Illinois Congressman Phil Crane. Crane selected Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran as his running mate, making the ticket the most conservative the Republicans had nominated in over two decades.
Crane had been a vocal right-wing member of the House Republicans for over a decade and his selection as the Republican nominee led to the party's moderate and nearly-defunct liberal wing to bolt. Along with Jackson supporters, they coalesced around former Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker, whose independent candidacy would be a vehicle for liberal dissatisfaction with the two major parties. Weicker's campaign initially hoped to name Jackson as the vice presidential nominee to increase cross-party appeal, but Jackson declined, planning on making a bid for the presidency in 1996 as a Democrat. Instead, former Illinois Congressman John B. Anderson, a fierce Crane critic, came out of retirement to be Weicker's running mate.
The election campaign was one of the oddest on record. The death of Soviet leader Viktor Grishin in April and the establishment of a troika (with Mikhail Gorbachev, Grigory Romanov and Viktor Chebrikov sharing power) caused foreign policy to take the center stage, which benefited Huddleston. The Crane campaign was also hurt by Dan Crane, Phil Crane's younger brother and fellow congressmen, having lost re-election in 1988 after it had emerged that he had an affair with a 17 year-old intern and the candidate's refusal to distance himself from his brother. The Huddleston campaign also attempted to mollify left-wing critics by announcing a plan to discuss implementing a negative income tax.
Weicker, surprisingly for an third-party candidate, polled as high as 15% in some polls, but his support slowly bled away as Election Day approached, with most votes going to Huddleston as Crane floundered.
Weicker was unable to win a single state, but his presence caused Crane to win several states that otherwise would have likely went to Huddleston had the former senator not run, preventing a crushing Democratic victory. As it was, Crane failed to win his home state of Illinois and for the first time since 1964, the majority of the South went Democratic. The congressional elections saw a massive Democratic victory, with the party controlling 62 seats in the Senate after the election and a majority of nearly 40 seats in the House.
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