Bob Dole Won (HELP!)

richie42

This is the first TRY at an actual, completed, AH.

So, first of all, is this an overused AH plotline?

My idea is that Bill Clinton sends troops into Rwanda... not exactly militarily backfires, but politically, it does. He sends them w/o Congresses consent and the GOP goes for the War Powers Act.

Good idea?

EDIT: For those who don't know, this is for the 1996 election.
 
Electric Monk

Electric Monk

It's not overused, because Bob Dole beating Clinton was highly unlikely.

Perhaps have Clinton decide against bringing in Dick Morris? No triangulation, no illegal fund-raising, no early advertising, loses the budget show-down with Newt, maybe butterflies mean Bob Dole easily wins the primaries (and so has money when he didn't IOTL), and so on.

Frankly it's one of the harder matches to flip. 1980, for example, was a landslide (at least superficially), but it was almost tied until the last week or so when the undecided voters shifted to Reagan.

In 1996 the polls weren't for Dole, pretty much ever, so you need some big changes.


Institutional Memory
Robert J. Dole, 43rd President of the United States
Clinton Loses re-election, Bob Dole is elected President in 1996?
Dole wins 1996 election; runs again and wins in 2000
 

Billi the Axe

Actually it's relatively easy just have bigger more salacious scandals plague "BJ"Bill's 1st Presidency. Now have one emerge weeks before the election and viola a Dole/GOP win. Of course you would have to have a Press not run by leftist liberal idiots to actually slam him for it. It always amazed me the crap the Clinton's got away with in OTL.
 
Jasen777

Jasen777

Donor
An intervention in Rwanda that backfires (a.k.a a super-Somalia) could easily sink Clinton. Perhaps Republicans will stick longer with opposing nation-building ITTL.
 

richie42

Well, my idea would be that Rwanda was not some sort of "super-Somalia", and it actually would have saved lives. However, the political fallout would be tremendous. Clinton will send troops in Rwanda without Congress's consent. Despite international praise and the fact that lives were saved, it was unpopular not consenting Congress, the Congress, as a result, invokes the War Powers Act.
 

Billi the Axe

Rwanda would sink Clinton , Unfortunately it's fairly hard to get military action there as the American public really doesn't care about Africa.
 
Jasen777

Jasen777

Donor
If it's successful Clinton will win the political battle with Congress. I think you better off with a failure for what you are looking for.
 

richie42

Hi, I've been gone a while, I work weekends, at night.

Anyways, I am planning on making this work, gonna write the TLs in word documents, any ideas for me?
 

richie42

This is my timeline workshop, where I will submit my plans and ideas for the general public to watch. This is not by any means, my timeline, but it is instead a rough draft which will be my later final edition for the time line. Basically, I will divide this Time line into chapters in order to organize the multitude of points that will be made, the first one shall be entitled, simply:
Rwanda.

This will be my ideas, in brief, they will be posted for their completed drafts somewhere else.


Ideas:
The Rwanda Genocide, by most of April, 1994 has stayed the same. Really, what caused the events, the ethnic tensions, the plane bombing that ignited the tensions, stayed the same. Now, here’s what is happening.

April 7, 1994, POD. In the context of the day’s events, not much has changed. The Rwandan Armed Forced and the Interhamawe begin to kill Tutsi civilians. Later, ten Belgian soldiers are killed in Rwanda. However, the Clinton response was the difference. In my alternate world President Clinton says this,
“I am shocked and disgusted after learning that elements of the Rwandan military have, with the aid of militias, have murdered not only members of their own government and Rwandan civilian, but Belgians who were loyal not only to their King and Country, but to the mission, the mission of the United Nations, the mission to bring peace to a broken land. I urge on all parties to cease the fighting immediately.”


[FONT=&quot]April 8, 1994. In Rwanda nothing has changed, Tutsi forces begin an offensive, however, in Washington, President Bill Clinton began talks with Congress at the White House, particularly, the so called “Gang of Eight” and other important people in Congress, the military, the State Department, and others. There, President Clinton discussed the possibility of intervention in Rwanda. Congress supported the insertion of US troops in Rwanda to evacuate Americans and Rwandans working for the American embassy and American corporations. [/FONT]


*

Information:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/
This is basically my set of information that I am getting about the Rwanda Crisis, most of it will come from this website.

Also, basically I will use all information from Wikipedia relating to the Rwanda Genocide


Ideas I got, not perfected:
Americans enter Kigali, take Kigali international Airport and use the American embassy and the airport to transport Americans and refugees.

Due to American efforts, the Great Lakes refugee crisis is dramatically smaller.
[FONT=&quot]In the Ecole Technique Officielle school in Kigali, 2,500 refugees resided in the first few days of the Genocide. In real life, UN forces abandoned them as the Rwandan military and Hutu militias massacred them, under the UN’s watch. Here, the US military takes the school as a base and keeps its impromptu refugee camp status. When the attack begins, the US military, who encourages the Belgian peacekeepers to support them, the militants are kept back in a battle that lasts three days.[/FONT]



The US jams the signals of the RTLM, and later storms its facilities.
 

ComradeFlyer

ok... so which aspect of the WPA does Clinton violate... does he not notify Congress within 48 hours of deployment or does he not bring the troops home within 60 days without Congressional approval?
 

Atreus

You know, I wonder if prevention of genocide without congressional approval will be enough to let bob dole win. especially if, as in richie's earlier scenario, the intervention is not a failure.

You probably need a major scandal right before the election to beat Clinton in 96; something big which hurts him at the polls without giving him time to talk his way out of things (which he is capable of doing, given the time).
 

richie42

Its not really preventing a genocide...that's the intent, it'll be like Somalia, there will be publicizd US casualties, but the mission will be completed...
 
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