DBWI President George W Bush

[Paul V McNutt]

What if Puerto Rico had not voted for statehood in 1993? Without Puerto Rico's electoral votes President Gore would have lost the 2000 election. He would have lost due to the disputed Florida recount. If you recall the litagation over the Florida recount went all the way to the Supreme Court. ITTL five unelected conservative Supreme Court Justices would have given George W Bush the White House rather then just reducing Gore electoral vote margin as they did OTL. Bush, who as governor, showed the ability to work accross party lines, would, like John Quincy Adams and Rutherford B Hayes, faced an opposition angry over being robbed. sSince most of the Democratic base would have seen Gore as the rightful predident, he would have won the 2004 nomination. Who would have won the rematch of 2004.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

With a fresh eye(s) coming in and looking at the intelligence, it is likely that the 9-11 conspiracy would have been discovered.

Right there, you have no Afganistan invasion, and occupation and without the massive raids to finally get Osama, Pakistan might not have been de-stabilized.

 

[Nazi Space Spy]

Bush would have defeated Gore just like McCain did in 2004.

 

[Underboss_3]

Well, hell, we know what happened in OTL 2004: John McCain turned Gore out of the White House on his ear. Would Bush have fared as well in a rematch? Well, he was a fairly popular Gov. in Texas, and Gore was absolutely vulnerable in 2004. Ultimately, I think Bush was too far to the right to turn out independents (a big reason he lost in 2000 IMO).

If Indies broke for Gore, I could see him narrowly winning reelection. A lame duck president with tepid approval numbers, and not much of a reelection mandate? I think a second Gore term would be a mess.

Don't cry for Gore, though. He's carving out quite a niche for himself as the head of that tv network.I don't watch it, personally, but it seems to be a sane alternative for people who hate FOX News or MSNBC.

As a baseball fan, I would have liked to have seen Bush retire as governor in 2003 rather than run for a third term. Then he could have possibly taken the baseball commissioner's job in 2005 (that's a job he wanted back when he was involved in the Rangers). I think it would have been interesting to see what direction he would take the league.

 

[cubefreak123]

Okay, unpopular opinion here, but I think that we might have gone into Iraq if Bush had won. Bush's VP, Cheney, was a neo-con with ties to oil companies. Combine that with Bush's own vendetta with Saddam and the fact that going into Iraq was strongly considered OTL and it might have actually happened!

Without Gore pushing the argument that our fight was in Afghanistan and Pakistan you might see Saddam taken out via US troops instead of by that suicide bomber during the civil war.

 

[Meadow]

Okay, unpopular opinion here, but I think that we might have gone into Iraq if Bush had won. Bush's VP, Cheney, was a neo-con with ties to oil companies. Combine that with Bush's own vendetta with Saddam and the fact that going into Iraq was strongly considered OTL and it might have actually happened!

Conspiracy theories are not allowed on this site.

 

[Underboss_3]

Not to mention Bush spoke out against nation building in the 2000 campaign.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Okay, unpopular opinion here, but I think that we might have gone into Iraq if Bush had won. Bush's VP, Cheney, was a neo-con with ties to oil companies. Combine that with Bush's own vendetta with Saddam and the fact that going into Iraq was strongly considered OTL and it might have actually happened!

Without Gore pushing the argument that our fight was in Afghanistan and Pakistan you might see Saddam taken out via US troops instead of by that suicide bomber during the civil war.

If - not going to say that would have happened, but for the sake of argument if - do you think things would have ended up better? I mean, it's hard to see how they could be worse, with an Iran-backed Shia theocracy running the South of the country and an American/Saudi-backed regime in the North, but... Do you think Iraq would look different today?

 

[Orville_third]

Well, I had no plans for voting Gore after his campaign law violations. Then again, I had no plans for voting Bush after what he pulled in SC. I voted Nader and I'm proud of it.
And it's a good thing he didn't get in- I'm not sure about any wars (though he did speak against nationbuilding and racial profiling of Muslims, his dad was allegedly targeted by Saddam), but the Bush tax plan would have gotten us into debt, and even more had 9/11 happened on Bush's watch. Gore was not my favorite, but he did set us on sound fiscal footing.
If McCain won, we might have gotten into some war, though with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya or North Korea is an open question. (I'm not sure if people would have brought up the Kamil debriefing under Bush or McCain, though it did help sink Gore, and helped spark the Iraq civil war- with Saddam proven to be disarmed, it does make it easier to rise up against him.)
And I hope the Kurdistan referendum goes through after the Kosovo, South Sudan and Crimean referendums. (Too bad Scotland rejected it.) I'm not just an independentist, I have friends from Kurdistan.

 

[Opunium]

If - not going to say that would have happened, but for the sake of argument if - do you think things would have ended up better? I mean, it's hard to see how they could be worse, with an Iran-backed Shia theocracy running the South of the country and an American/Saudi-backed regime in the North, but... Do you think Iraq would look different today?

OOC: Wouldnt McCain invade Iran in 2009, thus making an Iran backed theocracy pretty implausible? Nobody mentioned there is already a new democrat in the white house.

 

[cubefreak123]

OOC: Wouldnt McCain invade Iran in 2009, thus making an Iran backed theocracy pretty implausible? Nobody mentioned there is already a new democrat in the white house.

OOC: Well no Bush means no Axis of Evil speech so it's possible that US-Iran relations are better than they were OTL, if nothing else more like they are right now (tense but we're trying to make it work). McCain would probably advocate peacekeepers in the north of Iraq though (the Kurds would be happy to have us).

 

[dilbert719]

Bush would have defeated Gore just like McCain did in 2004.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. McCain had the advantage of coming at the tail end of 3 consecutive Democratic terms in office, and the American people have a tendency to look for a change in direction after two or three terms (3 Reagan/Bush and Clinton/Gore, 2 for Kennedy/Johnson, Nixon/Ford, and Eisenhower. That accounts for all but 4 years of American history since the 1952 election, and Carter's term had some special circumstances to account for why it went so differently.) ITTL, Clinton's two terms would be followed by that change in direction, leaving Gore to come in with a cleaner slate, and also with the momentum of having the election "stolen" from him in the Supreme Court. That would very likely energize the Democratic base in a way President Gore never managed to pull together.

 

[Isot the Terrible]

Bush would have defeated Gore just like McCain did in 2004.

OOC: Given how the American people rallied round Bush after 9/11. McCain defeating a President Gore in 2004 seems pretty implausable to me.

 

[Whanztastic]

Conspiracy theories are not allowed on this site.

This is why DBWIs are typically terrible - the third or forth post send the entire thread completely off course.

 

[walmart]

Conspiracy theories are not allowed on this site.

Does the illumanti still count as a conspiracy theory if u sign up for it online