Bush doing better prevents Anderson’s primary campaign from ever really taking off, so he isn’t able to build up enough support for a general run.
Jimmy Two: America in Carter's Second Term
- Thread starter Vidal
- Start date
Yes; it was mentioned in the leadup to the New Hampshire primary.
“Mercury is the God of Communication. When the planet is in retrograde, it is rotating in the opposite direction and much can go amiss. If your husband appears on national television for a debate during that time, his message will be misunderstood. To prevent this, I would advise your husband to employ reverse psychology. For example, if your husband wants to tell viewers that he will cut taxes, he should instead say that he will raise taxes.”
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"Mr. Reagan will raise taxes. So will I. He won't tell yo- what's that?"
Great update. I echo all the praise for the narrative writing and how well you humanize Carter— like Wolfram points out, making him a shrewd political operator while still seeming very human. But I also like the nuts-and-bolts alternate history writing going on here, and how Hinckley's assassination attempt has the immediate ripple of derailing the presidential debates. It's both a sympathy bump for Carter and a way to remove a major challenge on his way to re-election… very efficient!
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That is such a bizarre-looking map to the modern eye. Winning almost the entire country east of the Mississippi, but almost nothing west of it, including neither Texas nor California? For that matter, winning Hawai'i but nothing else on the West Coast? So strange.
Especially since Astrology is considered to be offensive to Christianity and the Moral Majority is already dealing with Jack Kemp’s “issues”. Revealing this would make them apoplectic and cause them to stay home in droves.
Go for it Vidal!
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Yeah. Evangelicals were already all in on Reagan by the time the astrology stuff came out IRL so they could write it off. Here where they are borderline on him anyway, they’ll flip out if it gets out.
Hope it’s not too late for Vidal to make some last minute edits to his next post.
I don't think Anderson really has a lane here. IOTL, his appeal was "Carter sucks and we need a change, but Reagan is crazy". Reagan if anything comes off as even crazier here (or at least bad in various ways), but Carter comes off much, much better. He wasn't stuck in a grueling primary, he resolved the hostage crisis peacefully, Volcker isn't in there hammering the economy to get inflation down, and, of course, he had the whole "I got shot" thing. I don't think there will be many people who don't want to vote for Carter but also don't want to vote for Reagan. A few, sure, but not unusually many.
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I suppose the Libertarians theoretically could pull 1%, but probably not with the Reagan-Kemp ticket.
This is a good point. In my mind, the problems for Anderson start even earlier: The better Bush effort in New Hampshire ITTL prevents Anderson from really taking off during the primaries like he did IOTL. You don't have the euphoric college swing, the performances in MA and VT, and so that effectively butterflies away his general election candidacy because there's not already a groundswell of support for him that can get him into the role of legitimate third party contender.
What is Kemp going to do once he get licked? He had a larger reputation in 96. He had not made his bones yet.
Great timeline so far. Stu Eizenstat is actually a family friend and my current employer, so seeing him as a character in a timeline on a forum I've been on since I was 12 is pretty surreal.