Likely McCain VP Choices in 2000
- Thread starter Amadeus
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There has actually already been a Native American VP: Charles Curtis.
He had lost his 1994 Senate race by 58-41. He had not yet run the 2002 Winter Olympics which helped prepare him for his successful 2002 candidacy for the governorship of Massachusetts. He was still plagued by "the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney And that article also notes some of the positions Romney took in 1994--"I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country" and "Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush"--which would hardly endear him to Republicans worried enough about McCain's own alleged maverick tendencies...
I think a lot of people here miss the differences between the Lieberman of 2000 and the Lieberman of 2008. In 2006, an antiwar challenger (Ned Lamont) had defeated Lieberman for the Democratic Senate nomination in CT, so Lieberman ran as a third party candidate who was really in effect the Republican candidate--he got 49.7 percent of the vote to Lamont's 39.7 percent and the nominal Republican candidate's 9.6 percent, indicating that most Connecticut Republicans had voted for Lieberman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_United_States_Senate_election_in_Connecticut This race helped make him one of the GOP's very favorite Democrats. (Indeed, such national Republicans as Newt Gingrich had endorsed him.) Yet even in 2008, and despite Lieberman's friendship with McCain, the latter in the end did not dare choose him as his running mate for fear of a backlash at the convention over Lieberman's stance on abortion. In 2000 Lieberman was still a Democrat in good standing, and would be out of consideration as a GOP candidate for vice-president.
I once wrote about 2008: "No matter how much McCain liked the idea, it was just not practical. There would be a tremendous backlash among conservatives; they liked Lieberman's hawkishness and liked his being a thorn in the side of the Democrats but they could never accept as part of their ticket someone who was pro-gun-control, pro-gay-rights, and pro-choice on abortion (even voting against the ban on "partial birth" abortion.) "'Lieberman would blow things up,' said the American Conservative Union's David Keene. 'That would be like Obama picking some right-winger that agrees with him on one thing.'" https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/mccain-weighs-a-lieberman-surprise-012646 That would be doubly true about 2000 (when the Iraq war issue did not yet exist to alienate Lieberman from the Democrats and make him a hero of sorts to Republicans).
I once wrote about 2008: "No matter how much McCain liked the idea, it was just not practical. There would be a tremendous backlash among conservatives; they liked Lieberman's hawkishness and liked his being a thorn in the side of the Democrats but they could never accept as part of their ticket someone who was pro-gun-control, pro-gay-rights, and pro-choice on abortion (even voting against the ban on "partial birth" abortion.) "'Lieberman would blow things up,' said the American Conservative Union's David Keene. 'That would be like Obama picking some right-winger that agrees with him on one thing.'" https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/mccain-weighs-a-lieberman-surprise-012646 That would be doubly true about 2000 (when the Iraq war issue did not yet exist to alienate Lieberman from the Democrats and make him a hero of sorts to Republicans).
He is basically a RINO, he can win in 2008 elections if he is nominated.
By 2008, he had moved quite a bit to the right, so it was conceivable he could be nominated then. But no, neither he nor any other Republican could be elected in 2008, with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Indeed, he might do worse than McCain in 2008--he would be too easy to portray as a heartless Bain Capital plutocrat who put people out of work.
McCain, the maverick, needs to have all the South and Rural Base in his column to win, so he would choose a VP able to appeas conservatives but not a rightwing.
I think Fred Thompson from Tennessee would be a perfect candidate: geographical and ideological balance, he had some name recognition thanks his role in Law and Order (not so for Graham, Kasich or others), he was a honest conservative with some humor skills.
Obviously if McCain is the candidate, Lieberman would refuse to run against him and Gore will chose his second choice, Senator John Kerry.
I think Fred Thompson from Tennessee would be a perfect candidate: geographical and ideological balance, he had some name recognition thanks his role in Law and Order (not so for Graham, Kasich or others), he was a honest conservative with some humor skills.
Obviously if McCain is the candidate, Lieberman would refuse to run against him and Gore will chose his second choice, Senator John Kerry.
I know John Q. Adams went back into public politics after his 1828 defeat. And Truman would do anything to stay relevant.
Gerald Ford was suggested as a Vice President too but negotiations between the Reagan and Ford camps at the Republican National Convention were unsuccessful. Ford conditioned his acceptance on Reagan's agreement to an unprecedented "co-presidency", giving Ford the power to control key executive branch appointments (such as Kissinger as Secretary of State and Alan Greenspan as Treasury Secretary).
My bad thought I saw H.W. Bush
If he had remained on the "left" on social issues, he would have had no chance at all for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. (Though if by some miracle, he won it, he would still lose in November due to the economic meltdown. And even apart from the meltdown, if Romney had remained pro-choice yet somehow won the GOP presidential nomination, there would be a socially conservative third party to siphon votes off him.)
I'm pretty sure that's who the user was referring to by, "GW Bush."
Romney's best chance of becoming President is in a world where his father is elected in 1968. Not only would the modern GOP be more moderate overall (and therefore more accepting to a "Massachusetts Moderate" like Mitt) but as the son of a President Romney would have that much more of an advantage in national politics. (Look how much it helped George W. Bush, who I doubt would ever have been elected President if he hadn't been George Bush's son).
Romney could have been the President in 2008 if he bolted the Republicans and shifted to Democrats after the 2000 elections just like Liz Warren, he would have the support of Bill Clinton and Carter.
Respect for his father's memory would be enough to dissuade Mitt Romney from changing parties--and anyway, he was just too conservative on economic issues even back in his socially sorta-liberal days. And Bain Capital isn't a great selling point among Democrats...
He could win in 2008 if he had the support of the Swingers and Independents like what Obama did.
I think we're getting a bit far removed from the PoD here (does McCain win in 00? What about 04? What's Romney's entire career like? etc), but… like David T said, a lefty Romney wouldn't get through the Republican primaries in the first place. IOTL McCain wasn't seen as sufficiently conservative, so what chance would someone running to his left have?
He could not get the GOP nomination unless he moved to the right (as he did in OTL--but still lost the nomination in 2008) and if somehow he was nominated, just being a Republican would be fatal in 2008. Swing voters were not going to vote for any Republican in a year of economic meltdown with a Republican in the White House. As for his running as a Democrat, it would be hopeless for him to switch parties and try and get the nomination unless he totally reversed the economic conservatism he had advocated even in his socially liberal years. Such a reversal would look totally opportunistic. Moreover, with Obama running, Romney would have no appeal among African American voters, a very important part of the Democratic primary electorate. (For that matter, even without Obama running, Romney would probably have very little appeal to African Americans in the Democratic primary.)
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Why would Lieberman refuse to run against McCain in 2000? I'm sure they got on well enough then but the whole bromance between the two didn't take off until years later. As others have pointed out, Lieberman was a liberal Democrat in good standing in 2000. Things didn't start going off the rails for him in his own party until 2004 when he tried to run for president and refused to back down on his stance on Iraq.
Lieberman may still agree to run with Gore, but Lieberman would probably avoid personal attacks on McCain in the general. In fact the overall tone of the Gore-McCain race may end up being aggressive but civil.