User blog:God Bless the United States of America/Vice President Bill Frist

According to  Decision Points, Dick Cheney had a heart attack in 2005 that nearly lead to him being replaced as VP by Bill Frist. With that said, let's say the heart attack occurs a year earlier and is serious enough to force Cheney to resign. As a result, Bill Frist is selected to be Bush's Vice President and thus his running mate for the November election as well.

Now then, here are some loaded questions I have for this what if:

1) How would the replacement of Cheney by Frist affect the 2004 election? Would the Bush campaign do better (A .4% shift in their favor would bring Wisconsin to the GOP side), or could the Kerry/Edwards campaign pull off a victory?

2) Presuming he wins reelection, how would Bush’s second term play out for him? Would he perform better or worse, due to Frist’s influences? In particular, how would President Bush’s response to things like Hurricane Katrina (Assuming butterflies don't eliminate it) or the insurgency in Iraq work out? Would he be able to get reforms through on Immigration and Social Security? Expanding upon that last one, would the GOP’s share of the Hispanic vote increase if Bush gets through a reform to Immigration policy as well as establishes a path to citizenship for illegals? Finally, does this put off the upcoming recession?

3) Presuming John Kerry wins the 2004 election, how would he handle the challenges of the 2005-2009 period?