The Gipper Goes Down

The basic premises of this scenario, which would change the course of U.S. history from 1981 to the present, are:


 * 1) Reagan died as a result of injuries sustained during his shooting by John Hinckley Jr. in March 1981.


 * 2) His successor, George H.W. Bush, was badly weakened by the Iran-Contra scandal of 1987-88 (in a way his "teflon" predecessor never was).


 * 3) Mario Cuomo, sensing the vulnerability of Bush's Vice-President and heir apparent, Robert Dole, WOULD have entered, and in all likelihood won, the 1988 elections.


 * 4) Cuomo's unpredictability and known tendency to shy away from the opportunity for a higher profile would have led him to not seek a second term in 1992, thus essentially abdicating in favor of his more energetic Vice-President, Bill Clinton. Sagging poll numbers, ambivalence of his family (and especially his wife) about the presidency, and the attractive prospects of a more sedate and private life as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court (in place of the retiring Thurgood Marshall) would have figured prominently in his decision.


 * 5) Without the unhappy experience of his father's selection of Dan Quayle in 1992 s Vice-President (which would not have happened if Bush had retired a a virtual 2-term president in 1988), George W. Bush would not have selected Dick Cheney as his running mate in the 2000 elections, opting instead for the more unknown evangelical activist Gary Bauer.


 * 6) Gore would have narrowly won the 2000 elections, carrying Florida. There would have been no interference from a Supreme Court dominated by Democratic appointees.

The consequences of all this would have been a Democratic control of the White House for most of the post-1981 period, with attendant changes in the Supreme Court and foreign policy aims.

The Death of Ronald Reagan
On March 30, 1981, Ronald Wilson Reagan had been President of the United States for 70 days. Elected by a landslide over Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 70-year-old Reagan had already had a big success when the Americans held hostage in Iran were released minutes after his inauguration. Reagan, a former actor and Governor of California, was looking to become a much-loved American leader and to have a profound impact on America. He did have that impact, but probably not in the way he'd expected. On that day, Reagan left the Hilton Hotel after an appearance there, with his Press Secretary, James Brady, in tow. A young, Jodie Foster-obsessed man called John Hinckley Jr, fired six shots from a revolver at the President. Brady was critically wounded, a secret service man was killed, and Reagan was rushed to hospital unconscious. He was operated on upon arrival, but had lost too much blood internally. He was pronounced dead, assassinated by a disturbed young man. Tecumseh's Curse had struck again - every US President elected in a year ending in 0 had died in office, from Harrison to Reagan.

Vice President George Bush was summoned, informed what had happened and, after flying in from Texas (where he was at the time), promptly took the oath of office. His first action as President was to launch a full investigation into the Reagan assassination. No conspiracy was revealed and Bush attracted criticism for politicizing the death of his predecessor.

The George H. W. Bush Administration (1981-88)
Next on the agenda was choosing a new Vice President. Bush thought of selecting Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, a former White House Chief of Staff and four-star general. However, Haig was unpopular in Congress (as attested-to by his difficult confirmation as Secretary of State), and had quickly made many enemies even within the Reagan administration. His apparent power-grab ("I am in control here!") in the hours following Reagan's shooting, when Bush was away, did not earn him high accolades from Reagan insiders, nor from the Vice-President. In addition, as the man who had protected and may have negotiated a presidential pardon for Nixon during the Watergate scandal, Haig had earned the unswerving enmity of many a Democratic member of Congress. Thus, Bush opted for Senator Robert Dole of Kansas -- like him, a former military hero -- who was confirmed by both Houses of Congress in record time. Reagan was dead and the brief Reagan era a memory as President Bush and Vice President Dole got on with the job.

By the time of the 1984 Presidential election, President Bush had seen a slump in popularity. Unable to capture the hearts and minds of Americans as Reagan had, Bush dropped from a 76% approval rating just after the assassination to just 42% in January 1984. A nagging recession in 1981-83 did not help matters. However, the economy began to recover and Bush pressed on with re-election. He and Vice President Dole were re-nominated for their positions. The Democrats nominated former Vice President Walter Mondale for President, with Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro his running mate and the first woman nominated by a major party for Vice President.

The campaign was not seen as a juggernaut, and the voting public at times seemed disinterested. While military spending had increased under Bush, he was having a hard time selling economic programs and was widely seen as uncharismatic. Nevertheless, he managed to attract enough support to win re-election. Bush won 50% of the popular vote to Mondale's 47% and 290 electoral votes to Mondale's 248.

Bush's second term was at first characterized by the continuing recovery of the economy and the warming of relations with the Kremlin as a result of Gorbachev's policy og glasnost and perestroika. later on, however, the administration was engulfed in the largest political scandal since Watergate, namely, the Iran-Contra scandal. Rumors and allegations started to surface in 1985 that the government had traded arms for hostages in Iran and used the money to finance the Contras, the opposition to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The scandal rocked the Washington establishment. The man at the center of the affair, Oliver North, wrapped himself in the flag and pleaded anti-communism. The National Security Advisor, John Poindexter, and North were indicted and tried. President Bush denied all knowledge, but nobody believed him. It was clear to everybody that the President had authorized everything, including breaking U.S. law to fund the Contras. Still, a warming of relations with the Soviet Union following the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, and the prospects of a resolution to the Cold War solidified a base of support for the embattled president.

On December 19, 1987, the U.S. Congress began impeachment proceedings, charging President Bush with "gross misconduct" in the Iran-Contra scandal. Without hard proof, however, this did not constitute grounds for outright removal from office. In addition, Republican leaders and grass-roots organizations succeeded in mobilizing the Republican base and others in opposition to Bush's removal, often invoking the memory of the slain former President Reagan. In any case, there were only a few months left to Bush's administration, and Congress eventually settled for a mere "censure" of the President in exchange for a promise that he would retire and not seek re-election in 1988 (he had served almost 2 full 4-year terms already).

The President was left with little choice, and on January 16, 1988, admitted to the nation some unspecified degree of complicity in the scandal, although his intentions were good. At the same time, he announced he would not seek re-election that year. The mantle of presumed "heir apparent" immediately passed on to Vice-President Dole, who began to campaign in earnest. Meanwhile, the presumed Democratic candidate, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, surged ahead of the rather uncharismatic Dole by ten points in the polls. In November, Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp, were defeated by the strong Democratic ticket of Cuomo and the young Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton (then 42 years old). They brought with them sweeping victories for the Democrats in Congress. The Republicans were tainted with the stench of corruption -- first Watergate, then Iran-Contra. It would be sixteen years before they would return to the White House, in 2004.

Key members of the George H.W. Bush administration were:
 * Secretaries of State: Al Haig (1981-82); George Schultz (1982-87), James Baker III (1987-89)


 * Secretaries of Defense: Caspar Weinberger (1981-85); Frank Carlucci (1985-87); Richard Cheney (1987-89)


 * National Security Advisor: Colin Powell (1986-89; post-Iran-Contra Scandal)


 * Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Colin Powell (1989-93)

The Mario Cuomo Administration (1989-93)
With the 1988 election wide open as a result of the Iran-Contra scandal, a large number of Democrats sought re-nomination, including former Vice-President Mondale, Senator Gary Hart, activist Jesse Jackson, and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. However, the most popular Democrat of his day, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, entered the race late and quickly won the support of the voters. He went on to win the nomination after a strong showing in the primaries. Hart's campaign floundered after he was caught cheating on his wife with a 29-year-old model. Dukakis was runner up to Cuomo, but the latter surprisingly selected the young Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, as his running mate, creating an instantly attractive ticket based on the premise of "change." The Democrat's counterpart was Vice-President Robert Dole and his running mate, Congressman Jack Kemp of New York. In the end, the Cuomo-Clinton ticket won the election with 53% of the vote to Dole-Kemp's 44%. Thus ended eight years of Republican control of the White House, in a context of voter hope as a result of the clear turning point in East-West relations. Cuomo also relied on widespread support from Catholic voters, becoming the first Catholic President since John F. Kennedy (and the first Italian-American).

The main challenge to the new administration was the state of the U.S. economy, which entered recession in 1989 as a result, among others, of a large federal deficit created by Bush's increases in military spending. Cuomo's "honeymoon" period was therefore rather short-lived, and his own testy relationship with some members of the media did not help him. Then the administration became involved in a couple of high-profile foreign policy crises which led to massive U.S. interventions. The first occurred in Panama in December 1989, when the moralistic and Wilson-like Cuomo ordered troops into Panama to apprehend the narcotics-tainted dictator Manuel Noriega and restore democracy in that country. Cuomo promised, and delivered, a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces. In 1990-91, Cuomo became involved in the U.N.-led effort to oust Iraq from Kuwait (it had invaded it in August, 1990), although with some misgivings. Cuomo let Margaret Thatcher lead the coalition and made it clear that the U.S. was only one of a number of countries participating in the mission, which also had a quick exit strategy, after the restoration of Kuwait had been achieved. These actions earned Cuomo some short-term domestic support (as did the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, both of which happened under his watch) but it was not enough to offset worries about the slumping economy. By late 1991, all poll numbers indicated that the administration was in serious trouble. Many saw Cuomo as aloof, professorial, and often pedantic -- not quite in touch with the attitudes and concerns of the average voter.

In December 1991, right after the announcement of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuomo shocked the nation when he announced his surprise decision not to seek renomination to a second term in favor of his young Vice-President, Bill Clinton (in a move concerted with retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, he would go on to accept instead an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court). The country was immediately thrown into an electoral frenzy, with Clinton pitted against the equally charismatic Congressman Jack Kemp, the Republican From runner. Clinton and Kemp went on to win their respective parties' nominations, with Clinton's attractiveness and political skills managing to turn the polls around in the Democrat's favor, although narrowly. The unpopular Cuomo's gamble in retiring to serve in the U.S. Supreme Court after only one term as President paid off when when his younger and more energetic Vice-President, well complemented by his running mate Al Gore, won the November election with 45% of the vote to Kemp-Lugar's 41%. By then the country had recovered from the 1989-1991 recession and the Democratic administration benefited from the entrance of Ross Perot as a third-party candidate (he got 13% of the vote). Perot had siphoned more votes away from Kemp-Lugar rather than from Clinton-Gore, making possible the almost miraculous recovery of a Democratic administration that seemed all but beaten in 1991.

Key members of the one-term Cuomo administrtion were:


 * Secretary of State Warren Christopher (1989-93)


 * Secretary of Defense Sam Nunn (1989-93)


 * Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani (1989-93)

The George W. Bush Administration (2005-09)

 * Presidents of the United States since 1981


 * Vice Presidents of the United States since 1981


 * 1984 U.S. Presidential Election


 * 1988 U.S. Presidential Election


 * 1992 U.S. Presidential Election


 * 1996 U.S. Presidential Election


 * 2000 U.S. Presidential Election


 * 2004 U.S. Presidential Election