Bush still "wins", and is reelected in 2004 (defeating whoever the Dems nominate, which might still have been Kerry, or even Edwards himself). But the biggest change is for Lieberman. Without his 2000 VP candidacy, he never gets the presidential bug himself, and doesn't run for prez in 2004. He doesn't feel the same resentment towards his own party that he did IRL for rejecting him so soundly in the 2004 primaries, and so doesn't pick so many fights with the Democratic base. (He still votes for the Iraq War, of course, but lots of other Dems did as well, so there's nothing remarkable about that.) There's no Lamont primary challenge in 2006, and Lieberman is reelected as a Democratic rather than a 3rd party candidate. He doesn't threaten to filibuster the Affordable Care Act in 2009 if it includes a public option. In fact, all of the Senate Dems end up hanging together to vote for the ACA with the public option included, and it passes with 60 votes before Ted Kennedy passes away. Since the act includes a public option, there's more of a distinction between it and Romneycare, and Romney has an easier time in the 2012 primaries, because he's less vulnerable on health care. Pawlenty never tries to use the "Obamneycare" attack on Romney, and so never looks weak in the debate for not pressing that line of attack to his face. Pawlenty thus doesn't do so badly in the Iowa straw poll, stays in the race through the implosions of Perry, Cain, and Gingrich, and ends up being Romney's most formidable challenger in the end. Romney still wins the nomination in the end, but ends up naming Pawlenty his running mate. Romney/Pawlenty loses to Obama/Biden, but Pawlenty performs well on the trail, and ends up becoming the frontrunner for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. The 2016 presidential race turns out to be an all-Minnesota affair, between Republican Tim Pawlenty, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, and Independent Jesse Ventura. Ventura does surprisingly well, because he uses the campaign ad maker from his 1998 gubernatorial campaign. Pawlenty releases a series of movie trailers (in 3D), and Klobuchar initially has her campaign ads done by little-known documentary filmmaker Rielle Hunter, who attempts to have a lesbian affair with Klobuchar, but is rebuffed.
