Sarkozy vs. Bayrou (2007)

[Barnes]

What if, by some fluke of the gods, François Bayrou (UDF) edges out Royal (PS) for second place in the first round of the 2007 French presidential election, and goes on to battle Sarkozy (UMP)? Would Sarkozy be able to easily defeat a candidate from neither the left nor the right, or, would the left, albeit grudgingly, throw their weight to Bayrou?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, some polls done before the 1st round had Bayrou defeating Sarkozy if he were to qualify. Don't know however, it'd have probably been very close.

Oh, and Sarkozy is spelt with a "k".

[big bad fab]

Maybe some "revolutionary" votes from the left
I mean : votes for Sarkozy to prevent a president Bayrou from dismantling the PS and the Greens.
At least, there would have been a "bonnet blanc/blanc bonnet" campaign from the "real" left, like in 1969.

The Bayrou momentum was too early in the campaign and the big margin of Sarkozy in the first round would have been the same.

Plus, I think even more FN voters would have voted for Sarkozy (I mean leftist voters of the FN, who hate the "centrists", the "PC" politicians, the European federalists, etc).

So I think Sarkozy would have still won, even though by a short margin (probably like Giscard in 1974 or something around 51-49).

[Hash]

The conventional wisdom is that Bayrou would've defeated Sarkozy through the addition of Royal's votes to his votes. And that's what polls showed anyway (by a 53-47 margin or so).

However, Bayrou is a crappy candidate and would likely have lost a debate. The runoff also would likely have seen a shift in Sarkozy's rhetoric to appeal even more to the working-class electorate (both FN: by continuing insecurity and immigration as a theme topic; and PCF/far-left: by attacking Bayrou as a centrist pro-European federalist). Sarkozy would have had no ethical issue in adopting an hypocritical anti-EU/anti-federalist posture, and Bayrou was too useless to have been able to spin such posturing by the right. There are two scenarios, really: abstention from the far-left and maybe FN is high > Bayrou wins narrowly; abstention remains low and more far-left and FN voters vote Sarkozy (70% of FN voters, say; and 35-40% of far-leftists) > Sarkozy wins narrowly.

One would hope the PS would then understand that somethings need to change in its apparatus after "two 2002s" in a row. We could see either an early growth of the Greenies/FG by unhappy PS voters, or a radical transformation of the PS into something more modern (slightly more doubtful, but then again, the elephants would have jumped aboard any attempt to further destroy Royal). Depending on what happens, Royal would likely have less of a chance at Reims and no chance for 2012.

[big bad fab]

Glad to see we mostly agree.