You Can't Always Get What You Want
1987-1988
What was intended to pave the way for another Bush presidency had blown up in the former President's son's face, and appeared poised to sink his own ambitions instead. With the younger Bush, Quayle, and Clements all facing either imminent indictment or the likelihood of impeachment, the elder Bush calculated in favor of pulling the dead man's switch he had in his possession for nearly a decade. Suddenly, news reports regarding American complicity in foreign policy atrocities and the involvement of several leading officials in the Iran-Contra scandal were overshadowed by revelations from the FBI that President Agnew had accepted bribes from an undercover agent posing as an Arab sheikh as part of a sting operation. While Agnew faced staunch criticism over the bribery allegations, conservatives largely stood by the President on the basis that the operation represented entrapment and a prosecutorial witch-hunt. Thus, Agnew and Quayle both survived their respective impeachment attempts, but not without significant damage to their party. A re-election campaign was out of the question for the two figures. Likewise, Bush's governorship survived as he somehow cast the allegations against him as a partisan crusade.
With the litany of scandals and a market crash caused by the burst in the savings-and-loans bubble, the Republican nominee looked headed to certain defeat in the coming election. Due to an interconnected web of peer relationships, Senator Paul deferred to Senator Goldwater, Jr., who in turn deferred to establishment frontrunner Senator Dole (R-KS) for the role of sacrificial lamb in the pending election. Dole picked HUD secretary Jack Kemp (R-NY) to serve as his running mate while he was defeated in a landslide by 1984 nominee Bill Clinton, who picked Governor Michael Dukakis (D-MA) in order to ensure the twelve year streak of Greek-Americans in the executive branch continued.
1979-1980
Bush's lead in the primary contest evaporated due to circumstances beyond his control. The former President could not have anticipated that the new Iranian regime would take American hostages, resulting in a rally-around-the-flag effect around the incumbent President. However, the elder Bush was resourceful enough to use the resources at his disposal to regain lost ground. Vice-President Agnew, after receiving a mysterious phone call sometime in late 1979, made a speech excoriating his boss for his weakness on foreign policy and the energy crisis, and making the unprecedented move of backing Bush over the sitting President. While Agnew's speech lacked the energy of many of his prior public appearances, appearing to have been made under duress, it did mark a turning point where conservatives felt comfortable not backing the President who they perceived as betraying them after taking office.
The 1980 primaries shaped up similarly to those in 1976, with many close contests, and Bush doing exceptionally well in the Northeast while slightly underperforming in the South. The turning point came in April, as President Reagan's attempted rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran failing, largely due to the military bringing two fewer helicopters than the President requested. This time, Bush swept his home state and swept the remaining primaries. Reagan conceded the nomination to the man he ousted four years ago. As his running mate, Bush believed that the incumbent Vice-President's popularity with the base and ample blackmail material outweighed his disloyalty, and selected him to once again be the ticket's running mate against Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who vowed to serve only one term.
