God Save the Queen: An American Timeline

[The Lord Marbury]

As some of you may know I attempted to make a timeline similar to this two years or so ago called "Into the next millenium". Eventually it died and I like to think I've learned quite a bit from the mistakes I made with it so here I present to you my new TL, with a different twist on the same premise. I hope you'll enjoy it.

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June 8th, 1999


PM: "Good evening and welcome to ABS One’s coverage of this year's federal election, ’The Road to America Avenue’. I’m Peter Mansbridge and the celebration of democracy that we know as election day is currently drawing to a close. It is just after 7PM here in Philadelphia which means that the polls have just closed in the atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with the eastern provinces closing their polls in an hour. Later this evening we will be able to get a rough look at what the House of Commons will look like as the results start to trickle in. Will our next Prime Minister be called William, Jack or Al? Stay tuned and find out."

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”Prime Minister Owen has said that the timetable for troop withdrawal from South Africa may need to be pushed forward to 2004 in order to further ensure that democratic elections can be held and a stable and a functioning new government can take office. The notion has previously been floated by American PM William Weld after the white supremacist terrorist attacks seen last summer, however if his National Conservative Party fails to win a third term today it is unknown if Owen can get support from Weld’s successor.”
-The Guardian, June 8th, 1999

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”Oh I definitely had sexual relations with that woman”
-Jazz musician, comedian and talkshow host Willie Blythe on his Comedy Network show, ”The Blythe Zone”, May 1999

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”If the douchebag hadn’t fired me we’d be up by 10 points by now. Moron.”
-Quote attributed to Lee Atwater, election day 1999

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Interviewer: ”What was it that lead to your decision to let Lee Atwater go in the fall of 1998?”

William Weld: ”It wasn’t exactly one single thing which led to my decision to not involve Lee in our ’99 campaign. He had been working as communications director for the party ever since 1994 but we’d never really gotten along that well. I think Dick [Cheney, party president 95-99] liked to see him as his eventual successor, but I never could stomach some of his more… aggressive ideas. And his suggestion for me to flip flop on abortion so that we could just easier attack the left didn't exactly endear me to him. Of course a lot of his ideas did work in the ’95 election but there were some misfires in the coming years where he used a style which could best be described as ’campaign mode’ in the middle of the term which just didn’t work. The American people don’t want to see a government which attacks the opposition more than the opposition attacks the government and doesn’t talk about its own policies and ideas.”

Interviewer: ”What about the attack ad the National Conservatives aired in the fall of ’98, attacking then-Liberal Party leader Al Gore? Did that influence your decision to fire Atwater?”

Weld: ”Well firstly I wouldn’t say that I fired him. What happened was that I and Lee had a talk about what we thought the party should become in the future and what the ’99 campaign would look like, and our differences eventually resulted in the two of us coming to the decision that Lee should leave his post. But the ad you mention certainly played into it, because it was such a major mistake and only gave us negative press for most of November.”

Interviewer: ”Shouldn’t you have stopped the ad then, if you thought it was too extreme?”

Weld: ”Well I wasn’t comfortable with it from the beginning but I let myself be convinced by Lee and Dick. In hindsight I should’ve trusted my gut feeling.”

Interviewer: ”But the attack ad went after Gore for his attendance record in the House of Commons, and it was common knowledge at this time, even among the public, that Gore was taking some time off to help his wife with rehabilitation following a car accident in the previous year. You must have been aware about this and still you said yes to the ad?”

Weld: ”As I’ve said I wasn’t comfortable with the ad from the beginning, and that was one of the big reasons why. Looking back I should’ve said no to it from the beginning, but what’s done is done.”

-Transcript from an interview with former Prime Minister and National Conservative leader William Weld in 2007

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PM: ”Welcome back to ABS One’s election night coverage once again, the time is 11:30 here in Philadelphia, meaning that the polls have been closed on the west coast for half an hour, aside from Alaska and Hawaii. Based on our own exit polls, votes counted, and races already called we are now ready to make a projection of what our House of Commons will look like for the next for years.”

”First let’s take a look at what the House of Commons looks like today. There has been a few by-elections since 1995 so the original result from that election can be seen in brackets”

House of Commons of the American Commonwealth, 1995-1999
National Conservative Party: 362 seats [367, -5]
Labour Party: 181 seats [179, +3]
Liberal Party: 163 seats [161, +2]
Green Party: 1 seat

"And now let’s take a look at our projection for this election…"

[The Lord Marbury]

[continued]

PM: "….and this is what ABS News projects that the House of Commons will look like according to our projection. Remember that this is not only an exit poll, it also includes several races on the east coast and midwest that have already been called."

Labour Party: 34,5%, 253 seats
National Conservative Party: 31,2%, 234 seats
Liberal Party: 25,9%, 221 seats
Green Party: 2,2%, 1 seat
Christian Democrats: 4,1%, 0 seats

PM: ”So there we have it. The Labour Party becomes the biggest party in the Commons with a comfortable margin, holding 253 seats. This is of course still a projection, but with the margin of error our analysts have deemed it likely that the finally tally will not diverge from our current numbers by more than 5-15 seats. This projection of course also shows that the Liberal Party, despite its gains, fails to retake its position as the largest party on the left and remains in third place. What do you make of this James?”

James Carville: ”Well that the Liberal Party wouldn’t be able to close the gap with Labour became obvious when both Labour and the Tories began to pull away from the Liberals and it became more of two-horse race for the premiership between Weld and Layton. But it’s certainly a big blow to the Liberal self-image as the natural governing party. They’ve now gone from being the leader of a strong minority government to being a junior partner to the Labour Party in a time span of only nine years, and a lot of people in the party have had and will continue to have a hard time adjusting to that.”

PM: ”So you don’t think that the Liberals will tear up on their joint pledge with Labour, of going into coalition together if the election resulted in a hung parliament?”

JC: ”As this moment no, I don’t think so. Gore made a gamble in January when he agreed to the coalition pledge and electoral pact, but if they hadn’t gone for it my guess is that both the Labour and the Liberals would be behind the Tories because of the same reason we saw four years ago; vote splitting among the left in constituency seats. Sure it doesn’t matter when there’s one dominant leftwing party but when the two are so close, neck and neck, it makes it so much easier for the Tories to knock of what was even considered safe seats as the Labs and Libs duke it out. It was for that reason that Gore and Layton decided to join up and I don’t imagine either of backing off from the deal unless there's serious internal pressure, especially considering the whole discussion about deceiving the electorate that it would set off.”

PM: ”In that case, what position do you expect Gore will get in a Labour-Liberal coalition government?”

JC: ”Deputy PM is obviously a given, but beyond that I’m uncertain. Gore has primarily profiled himself on environmental issues before becoming party leader and served as Secretary of State for Energy and the Environment in the Simon Ministry from ’86 to 1990, however a party leader will definitely go for a more prestigious post. He will take one of the big five potions, but my guess is that Defense and Justice is already out of the running which leaves Internal Affairs, Finance and Foreign Affairs. Right now I’m not confident enough to make a definitive guess, but if I’d place a bet it’d probably be on Foreign Affairs.”

PM: ”Alright then, I suppose we’ll find out how right your predictions are in the coming days and weeks. Mary Matalin, William Weld looks to be leaving 1 America Avenue after 9 years on the job, your thoughts?”

MM: ”Well Peter I don’t think these results are that unexpected. The campaign began with the Tories polling behind both Labour and the Liberals, with Pat Robertson’s Christian Democrats at 8 percent. It is still an amazing recovery by the National Conservatives to bridge such a gap in the span of only four weeks, and I think it largely vindicates the strategy of making Weld the centre of the party’s campaign. Making ’who would you rather see as PM?’ a central issue of the campaign worked well due to Weld’s high favourability ratings but in the end it wasn’t enough.”

PM: ”You mention the Christian Democrats, according to the projection the party will fail to win any constituencies or reach the 5% threshold for list seats. With this major disappointment for the young party do you think it will survive through the coming parliamentary term?”

MM: ”It all depends on what direction the Tories move in while in opposition. Weld is certainly young enough to stay on as leader but the question is if he will with all the months of intra-party debate about what was done wrong while in government that will follow a loss? I’m not sure if he’s interested in that after 9 years of holding such a strong and unimpeachable position. There is certainly an appetite to move further to the right on social issues among Blue Tories who blame the election loss for ’values voters’ moving to the Christian Democrats. If they’ll be able to move the party in that direction all depends on what will dominate the party’s post-election analysis and who will hold the leadership positions in a few months.”

PM: ”Thank you Mary. Now we’ll move on to our friends in Texas to take a look at how the people there voted in the provincial election also held today…”

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”’007: Casino Royale’, Colin Salmon’s first film as James Bond has been well received by critics ahead of its release this weekend. Salmon’s portrayal has been especially praised, with reviewers looking favourably upon his ’darker and more subdued’ portrayal of the character. Casino Royale is the first Bond film since the release of ’Vendetta’ 10 years ago in 1989, the last film starring John Hurt as Agent 007. However Casino Royale is not a sequel to that film, instead being a full ’reboot’ of the film series. Colin Salmon is the first Afro-British actor to play Bond and the film also stars Carrie-Anne Moss as Vesper Lynd, John Malkovich as Le Chiffre and Maggie Smith as M."
-Entertainment Weekly, June 9th 1999

[Lief 🗽]

Aw yes. Love this!

[Noravea]

This is very interesting. I like it.