Star of the Southwest 2.0: The Alternate History of Gabrielle Giffords

[Cactus Jack]

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"The stranger there among them wore a big iron on his hip."
   - Marty Robbins, "Big Iron"

"Life turns on a dime."
   - Stephen King, "11/22/63"


If I may quote Paige, that gothic queen of the WWE: we're baaaaack. Given that this is now a collab, I figured a new thread would be the best way to go about business, even though most of the early story is going to be a long series of reposts from the original timeline.

Many thanks to GoTfan, Maineiac, and Progressive for signing on to help me keep this timeline up and running. This time, I hope and pray, I'll be in it to win it.

Let's saddle up.

[Cactus Jack]

Star of the Southwest

Act I: Prefatory Matters

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On April 14, 2011 - three months nearly to the day after Jared Lee Loughner came calling in Tucson - Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords returned to the House of Representatives to the sound of thunderous applause on both sides of the aisle, just in time for a major vote on a bipartisan budget. Worn down and looking haunted, with a sling around an arm she would never fully use again, Giffords nonetheless took the podium and delivered what many would come to consider the best speech of her life.

Well-known and liked in the 8th District for her sincerity and easy kindness, Gabby Giffords was considered a something of a local rising star in Arizona almost from the moment she took office. In the  wake of the Tucson shooting, that reputation rocketed into the national scale almost overnight. Unwittingly, in making her candid, heartache-stricken return to Congress, Giffords had solidified her place as a national figure and firmly set in place a future for herself in higher office.

Though building her political resume would still take time, Gabrielle Giffords had already, in very appreciable ways, become the Star of the Southwest.


A/N: Happy Thanksgiving. Hope your days were filled with much food and few bigoted uncles.

[Cactus Jack]

The Ballad of Gabby and Jeff: Part I

It's a well-accepted truth, at least among analysts and political enthusiasts, that any given election cycle really begins the year before. Barely a few weeks into the New Year, the old adage proved true, and the 2012 elections kicked off.

It was all but guaranteed to be a remarkable cycle, and not just for the obvious presidential elephant in the proverbial room. Almost from the outset, 2012 was marked by a veritable wave of congressional retirements, and nowhere was this trend more obvious than in the Senate. It was an unusually Democratic trend; first to fall, to the anxiety of virtually every Democratic operative in the country, was North Dakota's Kent Conrad, stepping out of the race for his state's Class I seat on January 18. Only a day later, and to considerably fewer Democratic tears, the eternally-controversial Joe Lieberman followed suit, and in subsequent months the two were joined by New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman, Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, and Wisconsin's Herb Kohl.

Though the retirements were broadly a blow to the Democrats, it wasn't a fully exclusive trend. Making like their colleagues on the left, Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and Olympia Snowe hung up their hats, stepping respectively out of Texas and Maine politics for good. Though their chances in Texas were decidedly slim (though not entirely nonexistent; the continued existence of Debra Medina and Louie Gohmert provided at least some glimmer of hope), Maine was all but guaranteed to fall into their hands with an incumbent Obama at the top of the ticket. Still, the general consensus was simple: if the Democrats had any hope of balancing out nearly guaranteed losses in North Dakota and Nebraska, keeping the Senate, and picking themselves back up after a catastrophic 2010, they needed more than Maine.

Their chance came in the great Southwest. On February 10, almost a month to the day after the near-disaster in Tucson, Jon Kyl announced his intent to vacate Arizona's Class I seat at the end of the 112th Congress, bringing an end to an 18-year career. Almost immediately thereafter, 6th District Representative Jeff Flake entered the race, clearing the Republican field of serious challengers and becoming the instant frontrunner to replace the venerable Kyl. Since 1994, state Democrats had been content punt on the seat despite DeConcini's electoral record before that point, particularly once Kyl assumed incumbency. But 2012 provided them with a unique opportunity: the chance to square off for an open seat, in a favorable environment to boot.

In 2012, they had a chance.

And in 2012, they finally had an ace in the hole.

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A/N: Standby for more.

[Cactus Jack]

The Ballad of Gabby and Jeff: Part II

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After six months of nearly ceaseless speculation, encouragement, and media chatter, Gabrielle Giffords entered the race to succeed Jon Kyl on July 18, 2011.

Though Joe Donnelly was technically the first serious Democrat to announce in 2011 - a solid, but long-shot recruit all but doomed to a thorough stomping at the hands of the mighty Richard Lugar - Giffords' entry into the Arizona Senate race gave national Democrats their first real glimmer of hope.

They had their candidate - their single best shot at finally flipping Arizona, a a red state drifting ever so slowly toward purple, into their column - in a young, boundlessly energetic rising star for whom a grim brush with mortality had somehow proven an express elevator into the limelight. With such dire odds ahead of them, every Democrat from D.C. to Tucson knew that it was a shot they couldn't afford to throw away, and the national and state parties leaped on the race in an instant. Inevitably, it was a desperately close race from the outset; the Republicans had, arguably, the more appropriate candidate for Arizona in inoffensive, faintly right-libertarian Representative Jeff Flake, while the Democrats had unarguably the better, more inspiring campaigner in Gabby Giffords.

It would be a clash of ideology against charisma, one wrestling bout on which both parties were more than happy to stake millions.

As the year marched on, Rep. Giffords was followed by a surprising number of fellow star Democratic recruits, among them the likes of Heidi Heitkamp and Tammy Baldwin. Predictably, Dean Heller, appointed to the Senate after the resignation of a righteously disgraced John Ensign, was swamped in the fight for his political life in increasingly-blue Nevada; likewise, the entry of former governor and state celebrity Angus King into the race for the seat held by Olympia Snowe had made that contest all but a foregone conclusion: one more pickup for one more left-leaning New England independent. To the Republicans' detriment, the race for Senate control began to even out, slowly but appreciably.

At the same time, President Obama geared up to face reelection, setting his sights on a fractured Republican field that seemed to grow in size and eccentricity by the day. By the end of the year, the race to face him had at last boiled down to a four-way confrontation between Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and the seemingly eternal Ron Paul. Come December, Iowa - and subsequently the Republican nomination - was anybody's game.

As, of course, was the race to replace Jon Kyl.

It was going to be a long year.

PPP, Dec. 31: In Iowa, Paul Barely Leads Republican Field
Ron Paul: 20%
Mitt Romney: 19%
Rick Santorum: 18%
Newt Gingrich: 16%
...

PPP Dec. 8: Flake, Giffords on Razor's Edge in Arizona
Jeff Flake: 40%
Gabrielle Giffords: 39%
Other: 3%
Undecided: 18%


A/N: Pretty sad to consider that this post was as far as I made it in the last thread, ain't it? Allow me to tease my loyal viewers by announcing that our next update won't actually be a copy-pasted entry from the original timeline.

And now a word from our collaborator, GoTfan.

[GoTfan]

It was settled then. If the recall attempt was successful, Walker would face the music in November next year. The Board would likely decide holding it concurrently with the Presidential and Senate elections would be easier, plus, it would save money, and prevent voters from having to turn out twice in one year.

Democrats were already stumped though. Who would be the candidate?

This was the problem facing Democratic Governors' Association chair Martin O'Malley. Barrett would try to run again, no doubt, but . . . Surely this was someone better? Someone with a proven record? Who had the infrastructure in place to run a serious campaign to unseat Walker? This was their chance to get rid of him for good, but there had to be a candidate who checked every box, and preferably one who was a known supporter of the unions in that state, someone who could rally their not-insignificant support . . .

O'Malley had a brainwave. He turned to his assistant.

"Get me Russ Feingold."

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"Well, there goes our star recruit." He said to his assistant.

"Well the DSCC has picked up Giffords for the Arizona Senate race." She said. An idea ticked over in his head.

"Go on . . ."

[America Needs R'hllor]

Intrigued. I like O'Malley here.

[Cactus Jack]

Howdy, everyone. Been a while.

So...today really wasn't a great day, was it. On top of my being placed on mod review (a long story), we've evidently lost Kamala indefinitely. Whatever has happened in her life, I wish my first friend here only the best, and fervently hope that we see her again someday.

In the meantime...I'm bringing this back, with an official call for literary contributors. I like to think I'm a good writer, but I also know that I'm an embarrassingly lazy one on the same note. In short, I believe that this timeline would be better off if I serve as an idea mill and executive producer, of sorts, instead of a chief writer. The way I see it, filling the void left on the What-Ifs board by her absence is as fitting a tribute we can give Kamala as writers.

Tell me what you all think.

Sincerely and currently rather sadly,
- C

[Cactus Jack]

So that last post was a little melodramatic, but the point still stands. I'm reviving this as a community-wide project, with writers wanted to help my ADHD ass actually make progress.

- C

[Cactus Jack]

This offer still stands, says the increasingly desperate man ranting on the street corner.

- C

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How can I help?

[GoTfan]

This offer still stands, says the increasingly desperate man ranting on the street corner.

- C

You know my position on this

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What do you need?