Thread for "What If" stories.....

[Emsworth]

A constitutional nightmare...

John Kerry and George Bush each receive 269 electoral votes, along with Bill Richardson and Dick Cheney respectively. In the House, the votes are split with 25 states for each candidate. The Senate is 50-50. Under Amdt 12, a majority of Senators are necessary to choose a VP, so Cheney cannot vote for himself. Anyway, he has a heart attack and goes to the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Senate cannot choose a presiding officer due to ties, which Cheney cannot break; in the House, there is a tie because one seat is vacant and the rest are evenly split. Jan 21 arrives; both Bush and Cheney leave office; there is still no President chosen, so Secretary of State Colin Powell, under law, becomes Acting President. A Democrat is then elected to fill the vacant seat, so the Democrats elect Gephardt to be the Speaker. Under the law, once a Speaker is elected, the Secy. of State must stop being Acting President (somewhere in the US Code). So Gephardt becomes Acting President. Then, however, because the Senate manages to conduct a vote while one Senator is unavoidably detained in a traffic jam, Richardson is elected Vice President. Richardson becomes Acting President.

Now, a special election is held for Gephardt's vacated seat (this is several months into the year, presumably). A Republican wins in a disputed election, giving Missouri to the Republican party. Finally, Bush is elected President.

So the string of Presidents/ Acting Presidents is:
Bush - Powell - Gephardt - Richardson - Bush (all in one year).

[Emsworth]

2000

In 1999, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura announced that he was going to run for president under the American Union Party, which he formed.  The AUP was popular in Minnesota, Vermont, and Illinois.  Green Party candidate Ralph Nader died of a heart attack while campaigning in Kansas, and was replaced by Greg Fredrickson, a young and energetic candidate.  

Democratic candidate Al Gore saw a disturbing trend in the south.  He saw less and less southern states voting Democratic each year. So, he began focusing resources on many southern states such as Virginia and the Carolinas, hoping to win these states, but focus less on northern tates

On election night, Gore’s gamble paid off.  He won every state that Clinton did in the south, along with Virginia and South Carolina.  What was a big surprise was that the Green Party won California, but it didn’t matter.  Gore/Lieberman had raked up nearly 300 electoral votes.

FINAL VOTE
Al Gore/Joseph Lieberman 298
George W. Bush/Richard Cheney 163
Greg Fredrickson/Winona LaDuke 54
Jesse Ventura/Patrick Buchanan 26

2004

On September 11, 2001, terrorist detonated dirty bombs in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., killing vice-president Joseph Lieberman.  Gore, and the nation, was outraged at this.  Gore replaced Lieberman with senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.  On September 20th, 2001, the United Nations Defense Council declared war on Afghanistan.  Gore ordered that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda, or face the consequences.  The Taliban didn’t listen.

Only for the second time in world history, nuclear weapons were used for the first time in anger.  No nation stood in the way of the United States’ use of nuclear weapons.  The remnants of the Taliban government agreed to handover bin Laden to the United States, and would be occupied for ten years.

By 2003, Gore had cut taxes for the middle class, and the economy was excellent.  On March 17th, 2003, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used a Scud missile to launch chemical attacks against Israel.  The United States and Israel responded in kind, with Baghdad lost in the nuclear fire of a tactical nuke, and other major cities gassed by Israeli and American missiles.

By the time November, 2004 had rolled around, the Republicans picked John McCain as their candidate, and Rudolph Giuliani as his vice-president.  On election night, Socialist Unionist Eguene Wilson won Minnesota, Indiana, Vermont, and Iowa.  Gore swept the nation, winning all states but Midwestern states.

FINAL VOTE
Al Gore/John Kerry 452
John McCain/Rudolph Giuliani 52
Eguene Wilson/David McReynolds 33 Socialist

Except for the dirty bomb attacks, this would be a brilliant scenario.