Unfortunate Son

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Lin Holton's War

Even before the Republicans took yet more losses in the Senate, the President was preparing a counter-offensive to what was looking to be a not-so-great mid-term season for the GOP. Seeing his domestic situation deteriorate, the President looked overseas for an answer to his dilemma. He found it in the tread tracks of Iraqi tanks as they rolled across the Kuwait border.

"F#ck diplomacy!" The President was tired. Tired of over a year and a half of back-and-forth feuding; his administration seemed trapped between traditional labor Democrats and a motley crew of Old Right, Bible Belt, anti-communist, and libertarian Republicans. As the world waited for a reaction from its sole superpower, the President was not prepared to engage in a game of multi-lateral negotiation in order to facilitate troop movement and placement throughout the Middle East. Despite cautious and liberal tendencies, Holton had played the cat-and-mouse negotiation team with Congress long enough; he wasn't going to go through the same Hell on the world stage. The neolithic Republican base voters wanted someone with no brain and seventeen-pound gonads? Fine, he'd give it to them--in spades.

The few months after Iraq's July invasion of Kuwait would see an odd cabinet reshuffle in D.C. The invasion would coincide with Defense Secretary John Chafee's death of congestive heart failure in September, opening up the position of Secretary of Defense. The President, needing conservative support both for a cabinet nomination, and in general, made the unconventional decision of nominating a man with no prior military experience. Dick Cheney, U.S. Senator from Wyoming since 1979 and Senate Minority Whip since 1989, would be the President's unlikely pick for Defense. Not only did it appease congressional conservatives, but Cheney had significant beltway experience going back to the early 1970's, and was good friends with his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. Easily confirmed, the "Wyoming Workhorse" immediately familiarized himself with the inner-workings of the Pentagon. And, while it appeared President Holton wanted war, Cheney cautioned that the administration needed the organization, the political capital, and the de jure justification for such a move. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was appointed a special representative to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but talks yielded nothing. After intelligence filtered through that Hussein had utilized chemical weapons against Kuwaiti citizens as well as the Kurds within his own borders, the Holton administration began organizing for war.

Left: In attempting to exhaust other options prior to initiating unilateral military actions against Iraq, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sent as a special envoy to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Hussein's demands, including further arms sales as well as a boycott of all OPEC countries violating production quotas, fell on deaf ears, as the Holton administration was uninterested in a long-term chess game with various Middle Eastern powers. Right: Even as abortive negotiations were underway, Secretary of State George Bush and newly sworn-in Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney began crafting a White House message in preparation for a Senate resolution authorizing force against Iraq. While Bush had pushed Holton to assemble a transnational coalition, the President consented only to allow the U.N. to approve the United States' actions.

Assembling a long list of justifications for military action against Iraq--sanctions, which had been imposed almost immediately after the invasion, had yet to work--the Pentagon worked behind the scenes to have troops ready to move within hours of the passage of any Senate resolution. With the United States standing as the only identifiable superpower in the wake of the Warsaw Pact's collapse in 1989 and ongoing dissolution process of the Soviet Union, it was easy to gain U.N. approval for use of force against Iraq. In back-door negotiations with Congress, Defense Secretary Cheney made it abundantly clear that Iraq had long been a Soviet-backed satellite in the Middle East and, if representatives wanted to show where they stood, they would back the White House's attempts to show up former Soviet allies. The fact that the Dole administration had gladly aided Iraq against Iran in 1980's was easily overlooked.

As Iraq stood firm, Saddam Hussein appeared to a seemingly-hegemonic America as an insolent upstart. Who was a tin-pot dictator to ignore the President of the United States when he demanded that Iraq withdraw from its invaded neighbor? On December 24th, 1990, as Governor-elect Christian Mattingly exited Christmas Eve mass in Detroit, planes departed from a U.S. aircraft carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf, raining bombs down on Iraqi troops in what the Join Chiefs of Staff humorously titled OPERATION WHITE ELEPHANT. Tanks would follow the next day.

On January 3rd, 1991, as Democrats convened Congress with an increased majority in both houses, there were whispers that, with the President's current approval ratings, the balance of Congress wouldn't matter; if Holton could pull this off, he'd be re-elected by a landslide, ensuring sixteen years of Republican dominion. The war was not without its opponents, however. Prominent Democrats from all ends of the party cried out against U.S. intervention. Former Senator Paul Tsongas, then considered a likely candidate for President in 1992, had "botched his chances", many claimed, when he called on legislators to vote "no" on the resolution authorizing force. Senator Jefferson Dent put himself in front of the "nay" voters in the Senate. "Ladies and gentlemen, as a man who entered public service as a marine in Vietnam, as a man who saw the sons of Mobile, Alabama come home in coffins, as someone who entered this very body a strident opponent of our involvement there, I urge you not to so readily step into what is bound to be another bloody quagmire. Vietnam paved the way not only for the deaths of tens of thousands of our boys, but also unprecedented civil rights violations here at home. The President is someone who, as Governor of Virginia, had little qualms about using police force to dispel protesters and battle free speech. I have no doubt he will use the National Guard to do the same now."

The defining moment of what became known as the Gulf War would not be the expulsion of Iraw from Kuwait. By the end of January, Iraqi troops were fleeing across the border. The crucial juncture would come when President Holton took the advice of Cheney instead of the advice of Bush, and announced that America would follow Iraqi troops "straight back to Baghdad!" to depose the Hussein regime. In an interview in March, 1991, Defense Secretary Cheney put forward the administration's ideological justification for such actions. "What we've seen, worldwide, since about 1974, is the growth of democratic movements. These ranged from the ousting of military juntas in South America to the end of Soviet satellite regimes in Eastern Europe. The United States, left as the most powerful country in the world, has chosen to take a moral stand, and under this President's watch, the world will experience a new growth of freedom like that never seen before. The Middle East has, in many ways, been bereft of Western democracy. In a reverse domino effect, if we can take down one tin-pot warlord, we can see the flowering of the fruit of representative democracy throughout the region." Ignoring the dubious implications--that the United States might be tethered to a doctrine of intervention the world over in the name of democracy--it sounded sane enough.

The takeover of Baghdad and accosting of Saddam Hussein would prove easy. By Independence Day, 1991, the Ba'ath regime was no more. Finding a suitable replacement for it, on the other hand, was no simple task. In a symbolic move, the Pentagon sub-department in charge of Iraqi reconstruction had chosen to sack not only the entire Iraqi governing apparatus, but also the Iraqi military it has just defeated. As well, the utter lack of infrastructure in Iraq made ill trappings for a "burgeoning democracy" and was an affront to Western sensibilities as to how a country should be run. The period between July 1991 and January 1992 would be an unpleasant one for members of the White House Press Secretary's staff as they attempted to make good news out of continual setbacks against an ever-growing Iraqi insurgency. "When we cut and run from Vietnam, it didn't take an International Relations major to figure out the next step would be the fall of Saigon. I'm not going to see that disgrace happen while I'm in charge!" boasted a haggard President Holton. By February 18th, 1992--the date of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary--the "War President Linwood Holton" was not only old news, he was unpopular news.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Interesting way to deal with Saddam.
I wonder how much this will harm Holton. He probably is going to be forced out a la LBJ if things continue at this pace.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

"Governor Mattingly!?"

"Honestly, when I first heard those words, I was stunned. But only for a second. As someone who, by that point, had money, I'd become too involved in politics to not have imagined the scenario. As well, the Michigan GOP had asked me in the past to run. Blanchard, by all accounts, was a good Governor. Regardless of anything else, I saw no reason--especially four years ago, before I'd held any office--to oppose him. I'd thought I was too damaged, politically, in Michigan to try anything in 1988 when they came calling again, this time to push me towards the Senate. Not that I would've been in any position to beat Riegle anyway. But, yeah, when I came back to Michigan from D.C., I was, well, sort of lost. Dick Hudson, he would have called it anomie, whatever the Hell that word means. I was no longer involved in the auto industry to the extent I had been in the past. Also, by the time the 90's were approaching, the 'management fad' had started. Executive strategies were more and more slogan-based, and I kept hearing words like 'six sigma' and 'results-oriented management' and things like that. As- ha! -as surprising as it may be, I wasn't really interested in having to work in a private sector that was in the throes of battles between different buzzword-based business plans. For me, business had always been pretty simple: be better. Especially at that point in my career, where my reputation was established, I didn't see the need to go back to a changing industry. You have to remember, too, that with Dole tariffs expiring and a more international approach by Holton, even by late 1989 you could see the foreign invasion of the industry. So yeah, so I ran for Governor."

Since 1983, Mattingly had shaped a--largely honest--public persona of a driven, results-oriented, and patriotic businessman leading an industry in its comeback. As Commerce Secretary, he'd established an against-the-grain reputation in the Beltway of being a tireless advocate for American business. As such, the campaign for Governor was based around this personality. "Campaigning, once I started it, immediately made sense: sell yourself, sell your image, sell your brand, sell your plan. I think the reason career politicians end up in so much trouble against candidates with backgrounds as celebrities, businessmen, etc. is because these upstarts are explicitly trained in appeal to the consumer. The politician might have made winning elections his job, but that's against other politicians. They've never dealt with real, hard, fast marketing campaigns. They feel entitled to the job." The Mattingly pitch was simple: experienced, not an insider; I've fought for American jobs and I'll fight for you; I've turned around Detroit and I'll keep Michigan strong; I've been a leader in the auto industry and I understand Michigan's economy like no other.

Mattingly faced two principle primary opponents. G. Scott Romney, son of former Michigan Governor George W. Romney, was the early front-runner and the "obvious candidate". Since 1962, the only winning Republican candidates for Governor--conveniently, only two people, George Romney and William Milliken--had been moderates who brought both sides together and governed as principled moderates. With the popular Blanchard instead running for Senate, it was the opportune time to reinstate Republican dominance in the Wolverine State and Romney made the most sense. Romney not only had his last name, he was active in both his church and a multitude of philanthropic endeavors. In the 1980's, he had served one four-year term in the Michigan Senate, which, combined with his private sector work--which had been Detroit-based since 1976--gave him more than the requisite experience for the job. The other was Clark Durant, a Michigan-based lawyer and businessman who had been an extensive career to make any religious or movement conservative sing his praises: Vice President of Hillsdale College, two appointments by Dole or by Dole administration officials, creation of independent, non-public schools for low income children in Detroit.

As such, Mattingly's opponents had solid roots in Michigan and Republican politics--he had actually served alongside both of them as delegates to the 1988 Republican National Convention--and, by Mattingly's own account "I mean, if I hadn't been in the race, either probably could've been an okay Governor, but hey..." While at first the campaign was congenial, as Romney began funneling in money from out-of-state donors, Mattingly and Durant crafted a gentleman's agreement that the "candidate of New York and D.C." ought to be attacked first and foremost. Each candidate had natural advantages among different demographics, as Durant had enough experience with movement conservatism to take what evangelical vote there was in Michigan, Romney relied on suburban, wealthy, and moderate voters, and Mattingly utilized his persona to attract a crew of blue collar and exurban voters. Nevertheless, no candidate had a preternatural advantage among rural voters and both Durant and Mattingly went to great lengths to appeal to this demographic.

It was Mattingly who would come out on top, both in the battle against Romney and in the battle for rural votes. While Durant produced more detailed policy proposals and made greater overtures to the voters, it was Mattingly's charisma and persona that won the day, as Republicans were looking for a "tough leader" that could take the fight to the Democrats. In the one gubernatorial primary debate, Mattingly was congenial with Durant, but savaged Romney, as Mattingly believed the Romney campaign had authorized ads attacking his business and family background.

Mattingly: Scott Romney seems to think my membership in a labor union disqualifies me for office in this great state. I'd like to see one shred of evidence that Scott had any background in a profession that doesn't involve a JD, any background that would allow him to understand the daily struggle of Michigan voters, any personal history that would inform him as to how to run Michigan for the people. We can't all have JD's, or dads that were Governor, or a family to fund a state senate campaign, Scott. You want to complain about unions? As much as we on this stage might like to bash corrupt union bosses-
Moderator: Mr. Mattingly, time.
Mattingly: -they're still chock full of hardworking people. I'm guessing you've never met the men and women who made your car. You probably keep your maids out of site! I wish you had your dad's courage, who hopped a fence at a UAW barbecue to talk to voters. Instead, you arrive at this debate in what I assume is a foreign car and want to call me disqualified for office!?"
Romney: Mr. Mattingly--or Christian, if I can call you that-
Mattingly: No, Scott, you may not.
Audience: [Laughter]
Romney: -you seem to be taking a page out of the Democratic playbook. The Republican party is one of free enterprise, as I'm sure you know, and I was merely attempting to get you to explain your UAW membership!
Mattingly: Ya know, Scottie, it's uh, it's tough for me to stand up here and have you call me a Democrat. The only man on this stage right now, polling above five percent, who supports Roe v. Wade and who won't do a thing to challenge Michigan's abortion laws is the one I was just speaking to. Voters, I hope you know that. Romney, as well, you're the one whose supported the growth of the state tax code. You think I can't read your voting record from the Michigan Senate? You think everyone else in Michigan is that dumb?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

With Durant failing to produce debate "zingers", Mattingly's unstructured rants against the establishment candidate would have to do, and, as such, the Highland Park native won the Michigan primary rather handily. Having created a reputation for "savaging" his opponents, the brush up against his Democratic opponent in the general was easy. "When you're in business, memorizing the most necessary intell about your rivals almost becomes a trick of the trade. I'd have engineers bring me all the facts of how someone else's car is produced, I'd have accountants and lawyers tell me what their business practices were, I'd commit to memory the most damning facts, and go into trade shows and board rooms and things like that prepared tow in the day. Same goes when you're making an ad, negotiating for more floor space, prepping for an interview, or talking to people at all levels of production inside and outside your company when ou need something. I've never understood why 'be prepared' is so beyond anyone's grasp!"

"In retrospect", Mattingly would muse, "being sleep-deprived might have been one of my greatest gifts on the campaign trail. I was often over-worked, angry, and exhausted. My campaign hated me for it, as I'd go into press conferences and even debates feeling like sh#t and, as a result, end up being far too honest in front of the cameras." When former Fiist Lady of Michigan Helen Milliken endorsed Democratic nominee Debbie Stabenow for the office, Mattingly welcomed it. "I gotta say, I'm loving her denunciation of me. I mean, I already beat the son of one former Republican Governor of this state, now I get to go up against the wife of another. I'm gonna be honest, I never voted for either. I actually regret that in George Romney's case, he was a good guy, I just happened to be a Democrat at the time. Never voted for Milliken though. Even when I worked on Bob Griffin's campaign in '78, I still split my vote. So, obviously, them attacking me makes sense. But you know what? I'm not the Republican party establishment. I've heard several complaints on the campaign trail, about how some of my contemporaries are acting in D.C. I gotta tell ya, I love 'em, but there's a reason I've chosen to come back here to Michigan to work. And the establishment hates me for it. And if Mrs. Milliken--it's okay if I call her Helen, right?--wants to bash me for the fact that I support private enterprise, or that I oppose ridiculous population control social engineering by the Supreme Court or anything like that, let her! I'm glad someone with those opinions chose to endorse Debs." Mattingly would only admit long after he'd left public office, but he viscerally enjoyed running against a woman. Something about a deeply-engrained sexism made him revel going up against Stabenow in the one general election gubernatorial debate. The media noticed it, but, aside from a measurable gender gap in exit polling, the electorate seemed barely phased by it.

Coming into office, the first Mattingly term would be, in his own words, "sort of an unruly orgy of Heritage Institute quasi-experimentation". As well, having done enough publicly to alienate Michigan's GOP establishment, Mattingly forged an alliance with movement conservatives in the state legislature to have at least a vocal minority faction on his side. The alternative would be rapprochement with the "Romney wing" or congressional deadlock. Clark Durant, for one, would go on to lead the Michigan Board of Education. Among legislation the Mattingly administration in Lansing signed off on in the 1991 to 1994 period would be school vouchers, allowing for funding of charter schools, prison privatization, decentralization of Michigan state services, and lowering of the Michigan sales tax. Dick Hudson, who by then was a part-time professor of public policy at Michigan State, served the de facto Mattingly administration policy author, himself writing key pieces of legislation. "Chris, I'm gonna be honest here. A lot of what we're writing up, it hasn't been done before. Some of it could fail--I'll be honest. But the fact is that it hasn't been tried before and the voters of both Michigan and the entire country deserve to know whether or not we can craft successful alternatives to the Great Society/New Deal consensus monstrosity we've been stuck with for decades." As such, a number of bills authored by Hudson and then submitted to the legislature through administration friends would include certain "fail safes" such as four year-reauthorization requirements. "But what if I lose re-election and some Democratic ass-hat does away with all of this anyway?" "Chris, trust me, we're not letting you lose re-election."

There was also a radical element to the Mattingly administration. With little experience in partisan politics, the Governor was likely to go after policies few might expect a Republican to pursue. Despite being instinctively opposed to a litany of policing reforms, he was willing to indulge a small amount of funding in "community-oriented policing" experiments rather than continue to drastically expand the prison budget. "Ike" McKinnon, whom Mattingly had worked with in Detroit, was selected to lead a statewide reform of policing agencies. While both the Governor and the Chief weren't particularly keen on wrenching the very culture of police hierarchy, a number of more straightforward reforms--degree requirements for higher-ups, female officers assigned to work with female rape victims, community outreach programs ("Selling the police", as Mattingly called it), were implemented.

"One thing it's probably good that my advisers didn't let me get away with, was lowering the required age to work. I would've been comfortable with no age, but as it happened, I wanted to push for twelve. I figured, 'hey, I worked at least two jobs very early in my teens', but that type'a sh#t wouldn't fly in today's culture. As it was, though, we went to great lengths to incorporate school kids into the workforce earlier. The two main arguments against this were that it diluted the labor pool, and that it was, in essence, child slavery. The latter was just sentimental hogwash. I'm guessing liberals haven't heard about how kids used to be put to work on farms as soon as they could walk. In any case, with Washington D.C. expanding work visas, I figured that we could both do no harm to an already broken system by allowing American kids to have American jobs, and that, later on, at the very least, those same kids would have more work experience when going up against foreign labor." Biographers would later agree on one thing: the Governor was an odd bird.

With Mattingly's status as Governor of a swing state, his name was put forward by the national media as a potential replacement for Vice President Gordon Humphrey, who, due to disagreements with the Holton administration, was choosing not to run for re-election. Mattingly publicly scoffed at the idea. He'd refused to work for Holton in 1989, and in 1990 had made implicit references in his gubernatorial campaign that he hated the f#cker. As well, with American embroiled overseas, he had little wish to insert himself into a debate that he didn't care to learn the specifics of. "Listen, Dick, even if they're considering me, they'd be foolish to ask. Do they think I have the time both to run the greatest state in the country--nay, the world--while having to bone-up not only on the specifics of our Iraqi entanglement but as well find out how the  to back the policies of the worst Republican administration since Herbert God-damn Hoover? I'm not going to be part of that man's administration, or his idiotic attempt to seek for re-election. I'm not attaching myself to failure."

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The 1992 Republican Primaries

Tsongas' victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary wouldn't be what grabbed the headlines the next morning. Instead, Patrick J. Buchanan's surprise victory on the Republican side would be slated as a "game changer" the following day. The President had been bleeding conservative support since his inauguration, and, while White House insiders were surprised, few else were that a right-wing challenge to his administration rose up. Buchanan was in many ways an ideal foil to the incumbent Holton. The President had worked to pioneer free trade, had launched the U.S. into its first undeclared "land war" since Vietnam, and supported Roe v Wade. Buchanan, on the other hand, was protectionist, isolationist, and devoutly Catholic. While the far-right was far from the only faction that had issues with the Holton administration--Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) took serious issue with the Defense Secretary who'd succeeded his father at the job--it was with them that grievances converged. While the Old Right had, at points, tolerated Eisenhower, Nixon, and Dole, Holton was a step too far for them. With the President reneging on campaign promises, including the traditional one on taxation, the perfect storm was brewed in the "Life Free or Die" State, resulting in a majority for the anti-NAFTP conservative firebrand from Chevy Chase.

Above: Running on a platform of repealing the North-American Free Trade Pact, opposing the Gulf War, supporting school prayer, a national Right to Life Amendment, and, most importantly, repealing the tax-hiking Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, former White House Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan scored an upset victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary, beating incumbent President Linwood Holton.

Buchanan followed up the win in the Granite State with victories in Maine, Alaska, Georgia, and Wyoming. Nevertheless, on Super Tuesday, "Pitchfork Pat" only took home majorities in Oklahoma and Louisiana. Holton's massive fundraising advantage could not be outmatched by Buchanan's shoestring operation, even with funding from the enigmatic Texas business H. Ross Perot. Nevertheless, Buchanan stayed in the primary fight until the end, scoring victories in nearly every region in the country, showing widespread dissatisfaction with the President.

Red - President Alexander Linwood Holton, Jr. of Virginia
Blue - Former White House Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan of Virginia

Despite the horrors of the primary season, the long story short for Holton was that he survived, and was renominated on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention. This was not without incident, though. Holton campaign manager Karl Rove worked the floor and the convention schedule to deny Buchanan a speaking slot. Demanding to be heard, Buchanan, with many of his delegates in tow, walked out of the convention. Buchanan could rest easy in the knowledge that the Republicans were far from the only party in an anti-establishment uproar.

In December 1991, Vice President Gordon Humphrey had made public that he would not be pursuing re-election. Dissatisfied with his boss since January 1989, Humphrey felt in many ways like his late predecessor John Nance Garner; that the Vice Presidency was "not worth a bucket of warm piss". While the marginalized Humphrey was not up to launching a challenge himself, he had no problem sitting back and watching Buchanan try to take his boss' job. As such, having secured his renomination, Holton's team was left with the job of selecting a Vice President. Sinking in the polls, Holton faced the dual issue of seeking a conservative that was willing to put aside his differences with the administration, and one willing to tie himself to the President's flailing campaign. While his primary choice had been Texas Senator George W. Bush, eventually, the President settled on a history-making pick. Why should he have to tolerate a gender gap, why should Democrats be the only party who nominated women? In an attempt to court Democrats, national security voters, and women, National Security Adviser Jeane Kirkpatrick was nominated for Vice President.

Above: National Security Adviser Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former "AFL-CIO Democrat", was President Holton's choice for Vice President in 1992. It was hoped by the Holton campaign staff and the RNC that Kirkpatrick would appeal to hawkish Democrats, reinforce the President's "tough" image on national security, appeal to women, keep conservatives in line, and remind voters of the success of the Dole administration.

Jeane Kirkpatrick (nee Jordan) was far from an obvious choice for a Republican ticket. A creature of academia, her origins lay in the oft-pilloried halls of university Marxism. Nevertheless, her initial involvement in politics in the 1970's was on the Democratic right, supporting the Presidential candidacies of Hubert Humphrey and "Scoop" Jackson during the 1968-1980 period. She had become known in some neoconservative and Republican circles towards the end of the 1970's with her publication of "Dictatorships and Double Standards" in Commentary. Serving in high-power foreign policy positions in the Dole administration, she spent 1981 to 1983 as Assistant Secretary of State and 1983 to 1987 as Ambassador to the United Nations. Despite background as "an AFL-CIO Democrat", Kirkpatrick had changed her registration to Republican in 1985. Following the resignation of National Security Adviser Colin Powell in 1991, the President had selected Kirkpatrick, who by then was praised as one of the architects of the Soviet downfall, as a choice to appease conservatives. Overlooked was her long and seeming incessant list of feuds with fellow foreign policy advisers, not least of which was Secretary of State Bush, and which included even the reputably hawkish Dick Cheney.

The dialectical irony could not have been greater. While Buchanan's campaign championed the economic populism of newer Republicans with the foreign and trade policy of the Old Right, the Holton White House shared the economic elitism of past Republicans and had, by 1992, taken as creed the neoconservative agenda of a new GOP. Moreover, Buchanan, who had spent the last two decades working with other national Republicans to absorb Democrats dissatisfied with their party on trade, foreign policy, and social liberalism, saw his rival nominate one of those recent Democratic converts. Kirkpatrick delivered a harsh acceptance speech, railing the far right and the far left for their "blame America first" attitude to thunderous applause from those delegates that remained.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wow. So who got the Democratic nomination?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Go Pat go!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

1992 Democratic Primaries

Despite a brief increase in Holton's approvals in early 1991, the President had been viewed as vulnerable early on in his term, and, as such, a large group of Democrats had been preparing since Dent's loss in 1988 to take up the Democratic mantle in '92.

Former Senator Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. of California
Member, Los Angeles County Community College Board of Trustees, 1969-1970
Secretary of State of California, 1971-1975
Governor of California, 1975-1983
United States Senator from California, 1983-1989

Despite having been ousted from the Senate four years prior, recent defeat didn't seem to be stopping Jerry Brown. Possibly one of the most unorthodox and ideologically volatile candidates in the race, Brown was running on a slate of economic policies that seemed to be birthed from both the far left and the far right, including a living wage, opposition to free trade agreements, and a tax proposal authored by Arthur Laffer. Despite having appeal to alienated and "outsider" voters, Brown was one of many candidates running against the political establishment.

Senate Majority Whip Jefferson C. Breckenridge Dent, IV of Alabama
Assistant Attorney for Mobile, Alabama 1966-1969
United States Senator from Alabama, 1969-1978
United States Secretary of State, 1978-1981
United States Senator from Alabama, 1987-Present
Senate Majority Whip, 1989-Present

Despite his narrow loss four years earlier, Dent was seriously concerned with what he considered the rightward drift of his party. In examining the Democratic field, he saw few candidates who shared his principles, instead seeing a combination of populists, neoliberals, and hawks. As such, Dent felt it was his moral duty to step into the race and do battle with what he considered a gang of conservative Democrats. Dent's platform rested largely on foreign policy, emphasizing his past service as a United States marine and his long record of working to prevent war. "As a U.S. Senator, I was on the front lines lobbying to bring our boys back from Vietnam. As Secretary of State, I worked tirelessly around the clock to prevent the outbreak of conflict in a volatile world. As President, I will ensure that this country maintain its status as a protector of peace, not the igniter of countless bloody wars."

Senator Albert "Al" Gore, Jr. of Tennessee
Member, U.S. House of Representatives from TN-4, 1979-1983
Member, U.S. House of Representatives from TN-6, 1983-1987
Governor of Tennessee, 1987-1991
United States Senator from Tennessee, 1991-Present

Despite being a newcomer to the Senate and a retread from 1988, Al Gore was willing to give the Presidency another shot. Gore's main appeal, as he saw it, was the ability not only to strengthen victories in the South, but to break into northern suburbs. His economic moderation, social conservatism--except on abortion, opposition to which he had dropped--and anti-crime stances, he believed, could create a coalition to bring the Democrats back to power. Nevertheless, some dismissed him as a Southern Lowell Weicker, too close to the center for his party's national base. While Gore benefited from the coming into the Senate only after the vote on authorization of force in Kuwait, he at times refused to take a concrete stance on the issue, alienating voters on both sides.

Senator Joseph R. "Bob" Kerrey of Nebraska
Governor of Nebraska, 1983-1987
United States Senator from Nebraska, 1989-Present

While in some ways a "Midwestern Gore", Kerrey was running less on his ideological or geographical positioning than he was on his war experience. The only major "Aye" vote on the Gulf War in the race, Kerrey nevertheless owned up to it, vigorously re-asserting the need for American force and strength in a 1990's rife with national security threats. "Do I agree with how the administration has conducted the war? Far from it. There has been little record of such incompetence and administrative impotence in Washington since the Vietnam War." As a Midwestern, relatively conservative, Senator with a prosthetic leg, many compared him to a Democratic Dole, hoping that reclaiming the heartland would return Democrats to the White House.

Former National Security Adviser Robert O'Sullivan of Massachusetts
National Security Adviser 1973-1977
White House Chief of Staff 1977-1978
U.S. Ambassador to Ireland 1978-1979

Since his stay in the Kennedy administration, O'Sullivan had largely drifted out of the political limelight. Re-emerging as a commentator in 1985, it appeared O'Sullivan, like other former liberals including Eugene McCarthy, had drifted far to the right. Blaming the Democrats' 1984 landslide loss on the party's association with "abortion, communism, crime, and the failure to protect the American worker!" Despite, during his time in the White House, having worked toward detente and reduced trade barriers, O'Sullivan emerged a full-on protectionist and anti-communist. Criticized as the "Pat Buchanan of the American left".

Former Senator Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts
Peace Corps Country Director of the West Indies, 1967-1968
Deputy Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts, 1969-1971
Lowell City Councillor, 1969-1972
Middlesex County, MA Commissioner, 1973-1974
Member, U.S. House of Representatives from MA-5, 1975-1979
United States Senator from Massachusetts, 1979-1991

While traditionally categorized as a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Democrat, Tsongas had rebranded himself for 1992 as an economic populist, combining opposition to tax increases and prioritization of economic growth with opposition to free trade and economic nationalism. Combined with his status as a two-term legislator and Vice Presidential nominee, Tsongas was well-positioned to receive support from a wide range of Democrats. Having stood immediately after Brewer's 1980 loss as, along with Gary Hart, one of the Democrats working to build a "new and improved" platform ranging from economics to crime to foreign policy, it seemed the Bay State Senator had been vindicated by twelve years of Democratic loss.

Governor Lawrence Douglas Wilder of Virginia
Member of the Virginia State Senate, 1970-1986
Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 1986-1990
Governor of Virginia, 1990-Present

With progressives having championed, largely, white and experienced candidates for the Presidency throughout the 1980's, quixotic campaigns like those of Jesse Jackson had failed to properly channel both black voters as a whole and to reach out to other electoral groups. As such, Douglas Wilder, the first major African-American candidate for the presidency would, surprisingly, be running as a conservative. Despite liberal positions on abortion, infrastructure, and even apartheid, Wilder's emphasis in combining white conservative with black liberal votes was on crime and "retaking America's cities". His strong outreach to rural and mountain voters in the 1989 election seemed to bode well for his ability to appeal across racial lines and create a colorblind, populist message.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

1992 Democratic Primaries, Pt. 2

With Dent standing as the most prominent and well-funded vocally anti-war candidate, he once again experience the first-in-the-nation victory in Iowa that had propelled him to the nomination in 1988. Nevertheless, his success would end there. Al Gore, having been overlooked by voters in the incredibly crowded field, dropped out the day after his fifth-place loss in New Hampshire (to Paul Tsongas), endorsing Wilder who was soaring in Southern state primary polls. This undercut Dent, who went on to win every other race, having the rug swept from under him in the South as conservatives and blacks teamed up to support Wilder. North of the Mason-Dixon line, Kerrey failed to carry any states beyond his base region, winning only South Dakota and Idaho, as Tsongas' positioning in New Hampshire and Brown's Western appeal beat him out in caucus after caucus. With few candidates having any specific claim to northern industrial states, it would each candidates' failings that paved the way for Tsongas' primary victory.


Blue - Former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts
Orange - Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia
Green - Former Senator Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. of California
Red - Senate Majority Whip Jefferson C.B. Dent, IV of Alabama
Yellow - Senator Joseph R. "Bob" Kerrey of Nebraska
Purple - Former National Security Adviser Robert O'Sullivan of Massachusetts

At the Democratic National Convention, the DNC, determined to present a united front for the party, refused any speaking time to the "radical" O'Sullivan who, like Buchanan across the aisle, stormed out of the convention. "This party has been out to get Christians and those committed to a strong national defense since the damned counter-culture took over the henhouse in '68!" shouted the former Presidential adviser at a news camera outside the convention hall. Nevertheless, the Convention's focus was not on "anti-party McCarthyites" but instead on the Democratic ticket.

In paying respect to his political friend and ally, and in sending the message that the Democratic party's focus would be change, the Tsongas campaign selected former Colorado Senator Gary Hart for Vice President. Combined, the ticket had nearly three decades' national legislative experience pushing for reform to the New Deal/Great Society apparatus. Two "Kennedycrats", the ticket represented a significant shift from Democratic tickets of the recent past. In a mid-2000's interview for a Public Broadcasting Service documentary, a key campaign official would re-iterate the Tsongas/Hart campaign's intention in creating a ticket populated only by "New Democrats". "What we wanted to do was represent a significant break from the past. The only winning Democratic ticket since 1968 was Bobby Kennedy's moderate 1970's campaigns. Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey represented the failures of the Great Society and the Vietnam War. Albert Brewer's conservative campaign lost us the White House. Left-wing anti-war activists led us to two other astounding losses. It was time for the Democratic party to change, and the voters knew it as well."

Furthermore, that was the obvious overt intention of drawing the West into the Democratic fold. The Tsongas campaign managers believed that the South had worn out its usefulness to the Democrats. California alone represented a a far greater bounty to the Democrats than most of the South combined. While some had suggested Brown as a good choice, as opposed to the six-years-retired and twice-losing-the-nomination Hart, but the California Democratic Party was deeply resentful of their former Governor, and many in the DNC and the Democratic field alike believed Brown to be a "flake" and an unreliable asset. As well--and this had come up in the primary campaign--Brown had lost his most recent race, for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1988. Hart, who by then had positioned himself as a party "statesman" and "policy wonk" (working for think tanks and giving speeches on international arms control), and who had been nothing but a boon to the by-then powerful Colorado Democratic Party, seemed an appropriate second-in-command.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The 1992 Presidential Election

"The fact is, what the Holton administration has demonstrated is simple: he knows how to start wars, not to end them. He knows how to lose jobs, not to bring them back. He knows how to raise taxes, not to lower them. He's done little to fight crime, our enemies, or the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas. He has betrayed America's interests while making each of us a little more afraid", was how Tsongas wrapped up his closing argument of the final Presidential debate. It had been the farthest thing from a few good months for the President.

With the nomination of two moderate tickets, both being--to a limited extent--"fiscally conservative and socially liberal", and both taking stances on the Gulf War that were short of immediate withdrawal, contributed to significant runoff going to independent and third party bids. As such, polls produced a very hazy picture of how the electoral map would shape up, with both parties' bases significantly undercut by "fringe candidates" nipping at their heels. Nevertheless, it was becoming more and more clear as November drew nigh that the Republicans were not sitting easy. The Tsongas/Hart ticket, despite lacking some of the activist fire of previous Democratic nominees, waged war on Holton from all sides, pillorying him as a tax-raising Washington insider who had committed America to a needless war while failing to make the country safer, allowing infrastructure to collapse and crime to grow while he shed American blood for oil in a conflict he lacked the leadership skills to be able to win.

Nevertheless, left-wing activists were hardly enthused by Tsongas' campaign. One Beltway Democratic campaign consultant, in a confidential interview, remarked "If you'd told me four years ago that we, the voters, would be forced to choose between two Republicans, I'd call you crazy. Yet, here we are, and Tsongas is finishing the job Pat Buchanan set out to do, reclaiming the GOP for the right by crushing Linwood Holton as an essentially conservative candidate." Some on the far right lobbied a similar complaint, pointing out that both major party candidates had records supporting gun control, abortion, and environmental protections. As such, it should have come as little surprise when the two major party candidates, combined, took only a little over eighty percent of the total GE vote.

Former Senator Paul Efthemios Tsongas (Democrat-Massachusetts)/Former Senator Gary Hart (Democrat-Colorado) 327 electoral votes, 45.8% of the popular vote
President Alexander Linwood Holton, Jr. (Republican-Virginia)/National Security Adviser Jeanne Kirkpatrick (Republican-New York) 211 electoral votes, 37.9% of the popular vote
Former White House Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan (Independent-Virginia)/Former Ambassador Robert O'Sullivan (Independent-Massachusetts) 0 electoral votes, 8.3% of the popular vote
Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader (Green-Connecticut)/Activist Winona LaDuke (Green-Minnesota) 0 electoral votes, 3.7% of the popular vote
Former State Senator Andre Marrou (Libertarian-Alaska)/Dr. Nancy Lord (Libertarian-Nevada) 0 electoral votes, 2.2% of the popular vote
Former Senator Eugene McCarthy (Progressive-Minnesota)/various 0 electoral votes, 1.2% of the popular vote
Others: 0 electoral votes, 1.0% of the popular vote

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Liberalism & Realities in the 1990's (Pt. 1)

The first Democrat to win the Presidency since Robert F. Kennedy's narrow re-election victory in 1976, and the first of his party to win anything close to a commanding electoral college victory since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Tsongas was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Paul Tsongas had entered Congress in 1974, a time when liberalism itself was changing. With he and many of his colleagues citing the non-doctrinaire John F. Kennedy as their initial inspiration for political involvement, and having first been inaugurated into politics under the Presidency of his younger brother, Tsongas had been at the forefront of a new generation of Democrats.

"After 1980, it was clear where liberalism had failed. The Great Society of the 1960's was symbolic of a post-New Deal mindset, wherein Washington insiders thought you could simply throw money at a problem and make it disappear. Bobby Kennedy was probably the first President to try to really change that. Nevertheless, he had many obstacles to overcoming that goal, including himself. Despite shifting away from New Deal style "spending solutions", he failed to properly sell the new economy to the public, and was always associated with the student activist base that had supported his first presidential bid. As such, come 1981, the Democrats had gone through two different series of policy failures, and both had worked more and more to alienate the average American. Whether you were a blue collar industrial worker, a suburbanite, or a Wall Street financier, the party was, at that point, 'not for you'. What further exacerbated this was the failed political campaigns of the 1980's. The Democrats twice ran candidates that hailed from their liberal-progressive base. While the economic platforms they stood on were labor-friendly and meant to bring the Democrats' traditional industrial base states back into the fold, they were part of a policy package crafted by men with no working-class background, and easily pilloried as liberal social engineering. The policies my administration pushed were meant to square the circle, to bring useful policy in line with effective politics, to use the market's worst instincts for good, and to make America great again."

Secretary of State: Jefferson C. Breckenridge Dent, IV (D-AL)
Secretary of the Treasury: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)
Secretary of Defense: Larry Pressler (R-SD)
Attorney General: Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY)
Secretary of the Interior: Floyd Haskell (D-CO)
Secretary of Agriculture: Harvey Gantt (D-NC)
Secretary of Commerce: Willard M. "Mitt" Romney (I-MA)
Secretary of Labor: Lido A. "Lee" Iacocca (D-MI)
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare: Mark Roosevelt (D-MA)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Barbara Jordan (D-TX)
Secretary of Transportation: Ed Koch (D-NY)
Secretary of Environment & Energy: Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. (D-CA)

Director of the Office of Management & Budget: Leon Panetta (D-CA)
Ambassador to the United Nations: Colin Powell (I-NY)
National Security Adviser: Michael C. Sekora (I-DC)

For those to the President's left who hoped that, once elected, Tsongas would immediately fold to standard-issue liberal Democratic policy demands, they were sure to be sorely mistaken. This could be evidenced with Tsongas' choices for three of the four most powerful and long-standing cabinet departments. For Treasury, the heterodox Daniel Patrick Moynihan would be called in. Despite having worked for four different Democratic administrations, liberals were still leery of the New Yorker who had developed a penchant for proposing unorthodox and experimental policy designs that ran counter to traditional New Deal thinking. His work crafting early 1980's economic recovery legislation had alienated him from a good deal of Democratic Senate veterans. The choice for Defense would be a Republican. The President, aware of voters' lingering suspicions when it came to Democrats and defense issues, chose to not only score a public relations coup by selecting an anti-war Republican Senator for the office, but remove a politically powerful incumbent and potential challenger in the process. Pressler, himself a one-time candidate for the GOP nomination in 1988, had distanced himself from the Holton administration following its pursuit of long-term foreign commitments and expensive interventions. Meanwhile, in appointing the first female Attorney General, Tsongas "stayed the course" with a tough-on-crime national prosecutor in the form of Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.

Jefferson Dent, returning to State, would be Tsongas' one key concession to Senate liberals. As a leader of Senate Democrats, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former State Secretary, and international realist, Dent was a solid choice both politically and practically. His selection also sent the message, internationally, that America was intent on correcting its international course.

Other cabinet choices would reflect the Tsongas administration's non-doctrinaire approach to policy. North Carolina Senate candidate Harvey Gantt was selected for Agriculture as a visible offense against the tobacco lobby, which was particularly strong in North Carolina and other South-Atlantic states. Former businessman and Holton administration White House adviser Mitt Romney, who had worked on and donated to the Tsongas campaign, was brought aboard as Secretary of Commerce. Acclaimed automotive executive Lee Iacocca, who Tsongas had worked with in the late 1970's on the Chrysler bailout, was made Labor Secretary. Mark Roosevelt, who throughout the 1980's had advocated on behalf of a Massachusetts Gay Bill of Rights would lead the HEW Department and the Tsongas administration would become known as the second, after Robert F. Kennedy, to work towards the expansion of gay rights--Tsongas would be much more vocal on the issue than his predecessor. And Jerry Brown, one of Tsongas' chief rivals for the Democratic nomination the year before, would lead the Environment and Energy Department. Far from the broad scope of policy power Brown desired, it would nevertheless suit him as he took it upon himself to begin establishing American energy independence.

At the sub-cabinet level, former Chair of the House Budget Committee Leon Panetta would be made to Direct the White House's Office of Budget and Management. The combination of Panetta and Moynihan sent a clear message to the legislature and the public that, not only did Tsongas intend to move beyond traditional New Deal anti-poverty programming, but that he intended to do it while balancing the budget as well. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who had resigned from the previous administration over its Iraq policy, was brought back into politics as Ambassador to the United Nations, sending a clear message to every country that the administration was supporting those who had opposed Holton's "foolish, unwarranted foreign aggression." Meanwhile, Michael C. Sekora, a former chief analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency and head of the de funct (per President Holton's opposition to "industrial policy" proposals) Project Socrates, would serve as the new National Security Adviser. This was exemplary of the Tsongas administration's claimed belief in a "comprehensive" national security approach that involved not only weaponry, but technology and economics.

With a diverse set of policy advisers and cabinet heads surrounding him, President Tsongas, despite the health troubles he'd worked hard to keep from the public, was determined to use his four years to revolutionize Washington, reinstate Democratic dominance, and secure America from enemies both political and economic while revitalizing America's anti-poverty apparatus to "solve the problems past generations merely took for granted."

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

For those of you who are interested in the ideology our Bold New President:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1981/09/13/paul-tsongas-a-liberal-for-all-seasons/133f97d5-16ab-46cd-be8c-9cbf4eb1dbc3/
http://library.uml.edu/tsongas/ptsig.html

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

For the record...

List of Presidents of the United States of America
37. Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican-New York) January 20th, 1969-January 20th, 1973
38. Robert Francis Kennedy (Democrat-New York) January 20th, 1973-October 9th, 1978
39. Albert Preston Brewer (Democrat-Alabama) October 9th, 1978-January 20th, 1981
40. Robert Joseph Dole (Republican-Kansas) January 20th, 1981-January 20th, 1989
41. Abner Linwood Holton, Jr. (Republican-Virginia) January 20th, 1989-January 20th, 1993
42. Paul Efthemios Tsongas (Democrat-Massachusetts) January 20th, 1993-Present

List of Vice Presidents of the United States of America
39. Spiro Theodore Agnew (Republican-Maryland) January 20th, 1969-January 20th, 1973
40. Albert Preston Brewer (Democrat-Alabama) January 20th, 1973-October 9th, 1978
Vacant: October 9th, 1978-January 8th, 1979
41. Daniel Ken Inouye (Democrat-Hawaii) January 8th, 1979-January 20th, 1981
42. Abner Linwood Holton, Jr. (Republican-Virginia) January 20th, 1981-January 20th, 1989
43. Gordon John Humphrey (Republican-New Hampshire) January 20th, 1989-January 20th, 1993
44. Gary Warren Hart (Democrat-Colorado) January 20th, 1993-Present

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Hey, kids, this used to be in Alternate History, but I had True Federalist kindly move it to this board in the (vain?) hope that it could increase interest!

[Oldiesfreak1854]

President Tsongas?  Ugh.  I wish Holton had been reelected.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Late November, 1992

Commentator: ...And now, tonight's main feature, two of the newer voices in the Republican party, discuss their disparate opinions. Senator David MacKenzie, who is known for his moderate opinions, was elected in Vermont four years ago in 1988. Governor Chris Mattingly, on the other hand, has been in charge of Michigan since his election in 1990. Now, both of you have served in the Dole administration, both of you are from states that voted for Tsongas. What went wrong, from your perspective, this year?
MacKenzie: If it's not too forward, I'd be glad to go first.
Mattingly: Sure.
MacKenzie: First off, thanks for the invitation to be here tonight. It's always a pleasure to be able to represent the great state of Vermont and the Republican Party. I think, and this is obvious to most observers, the plain fact is the vote was split. Pat Buchanan and Andrew Marrou took a decent chunk from President Holton. Buchanan's hateful rhetoric on the campaign trail alienated many to the Republican message, liberals in the Senate undermined the war effort, and the President, a great public servant in his own right, was cast in a bad light.
Commentator: So, whose votes were taken?
MacKenzie: Well, uh, Buchanan took precious votes out West and in a few Southern states, I'd have to say. Meanwhile, with the Republican primary filled with all his bile and hateful rhetoric, a good number of voters that would normally be in the GOP's corner, I think, went over to Tsongas, who ran a pretty moderate campaign.
Commentator: Thank you. And Governor Mattingly?
Mattingly: Well, heh, I hate to echo Dave here, but the 'why?' is pretty obvious, but he's not pinpointing the right causes. Fact is, you can blame vote-splitting all you want, but you add up Tsongas, Nader, and any of the other left-wing candidates, and they get a majority! I mean, Barry freaking Goldwater got a higher percent of the popular vote than Holton! Last time we got such a low share of the vote was 1936. Also, there's a lot of uh... "analysis" being put into what's a pretty easy to answer question. We, the Republicans, had three terms under our belt. When was the last time a fourth term was won by any party? 1944. We're hardly in World War II circumstances and few people could replicate FDR's efficacy in office.
Commentator: So, you think there was little that could be done about the loss, and that it was simply cyclical?
Mattingly: Fact is, no incumbent's entitled to an election. Tsongas ran an effective campaign and, aside form only narrowly beating the hard-left Jefferson Dent in 1988, Holton hadn't won anything by himself since nineteen-sixty-freakin'-nine. He wasn't an elections guy. But beyond that, who did Holton lose? He'd already lost a good amount of President Dole's voters in 1988. By 1992, there was little reason to re-election him-
MacKenzie: Hold on, I have to strongly interject here. Linwood Holton was an outstanding, if not visionary President who pursued national security, peace abroad, free and fair trade, environmental protections-
Mattingly: Do you know what the Republican Party's gained in the last four years? Not a damned thing. I've spoken to guys on the Dole campaign; they put countless man hours into building a strong electoral coalition that Holton and his administration cronies--a few of whom now inhabit the Tsongas White House, I might add--trashed. I can't speak as to the President's actions in the Gulf--none of us on this show get the intell he did. But in terms of fighting for the average American, Holton at points refused to do a damned thing. He raised taxes in a recession. He oversaw the ratification of the North-American Free Trade Pact. Relations with Congress completely broke down. The fact is, you did not have that average American voter, the guy who just got off work and is sitting at a bar with his co-workers, putting down his drink and saying to the guy next to him, 'You know what, President Holton is looking out for me'!
MacKenzie: Are you saying that President Holton didn't fight for the average American?
Mattingly: I'm saying look at the election results! Where were we scaled back? States like Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania. Auto-workers, steel workers, people that make this country run didn't cast their ballot for the President. In the West, our nation's farmers apparently had the same opinion.
MacKenzie: This is ridiculous! The far-right rhetoric that the President was forced to respond to to secure his primary win decimated us in suburbs, full of moderate and ordinarily Republican voters.
Mattingly: Tell me, how. How? How did a Senator from Taxachusetts who endorsed his state's "gay bill of rights" of all freaking things, who lost a significant amount of his left-wing base to third party candidates, manage to secure a sweeping victory in the electoral college, winning states in nearly every region in the country? It's because the establishment Republicans in D.C. spent four years telling the average American, the blue collar worker, the house wife who picks her kids up from school and looks at the family budget and worries, the small businessman who's seeing his profits being eaten away. They spent four years telling those people, who'd put their faith in America, to shove it. They said "Don't worry, jobs are going to Mexico, to China, to Japan, they ain't coming back, and you're gonna like it!" And they kept going, "Cars will increase in price thanks to new environmental legislation. It'll be harder to get a firearm. Your taxes are going up even as your income shrinks."
Commentator: Listen, uh, sirs, I'm gonna have to cut in here, as we're about to go to commercial. Thanks to both of you for patching in from your different home states. Boy, what a lively discussion!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

President Tsongas?  Ugh.  I wish Holton had been reelected.

Paul Tsongas was an American hero.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Had to do some editing to the last few updates, since my decision to use Kerrey was spur-of-the-moment, and every flash-forward I'd had previously written referred to Hart. Hart made more sense, long-term, though Kerrey expanded the map more and made more sense short-term. Hart is edited back in as Tsongas' running-mate.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

President Tsongas?  Ugh.  I wish Holton had been reelected.

Paul Tsongas was an American hero.

So is Holton.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

President Tsongas?  Ugh.  I wish Holton had been reelected.

Paul Tsongas was an American hero.

So is Holton.

Holton endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. Paul Tsongas wisely endorsed no Democratic candidate after the 1990's.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

President Tsongas?  Ugh.  I wish Holton had been reelected.

Paul Tsongas was an American hero.

So is Holton.

Holton endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.

I know.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Bumping since I"m too busy to write and now that Kalwejt is back!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Liberalism & Realities in the 1990's (Pt. 2)

In following in the tradition of Presidents Dole and Holton of introducing major economic legislation in the form of omnibus policy packages, the Tsongas team, assisted by legislators, think tanks, and the President-elect himself, would burn the midnight oil preparing for the introduction of the National Industrial Recovery & Policy Act within the first few days of the new administration. With co-sponsors occupying the right (Don Young, Republican Alaska), center (Collin Peterson, Democrat Minnesota) and left (Bernard Sanders, Independent Vermont) the legislation drew attacks from those three same corners.

The NIRPA in many ways mirrored a set of Tsongas’ policy proposals that had been circulated in the early 1980’s following Brewer’s resounding defeat at the polls and the rise of conservative Republicanism nationwide. In keeping with the theme of an “all-encompassing” policy approach, the act was designed to merge concepts that to others might appear as distinct--economics, international trade, industrial policy, education, military, and so on. In setting basic human rights standards for United States trading partners, more pressure than ever was placed on nations such as China, which had been playing its role in the American market since 1978. In what would later appear as an anachronism of policy developed with the 1980’s in mind, the legislation included stipulations for industrial and infrastructure investment meant as a reaction to the “Japan, Inc.” model utilized across the Pacific, as well as other rising Oriental quasi-mercantilist states.

In regards to foreign policy, the legislation left the door open for the President’s stalwart intention to reduce foreign aid to American allies. “The Soviet Union is at this point a figment of our memory. The hard work of the American taxpayer has gone to benefit military contractors and the defense budgets of other nations since the end of the Second World War.” While “establishment legislators” were horrified by this rhetoric, the President received praise from self-styled mavericks ranging from Pat Buchanan to Thad O’Connor to Ralph Nader. The money saved would be earmarked for greater investment in “information technology-driven weaponry, military education, and research grants for defense and environmental purposes.” The President also resolved that he would re-examine both the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with President Yeltsin of the Russian Federation and, in a reference to his time as a Peace Corps volunteer, to take a second look at the United States’ relationship with the Third World.

As well, environmental cleanup “superfund” projects would receive their first dose of funding since the second Kennedy administration, some of the new money for industrial subsidies would go specifically to “workplace democracies”,  and the reduction of corporate, capital gains, and income taxes. In making what amounted to a conservative argument for the immense set of policy proposals, the President declared on the floor of the Senate, that “In a world lacking the predictable balance of world power that the Cold War gave us, the United States, by necessity, must present to the globe a sense of order, compassion, and strength. A United States that is bereft of the necessary industrial capacity to marshal its own defense, a United States that lacks the best and the brightest minds and the training to go with it, a United States that can’t validate its own market, human rights, or environmental principles will be ill-equipped to lead the new world order.” Noticeably absent would be an increase in the minimum wage.

Magazines ran cover stories with pictures of Tsongas and article titles such as “The New Nationalism”, “Rise of the Neo-Liberal”, and “New Left or Old Right?” The White House media managers, meanwhile, made sure to saturate the press with anecdotes of decayed industrial towns, including the President’s hometown of Lowell, of veterans being denied work, and of rotting bridges that small communities relied on. The President waged a vigorous public relations campaign, defying his own illness in ways that would later astound historians.

In foreign relations, the President’s team of mavericks would proceed to sideline Secretary of State Dent, who found himself almost isolated inside Foggy Bottom. Instead, President Tsongas made the friendship of Republican Congressman Thaddeus O’Connor--himself a friend of Dent’s--who had been part of the moderate, quasi-libertarian, and bi-partisan “Mavericks” faction of the early 1980’s. O’Connor, whose Vietnam War service had acted as a way onto foreign policy-related committees in the House, would become a fast friend of the White House in breaking away from a Cold War-dominated foreign policy framework. “While the reunification of Germany and assistance to post-Soviet states in the East will find no better friend than this White House, the time has come to seriously re-assess the blank check this country has written to its allies, ranging from Japan to NATO”, an anonymous white paper remarked. This rhetoric was surprisingly strong to both Dent and to UN Ambassador Colin Powell.

Before 1993 had begun, the Tsongas administration was negotiating an end to the ABM Treaty with a politically weak President Yeltsin while, to the chagrin of old alliances, a retreat was signalled in Western Europe. This was a move that alarmed members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but the White House held strong. “As we approach the 21st Century, we have access to faster  and more efficient defense technology across the board--whether it is in the form of troop carriers, planes, or intercontinental projectile weaponry. Our friends in Western Europe do not need a barrage of civilizing forces to go in and prevent genocide in France or Norway. America’s status as a defender of human rights is best preserved by being prepared to act to support friendly regimes in the Third World, where, yes, we have kept our troops stationed. The President would back up his emphasis that America would “still be here” with photo-ops with the new governments of Russia and several other post-Soviet states as well as pro-American countries in the Southern hemisphere. Meanwhile, the screws were tightened on several non-democratic regimes and former American allies in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America to begin democratic and market reforms.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

In Through the Out Door

Twenty years earlier, Republicans found themselves in a similar position. Their most recent President had been beaten for re-election and his replacement proved both popular and dynamic. Republican establishment figures were nevertheless terrified he'd burn the place to the ground. With this framing the RNC's thinking, preparation for a "mother of all battles" had begun as early as the election night 1992. Now, a year in to Tsongas' Presidency, and with the President having struck his own course in international relations--a course decried by the foreign policy establishment on both sides of the aisle--senior GOP figures were rushing to field figures to defeat the "dangerous" new President.

One target of moderate--or at least establishment--Republican strategists and insiders was former Secretary of State George H.W. Bush. A former oilman, County GOP Chair, member of the House of Representatives, United States Senator, and Secretary of State for nearly a decade, Bush had an attractive resume. His voting record included support for open housing, anti-crime laws, and a moderate approach to abortion, and as Secretary of State he had participated in probably the most important foreign policy since the 1940's. Nevertheless, as some remarked "the right would eat him alive." There were skeptics that noted his combination of support--or at least a lack of requisite opposition to--free trade, abortion, and foreign intervention might unite populists, social conservatives, isolationists, and even moderate doves against the "distinguished elder statesman". Bush himself didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about a run, stating "I've been in the public service since 1964. By the next election, that will have been over three decades, and I would need to be prepared to hold the toughest job in the land for four years."

Other figures who were being courted by donors and the establishment would include Bush's own son, the senior Senator from Texas, George W. Bush, who had taken up his father's seat in 1983. Nevertheless, most eyes were on Senator John Heinz, III of Pennsylvania. Despite only winning two states in the 1988 primaries, Heinz was, by January 1993, a leader of the Senate Republicans, perhaps best known for having practically authored the Dole administration's industrial policy program.  Heinz' record on social issues was sufficiently ambiguous to theoretically attract a wide swath of voters, though the GOP donor class was worried about Heinz' willingness to support protectionist policies. Other suggestions that popped up included the liberal Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, despite his youth, and even David MacKenzie of Vermont.

What Republican National Committee members wanted, however, was not necessarily what the GOP base wanted. Despite his independent run, Patrick J. Buchanan, 1992 runner-up, was still popular with those that had supported him. There were those among his former campaign staff who theorized that a large segment of voters in 1992 had opted to stick with Holton due to his incumbency and that, with an the GOP lacking an incumbent to run against, 1996 would be his for the taking. Others were pushing businessman H. Ross Perot, who had been one of Buchanan's key donors in the 1992 primary. Notably more liberal on domestic issues, Perot was nevertheless known largely for his opposition to free trade and his support for a balanced budget--key planks of a right-wing, blue collar, grass roots run--and Perot had more than the money needed to finance such a bid. There was a segment of the Republican Party that hypothesized that the GOP should act more like President Tsongas--a combination of populists, liberals, and libertarians--and Perot was their man. Mentions were made of Michigan's Governor Christian Mattingly, who had avoided presidential politics like the plague in 1992. This was due in part to the suspicion of many that he had voted against Holton in the primaries and the absolute lack of support the incumbent had received from the Governor prior to the Michigan primary. When Mattingly did speak o nnational issues, he took a tone that was realist, mercantilist, and protectionist, something those on the right were longing for after Holton's "postnationalist" policies.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Seeking Salvation: Scott Westman & Religion
By Carl Herschewitz, 1994

It is 1968 and a young, red-haired, senior history major from the University of Montana was repairing his wounds somewhere in Chicago--the exact location escapes me. Around him, in what I recall was some proto-industrial park, lay fellow anti-war activists. Hanging out of the young blood's mouth was a Marlboro Red, which he was in the process of slurping down as a girl dabbed his bleeding forehead with a rag. As night came, it seemed the violence around the Democratic National Convention subsided, and over the radio we heard the Corrupt Bargain: Robert F. Kennedy, after a long stalemate, had handed his delegates over to Hubert H. Humphrey, to be nominated on a resolutely anti-war platform. Some Texan--another Johnson!?--was named for Vice President. Westman, with a temper and a face as red as his shock of orange hair, hurled the only half-empty bottle of Jack at the opposite wall; the structure we inhabited was too large for his reach, and Jack Daniels crashed asunder on the concrete floor thirty feet away. He jerked away from the girl--"Does bleeding matter, woman!?"--and proceeded to go on a devil-inspired rant, damning both parties, damning the Washington establishment, damning Kennedy for selling out, damning the middle class, blue collar workers, professionals, suburbanites, law enforcement, and every other accompaniment of American liberal capitalism. And, in that tirade, he too damned religion and what he perceived as the sulking, terrified, superstitious, quasi-peasant believers who clung to it, the "moralfags".

Twelve years later, by then a United States Senator, a still-angry Westman had long since been forced to tone down his rhetoric, even as he faced character assassinations from all sides for intercourse with a pre-op transsexual model, and as he was endorsed by Beauregard Disraeli, who was later outed as a Satanist. At that point, Westman had signed onto the 1980 Libertarian Party presidential ticket out of frustration with a general election matchup between two conservatives--President Albert Brewer and then-Senator Bob Dole. Helping to grant the Libertarian Party its best showing yet, the third party would nevertheless fade into the background as the battles of the 80's raged. But Westman didn't. In that, his first national campaign, the pain in his face was visible as he towed the line: "What we, among those in favor of limited government seek, is far from the eradication of religion or its marginalization in society. We are, instead, hoping to organize government along rational and liberal lines, to allow for the inclusion of perspectives from all faiths, and to avoid the totalitarian bloodbaths of the past." Had he been allowed the privilege of honesty, he would have said something to the effect of "F#ck the evangelicals, f#ck the Catholics, f#ck every moralizing force in America that has sought to crush human freedom of thought and action. You are killing the very essence of American liberty."

Nevertheless, mid-way through possibly the most conservative decade of the second half of the 20th Century, Westman had changed considerably. The birth of his first son. His eldest daughter, Brea, born of a Native American mother in the 1960's, had been brought into the world in a flurry of scandal, worry, and anger over an unwed teen pregnancy. With his second child, Westman had the chance to watch life come forth and grow, in a way that didn't involve the preoccupation with externalities, the damning of nature, that had accompanied the birth of Brea. Westman was never public about this the way one would expect. There was no conversion announcement, no press conference. Nevertheless, my old friend could be seen coming out of a Washington, D.C. Catholic Church on the occasional Sunday. His office's collection of liquor began to wear thin. I don't know if I saw him touch a cigarette at all throughout 1986. And his voting record saw an almost seismic shift on abortion.

In 1991, Scott resigned from the United States Senate following authorization of force against Iraq. His rhetoric, however, was markedly different from that of the anti-war protester twenty years prior. Aside form his choice to exempt curses and swear words form his denunciation of the Senate, he stuck a moral tone that was surprising to the national media, though not to his close friends. "In the 1988 campaign, Holton--the current President, waged a slanderous campaign against the Democratic nominee, Jefferson Dent, himself a model public servant and patriot, for not only his opposition to the failed Vietnam War, but also what Holton claimed was a lack of Christian values. Well I ask you, President Holton--who, I should remark, never once touched the topic of public Christianity until he felt the political necessity to--how can we a nation that, as you claim, is rooted in Judeo-Christian principle, ever sanction the machinations of war and death against another country, especially on such questionable ground? For all your talk of degeneracy--especially in relation to the Drug War--your administration has been possibly the most comfortable with death since that of Lyndon Johnson. You have made bloodshed your bedfellow, at home and abroad, and this body, the United States Senate, has not only watched idly by, it has made a house of three."

The quasi-sexual pun aside, rhetoric of that nature was hardly what Westman had become known for. If you had asked him to denounce United States military action abroad in 1981, he would have proceeded to confront the very existence of the military, to denounce generals, to even toss a verbal grenade at American ground troops, to portray soldiers as death dealers and cops as fascist pigs, and American foreign policy goals as inherently evil. While there was still some of that in 1991, the main focus of his argument was moral, not ideological.

. . .

Westman shifted on more than just God and abortion, as I'm sure other journalists, biographers, and scholars would like to point out. He eventually betrayed the laissez-faire rhetoric of his 1970's incarnation as he came face-to-face with the Dole and Holton administrations. Today, if you visit Scott Westman on his mysterious estate on the plains, it is a far different place than when I saw him first move in. Gone are the litany of empty bags and liquor bottles, strewn about the living room from yesterday's dinner. While one does not hang there, it would not be hard to imagine instead a crucifix adorning the wall. His study, once filled with books from both the right and the left glorifying liberty and, to a large extent, libertinism, now contains the writings of Karl Marx and C.S. Lewis. The house is austere, darker than it once was, Westman now preferring fires and candlelight to the bright flourescent of what was essentially a house for drug users even a decade prior. Caroline and his children are gone, as is much of the furniture--Kennedy lawyers are vicious in divorce proceedings, as it turns out--and the center table where I saw cocaine more than I saw food in the 1970's and early 1980's is now instead used to hold a typewriter, a glass of club soda, incense, and a stack of Westman's policy papers. After the Senator emerges form his meditation, he'll crack a smile and fondly remember "the old days", then turn bitterly to his 1992 primary loss for the Montana Governorship. "They rejected a 'Green Montana'!", he'll say in exasperation. He's almost vegetarian now. He's just too American to give up some sort of meat however--I expect that within the next ten years. The fact of his Montana residence doesn't aid in this quest.

His most recent publication, to be printed by the University of Montana Press and to hit one or two bookstores before the end of the year is "Class, Conflict, & Tammany Hall". It is nearly 800 pages. He's also teaching history against at the University of Montana. "Tenure? Nah, the board'll no doubt reject any attempt at that!" Had you told me that the libertine radical of the 1960's would become the conservative socialist of the 1990's, I would have called you insane. He seems to have taken up a monastic lifestyle and to be in utter contempt of both the market liberal and the socially libertine trends of the country around him--two things he once celebrated. As I exit his house at the end of the evening this particular time, I mention I was contacted to write an article about him. In classic interview format, I'm forced to inquire where he sees the country by the year 2000. He sips his club soda--a replacement for the "burn" of both carbonated beer and 190 proof liquor--and says that Tsongas is doing a good job, but if his advisers get control of him "by 2000, we'll see a nation in violence. The tough-on-crime people he brought on to assuage the majority of American voters? If he loses control of them, we'll be seeing race riots. I'm glad we've finally a President whose stood up for American employment, but, again, if the neoliberals in his cabinet have their way, we'll be cleaned out within a decade. With that in mind, I hope the best for him." After we continue to reminisce, we shake hands and I head out. I've got to get back to MIT and he, after he handles his ranch duties, has Church in the morning.