I was Googling around for some polling data from the '92 race, hoping to find results from a point in the campaign earlier than the one sited
here, when I came across
this: a Usenet post about possible Clinton running mates from March 1992. It reminded me of some of the discussions we've had here about who should be on the Dean ticket (assuming there is one) - in fact, some of the same names mentioned recently were on this list. But then again, how many living Democrats (along with some Republicans)
haven't been mentioned as Dean veeps?
Anyway, I found a couple of the suggestions in this post particularly amusing and ironic, and others interesting in that "What if?" kind of way:
Joe Lieberman (moderate Democrat from Connecticut, Clinton supporter,
ex-prosecutor - but will Bubba vote for a ticket with a Jewish candidate
on it)
Hmmm...I wonder.
Ann Richards (an all-Southern ticket isn't likely, but she's got what it
takes if you want a VP candidate who can go negative, and she would
energize the pro-women vote)
Of course, the Democrats did end up with an all-Southern ticket but it's interesting to speculate on how things would've been different if Clinton had selected another nominee from a neighboring state. Richards was only a couple of years into her term as governor and she didn't have the foreign policy experience of Gore. But she was at the height of her popularity in Texas in 1992, with approval ratings around the 80% mark. With her on the ticket, the Dems almost certainly would've captured the state's electoral votes that fall, as Bush's margin over Clinton in his "home state" was only four points, with Perot certainly adding to the closeness. With Richards as Vice-President, the then-Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, a Democrat but the man who has been called little Bush's political mentor, would've assumed the governorship and assuming he ran for election himself in 1994, Shrubya would've become Texas Gov. no sooner - if ever - than 1998. Which means he probably wouldn't have run for president in 2000. Which means that...oh, stop me before I start to cry.
And then there's:
And if you want a really wild scenario, how about Colin Powell? (No one
knows which party he belongs to)
Yes, that would've been "really wild."
So...Dean-Zinni, anyone?