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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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MADAM PRESIDENT: The Unauthorized Biography of the First Green Party President, by Mark A. Dunlea, paperback, 431 pages, Big Toad Books, Poestenkill, NY Review by Thomas Wm. Hamilton We may actually be
approaching the time when America catches up with countries such as Argentina,
Britain, India, and Israel by getting a woman to head the government.
Certainly authors are beginning to treat the idea. Recently we had Weapons
of Choice, where Hilary Clinton has been elected President and
subsequently assassinated. The newest entry is closer to a much earlier
book, The Man, about the first black President, in that the protagonist
succeeds to the office. This AH has the
hanging chads of Florida giving that state to the Democrats in 2000, but the
Greens carry Washington state. This deprives anyone of a majority of the
electoral votes, threatening to throw the election for only the second time
in history (first was 1824) to Congress. In this novel the Green
Party Vice Presidential candidate is Rachel Moreno, an extraordinarily
charismatic political activist. (Their actual candidate was a woman of
American Indian background.) Since the Republicans have a majority of the
House of Representatives, the Republican will be picked unless a deal can be
made between the Greens and Democrats. The deal struck is the Green
electors will vote for the Democrat for President, and the Democratic electors
with great reluctance across the country will vote for the Green for Vice
President. Several states make it a felony for electors not to vote for the person they were pledged to. This might have made for an interesting variant constitutional crisis for 2000. Anyhow, the Republicans feel they were robbed, and the Democrats refuse to take the new VP seriously. Then the Prsident is in a coma, and the VP is Acting President under the 26th Amendment, the President dies, and 9/11 hits. I won't betray the plot any further, in case some wish to read it.
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