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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1996)
Nick WILTGEN Making history Cast a vote, script the future Today, in many aspects, is an - ordinary day. We will all go about our regular Tuesday routines, except for one thing. A large number of us will take a few minutes to go to the polls to vote. It won’t be much of a diversion from the daily grind. But for the next two, four, even six years, we will look back on today, either as a turning point or as a continuation of one trend or another. What we do during those five or 10 minutes at the polling place will affect the course of American history —maybe even world history. . However, there are also factors beyond the control of the voters that have also affected the course of history. I am tempted to ask the question ... what if? What if things had happened differently? What if Ross Perot hadn’t run in 1992? Would George Bush have been re-elected? Would Dan Quayle be running this year, or would the Republicans have nominated someone else—maybe Bob Dole? Would the Democrats have lost control ot Congress under a second term Bush administration? And if Bush had been re-elected, would Somalia have happened? Bosnia? Would Saddam be dead? Would the David Koresh scandal have happened? Would Bill Clinton still be the governor of Arkansas? What if Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait in, say, April 1992 instead of August1990? Would Bush have ridden a tide of popularity to re election? What if Saddam had waited until after the election? Would a more well-known Democrat have won in 1992? Or what about Watergate? What if Nixon hadn’t been involved in Watergate? Would Gerald Ford — or for that matter, Spiro T. Agnew — have been elected in 1976? Would relatively unknown Jimmy Carter even have bothered to try for the Democratic nomination? And if Ford or Agnew had been elected in 1976, would Ronald Reagan ever have been president? It’s doubtful he would have run in 1980. Would he have run in 1984? And would Reagan, then 73 (the same age Dole is now) have captured the nomination? Remember, Bob Dole was Ford’s running mate in 1976. He may have been the natural heir to the presi dency in 1984. Who would the Democrats have put up against Dole or Ford? (I have a feeling Ted Kennedy would factor into one of these what-ifs.) Let’s assume the public never got tired of Republican presidents. Presumably Dole would have been president until 1992. Would Dole, with far duller oratory skills than Reagan, have managed to end the Cold War with the Soviets? Would he have bombed Libya? How would he have handled Saddam? And then who would have run for president in 1992? Maybe a more entertaining question would be, what if Michael Dukakis had run against an incum bent Dole in 1988? I have a feeling Dole would have made a rather irresolute president. Would Dukakis have won? Would he have lasted two terms? Would Lamar Alexander be facing Dukakis’ vice president today? Who would that vice presi- l dent have been? Ted Kennedy? 1 Whew. I’m dizzy. But wait — I just thought of another one. What if there had been a Constitutional two-term limit before Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1932? Who would have been president during World War II... and would we have even gotten involved in it? What if TV had not been in vented? Would that have had a major impact on elections? Who would have won in 1960 if there had been no televised Kennedy-Nixon debates? (And of course, that begs the question, would Watergate have happened in 1964? Or would it have happened at a different hotel, thus depriving us of terms like “Irangate”?) And what about Vietnam? What if the Internet had been invented before television? Would the grass-roots nature of the Internet have had an influence on politics? For that matter, will it in the future? (That’s one what-if I have a definite opinion on—I say it would and it will.) I could go on an on. What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed? What if John Hinckley had succeeded? Then what? What if I could make millions of ' dollars writing revisionist histories of America? Wiltgen is a junior broadcasting and meteorology major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Hcpra CANCUNII SOUTH PADRE 11 FROM: m m FROM: m *449^ $ I 09^son I Parties! ^"^Parties! 2f^T Meals! Meals! Activites! Mexico trip! I MMAZATLAN RQM 1 I Welcome Party, Beach Bashes, JCO PERS0N I | Meals and much much more! ft K- AUTOMATED TRAVEL 31 kCf* (402)-438-2579 _ 1551 jSL Best Spaces and Places, Going Fast! H Ever thought about a career in publishing? Develop skills and career opportunities in book and magazine publishing from insiders at Time, The New Yorker, HarperCoIHns, Random House, Little, Brown and others. 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Schulman at 1 -800-524-2129 for more information. 66 What we do during those five or 10 minutes at the polling place will affect the course of American history — maybe even world history”
