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[karynnj]

21. It is not clear that Edwards, if he were VP would have met Rielle

or had an affair with anyone. If he did, it would be less a scandal than if it were the President - and the problem for Clinton was that he lied under oath about it. As VP, he could be pressured to resign and if he wouldn't, the President could very easily make him a lame duck - signalling that he would be replaced. (Given so many bad things that likely couldn't be stopped and the dysfunctional 109th Congress, I would guess that Kerry would not have been reelected, though he would have done substantial good. No one could know how bad 2008 really was going to be under Bush.)

I think had Kerry won, the two things that would have been different are that he would have handled Iraq differently - likely as he said in 2004. (That he spoke to Jordan, Egypt, France and Germany and got them to agree that they would offer to train Iraqis soldiers quickly in their countries suggests that he would have done this and had international support. That would have allowed him to deal with Afghanistan 4 years earlier than Obama - and there he was for something more limited than what Obama chose. The other thing is likely more important - he clearly would not have appointed Alito and Roberts - which moved the court right. He would have replaced a swing vote and a right vote with two people we likely would respect. There would likely be no Citizens United.

The fact that the incoming President would replace a conservative and a swing vote is possibly why 2004 was played on such an uneven playing field and the media allowed character assassinations of Teresa and John Kerry.