Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld: How plausible is the AH?

[Hendryk]

In Curtis Sittenfeld's AH novel Rodham, the POD is in 1971 when Hillary turns down Bill's proposition. This makes little difference for the next two decades, but in 1992 Bill Clinton fails to overcome the scandal of his womanizing and loses the primary to Paul Tsongas. George H. W. Bush wins his reelection.

So the presidential list up to the 2016 election goes thus:

1992: George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle
1996: Jerry Brown and Bob Kerrey
2000: John McCain and Sam Brownback
2004: John McCain and Sam Brownback
2008: Barack Obama and Joe Biden
2012: Barack Obama and Joe Biden

Personally, without having looked at the details, it doesn't seem all that plausible to me. What do you chaps think?

Fact-checking the alternate history and politics of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham

This book is enchanted that by the idea of tweaking one thing in the recent past, you can fundamentally alter the present. You can save brilliant, ambitious Hillary Rodham from her marriage to Bill Clinton; you can unleash all that frustrated potential on the world and then sit back and watch what happens next. And that idea is, especially to those who appreciate Hillary Clinton’s fierce and undeniable ambition as an attractive quality in and of itself, a heady one. But because Rodham is so narrowly focused on Hillary herself, it is never able to examine all of the other possibilities for the world it’s created.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I think Vox is probably right that if you change the timeline that much, it's extremely unlikely you get Obama - you've undone some of what brought him in. Bill Clinton as "hedonistic tech billionaire" is.... uhhhhh..... what? (It's also kinda weird to write a book with Bill Clinton as the Doom That Came To Her Career and turning him into Trump-esque obstacle when you're doing this to big up his, er, wife who by all accounts actually loves him and vice versa? And they're both still alive?)

 

[Time Enough]

1996: Jerry Brown and Bob Kerrey

Why does Jerry Brown only get one term? Like I know he can be a bit dippy but he managed to several terms as Governor of California and whilst I know that ain’t the same surely it shows that he ain’t someone who would be bulldozed by McCain easily.

Bill Clinton as "hedonistic tech billionaire" is.... uhhhhh..... what?

Oh this is horrible.

 

[zaffre]

The book really has to contort itself insofar as Rodham wins Obama’s Senate seat - and then McCain randomly appoints Durbin to something in 2005. I think that and John McCain deciding to Not Start Any Wars In The Middle East No Sir are the most obvious missteps to make the 2010s have a semblance of reality - which I get, because Sittenfeld doesn’t want to write about Rodham primarying President Wellstone over something-gate, she wants to write wish fulfillment where Hillary never makes her deal with the devil and gets to beat Those Deplorable Men anyway.

Regarding that central logic - it was problematic of the lists of old to just marry Hillary to someone else, but Sittenfeld’s counterargument of step 1. run for the nomination as a generic democrat a lot, step 2. ???, step 3. profit, just doesn’t make a lot of sense - Hillary is not such a naturally charismatic politician that people were just going to hand the mantle of Next Female President to her.

A more interesting alt-Hillary that would play to her strengths would probably be something like Congresswoman Rodham (D-Chicago Suburbs) that absolutely demolishes President Gingrich during the impeachment hearings and rises to House leadership as Feminist But Reliable, and then triumphs in 2008 by deciding that women need to help women and actually working out a deal with her charismatic insurgent rival - Senator Robinson.

 

[Charles EP M.]

It feels fundamentally misunderstanding Clinton for the book to say she considers marrying her husband, various votes, being Secretary of State etc to be deals with the devil (and politicians, if some of the votes she does regret doing for grubby reasons are a unique Deal With Devil situation to her and not what sometimes happens).

 

[Elektronaut]

I think the article already raises the big fundamental issue here, in that she only became a presidential candidate in OTL because of who she was in OTL, and in an ATL you'd doubtless have other female presidentiables emerge earlier without her deadening heavy roller effect over two decades. This cycle has already sort of proven that, tbh.

This stuff is really what I already telegraphed about a Hillary mythology emerging which is stronger than the reality of her being a double-facing phenomenon which presumably the author, given the POD, is not unaware of grows partly out of Standing by Her Man.

On the minor details point, the Democrats didn't need Bubba Bill in '92; they wouldn't be giving Jerry Brown the nomination four years later had they lost that; really the whole backstory is a mess.

(I love the dissmisal of Biden in the article, and presumably by extension acceptance of the strange non-event of VP Biden in the Rodham/McNuttverse. The American Liberal middle-class really, really, really can't accept that the guy has political skills, can it.)

 

[Omund the Wooden-Leg]

I think I saw on a Twitter post Nicola Sturgeon has a copy of Rodham" as future reading material whenever she is not busy helping save this country from coronavirus.