2004 United States presidential election (Guten Tag Arnold scenario)

The 2004 United States presidential election was the 55th quadriennal presidential election held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican nominee Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, won the election, defeating Democratic candidate John Kerry. Schwarzenegger received 71 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in an U.S. Presidential Election.

Both parties experienced particular candidates and scenes during primaries. Incumbent president George W. Bush participated in the primaries, and according to various reports published in 2003, support for Bush was unanimous and it was widly expected for him to run unopposed. Bush popularity increased after the 9/11 attack, and his decisive and aggressive foreign policy was praised by most Republicans and by the general population. However, in 2004, Bush accused Iraq to possess weapons of mass destructions, said weapons were found to be non-exsistant after an intensive United Nations Weapons Committee inspection. President Saddam Hussein accused Bush of attempting to find a casus belli to destroy the country. These remarks and events damaged Bush popularity, along with an increasing recession due to his fiscal policies.

In July 2003, Democratic Senator Orrin Hatch proposed a constitutional amendment to repeal the clausole that prohibited foreign-soil born U.S. citizens to run for the nation highest office, the Presidential one. Early discussions in the House of Representatives started on July 27, and it was approved through bipartisan agreements on August 1. Republicans hoped that with this amendment Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for President to repair Bush inpopularity, while Democrats were of the opinion that every U.S. citizen, born outside or inside, could run for President. In the Senate, the proposal passed with 94 senators voting in favour.

Schwarzenegger ran on a campaign centered on economic growth and prosperity, technological supremacy, respect for civil rights and a decisive foreign policy, but also a crackdown on crime and drugs, and increased attention to the southern border. He also stressed the need to draft legislature aimed to reduce emmissions. Kerry, instead, stressed the need to increase taxes on the rich and push for a public healthcare system.