Hygro is right that Bush was less awful in his second term. He even did a few things I agreed with, like extending Daylight Savings Time. By the end of 2004, most of Bush's damage had already been done. So that does make the question a bit tougher.
But there are other factors:
- Although I'm no fan of Kerry and think the accusation that he is a flip-flopper has some merit, I think he probably would have started to steer the country away from Bush's 2000-2004 direction, rather than simply not moving much more in that direction as actually happened with Bush.
- Edwards is no saint, but he isn't a Richard Nixon in terms of political machinations. His indiscretions would likely have ended his political career, but I don't think he would have driven the country into the ground policy-wise.
- I don't think Obama's really been a great president, and I don't think McCain would have been a bad one. Amongst higher-level Republicans, I think he's fairly reasonable, and my biggest complaint with him was that he moved closer to Bush while campaigning in 2008 - but I suspect it was as much about getting votes as actually agreeing more with Bush. So even if we suppose McCain wins in 2008 because of this, I don't think that would be horrible.
And there's one factor that makes me move back towards Bush a bit in this scenario:
- We know now that George Bush survived his 8 years, and thankfully Dick Cheney never became president. As much as I disagreed with many of Bush's decisions, the fact of the matter is Dick Cheney was the one who was really scary in terms of what he probably would do if he became Ultimate Dictator. George Bush, yes he probably would have done some stupid things as Ultimate Dictator, he wasn't a genius, and he wasn't so great in the foreign policy realm. But Dick Cheney... all bets are off on what he would have done. Not only are his politics scary, but he's the type of person that I have a hard time picturing as actually being, y'know, caring or compassionate. He's the type of person who I could picture being the firearms dealer in the MOD Squad in Thank You For Smoking, and even though it was a fluke accident, it seems only too appropriate that he'd be the person to shoot his friend with a shotgun.
So, while a lot of my preferences in 2004 were based on Bush's presidency, the possibility of Cheney becoming president certainly was an additional factor in everyone else's favor. Bush is the type of person who you could probably have a good time with at a barbeque pretty easily, and it might be fun to have a few beers with him (though as much fun as with Obama on the White House lawn? that's a good question). If I met him randomly, I could probably put aside the politics and talk about other potentially interesting topics. Not so with Cheney, nor some of the other more recent candidates.
