Forming Black states in the west would have made sense.
2006 in reverse, would have been sweet, yes.
I couldn’t see Jr. Bush getting a rematch in 2004, after 2 of the previous 3 elections had been a loss by a Bush after each had started out as the favorite.
McCain would have run again, George Allen may have run. Given the GOP penchant for rewarding the runner up of the last election, it probably would have been McCain.
Giving ex-slaves KS, NE, the Dakotas, et al, would’ve also helped fulfill the promise of 40 acres and a mule. I would’ve also thrown in free education (the very least they would’ve been owed) for all ex-slaves, child or adult. In those days, that would’ve truly meant something (sadly, today, education has been debased and dismissed as something to run from or something for “Whites.”).
Removing Blacks from former slave states would’ve also ensured their not falling back into the de facto slavery (via sharecropping) that effectively existed from the Reconstruction period to the modern era. Then again, former slave states probably would’ve compensated by exploiting the lowest White classes or encouraging the kind of mass-scale Hispanic migration to fill those roles long before the modern era (with Hispanics supplanting Blacks as the aggrieved racial class). Heaven forbid they pick their own cotton.
You’re forgetting that had Gore stolen Florida and become president, Republicans nationwide would have made their biggest threshold question “can our nominee win Florida”? I think that the 2004 nomination would have been Jeb Bush’s for the taking (particularly after his massive 2002 reelection).