The Election of 1992: Recession and the Perot Factor

Candidates:
Democratic Party: William Clinton (Arkansas) and Albert Gore (Tennessee)
Republican Party: George H.W. Bush (Texas) and Dan Quayle (Indiana)
Independent: Ross Perot (Texas) and Admiral James Stockdale (California)

Election Results:
Clinton/Gore: 370 electoral votes, 44.9 million popular votes
Bush/Quayle: 168 electoral votes, 39.1 million popular votes
Perot/Stockdale: 0 electoral votes, 19.7 million popular votes

Summary:
The election of George H.W. Bush in 1988 guaranteed some stability in dealing with major foreign policy issues on the horizon. The Reagan administration's attempts to drown the communist world with big ideas and a massive defense spending increase set the table for the fall of Soviet Russia in the early 1990s. The Bush administration oversaw the defeat of communism and ushered the new Russian state, led by Mikhael Gorbachev, into a capitalist era. This was the major global change that occurred at this point but Bush and his advisors were more integral to other conflicts throughout the world.

In 1989, the murder of an American soldier in Panama led to the invasion of the small country, under the guise of Operation Just Cause, in order to capture dictator Manuel Noriega. What may have been seen by some as an overreaction to the death of a soldier but showed Americans that Bush would not let their armed forces be bullied by dictators and thieves. An extension of this lesson came with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the following year, in an attempt to recapture land they claimed belonged to Iraq. The United States headed up a coalition effort to remove Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. President Bush was one of the most active coalition building presidents in the 20th century, building a broad front against Iraq. The United Nations proved to be a strong vessel for cooperation from nations throughout the world against Saddam Hussein and surrounding Arab nations, encouraged with support by Bush and allies, admonished the Iraqi effort. The success of the Gulf War for America and its allies showed the strength of President Bush's abilities in foreign affairs and he received massive popular support in the middle of his term.

However, as the 1992 presidential election loomed large on the United States, the economy was failing to fulfill the promise of 1980s prosperity. Bush's focus on foreign affairs, the ending of the Cold War, and Bush's role in the end of the Cold War did much to bring an end to his presidency. While he was successful in Panama and Iraq, he was seen as a relic of a time past, of the Cold War that was now resolved in favor of the West. The 1992 election promised to be a difficult one for the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party nominated dark horse candidate Bill Clinton, who was former governor of Arkansas and a player within the Democratic National Committee. Clinton faced obstacles in the general campaign, including allegations of infidelity (which he addressed in a nationally televised interview) and of dodging the military draft during the Vietnam War. But Clinton's resilience, which would become his trademark as president, stymied the Republican effort to discredit him. Clinton's campaign hammered away at the failed Bush administration economic policy and his broken promise not to raise taxes.

Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote and twice as many electoral votes as President Bush. Bush received the lowest popular vote percentage of a sitting president since Herbert Hoover's loss in 1932 because of the third party candidacy of H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texan who ran as an independent. Perot, whose "United We Stand, America" platform included a balanced budget and complete honesty in government, appealed to Americans on the right and in the middle who were worried about supporting a dishonest Bush or a questionable Clinton. Perot received 19% of the popular vote, but did not receive any of the electoral votes. Numbers wise, the Perot share of the popular vote would have been enough to push Bush over the edge if Perot was not in the race. However, it is questionable whether Perot's absence would have led to some 19 million people to vote for Bush or to stay at home in protest of Bush's failure on the home front.