1992 Elections in the United States

The Event American politicians run for office

Date November 3, 1992

Breaking loose from a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton capitalized on the health care issue and the faltering popularity of the George H. W. Bush administration to defeat an incumbent president for the first time since 1976 and to break the cycle of a three-term domination of the White House by the Republican Party. In congressional elections, Democrats lost some seats but still maintained a majority in both houses.

In the wake of the victory of the U.S.-directed coalition in the Gulf War of 1991, the popularity of President George H. W. Bush reached levels that had been unprecedented since polling statistics had been kept. At that point, the Republicans seemed unchallengeable. Then it rapidly unraveled from fall, 1991, to summer, 1992, and the Bush approval ratings plunged dramatically. The economy fell into recession, alarming many, and the president ultimately acquiesced to a proposal to raise taxes on a variety of items. To many voters, this was a reversal of the president’s jaunty and well-publicized 1988 pledge that he would call for no further taxation (“Read my lips, no new taxes!”). The Bush administration now came across to many as being somewhat uncaring, more interested in business and foreign affairs than in the anxieties of ordinary citizens. The Democrats had already tapped into fears of rising health care costs by unexpectedly winning a Senate seat in Pennsylvania on the basis of that issue. The upset in the Keystone State of Republican Dick Thornburgh by the virtually unknown Harris Wofford had been rendered all the more startling by the fact that in the early stages of the campaign Wofford had trailed by over forty percentage points. The president was now perceived as being vulnerable on the domestic front. The question was: After three weak candidacies in a row (Jimmy Carter in 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984, and Michael Dukakis in 1988), could the Democrats at long last nominate a strong enough candidate who could capitalize on widespread voter discontent?

The Democratic Scramble

It did not appear that way at first: The field of candidates vying for the nomination was congested, and no one at first really stood apart from the pack. It seemed a replay of the “Seven Dwarfs” race for the Democratic nomination in 1988. Many of the potential “big names,” such as Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, and Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri, had earlier declined to run because of Bush’s strength in the polls. The individuals who did contend included Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas; Governor L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia; former senators Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts and Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota; incumbent senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Tom Harkin of Iowa; California’s former governor Jerry Brown; Larry Agran, mayor of Irvine, California; Alabama tycoon Charles Woods; and Hollywood actor Tom Laughlin (of Billy Jack fame). Also mentioned as a favorite son candidate was Pennsylvania governor Robert Casey, Sr., who enjoyed the support of many conservative-moderate Democrats because of his pro-life stance.

By January of 1992, many of the also-rans had dropped out. One of the more interesting contests was run by the mercurial L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation’s first African American governor. However, his slightly right-of-center focus and his sloganizing as the “grandson of slaves” did not attract sufficient funding, or a large enough following, and, facing mounting criticism for neglecting affairs in his home state, he withdrew. Governor Clinton’s campaign appeared to be derailed when a singer-entertainer named Gennifer Flowers claimed that she had had a long-standing love affair with him and had even borne him a son. The damage was counteracted through an aggressive campaign of denial led by the governor’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and campaign manager James Carville.

The Iowa straw poll was not considered much of a test in this instance, since favorite son Tom Harkin was running and, as expected, easily prevailed. The New Hampshire primary saw a tough race between the respective number one and number two candidates, Tsongas and Clinton. Even after this second-place finish, it was Clinton who captured the headlines in a rousing speech in which he characterized himself as the “Comeback Kid.” Thereafter, Clinton’s unique brand of folksy charisma, which was to make him the most effective political operative of the 1990’s, got into high gear, and he scored one primary win after another. One candidate, however, Jerry Brown, remained doggedly in the race and at one stage—thanks to primary wins in Connecticut and Colorado—appeared to offer the only hope for stopping the Clinton bandwagon. However, Clinton overpowered Brown in the remaining primaries and handily won the Democratic nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York City with 3,373 delegate votes to 596 for Brown, 289 for Tsongas, and 10 for Casey. Clinton chose Al Gore as his vice presidential running mate.

Bush and Perot

The Republican picture was far less cloudy. Though it was evident from the start that George H. W. Bush would receive his party’s nomination, a substantial conservative insurgency led by columnist Pat Buchanan generated a good deal of media attention. When Buchanan attained 38 percent of the votes in the New Hampshire primary, the president was stunned into assuming a far more right-wing stance than he was comfortable with. Though Bush won handily by 2,166 delegates to Buchanan’s 18 at the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas, the openly conservative tone of the party platform and the president’s acceptance speech turned much of Bush’s moderate support away. Dan Quayle was renominated for the vice presidential slot.

For a long time, Texas businessman H. Ross Perot had been expressing concern over the rising federal budget deficit. After hinting for a long period of time that he would run for the presidency as an independent, he announced his candidacy and that, with his billions, he would finance his own campaign. After he entered the race, the polls had Perot as a 39 percent preference—higher than Clinton and Bush. Then, for reasons that have never quite been explained, he abruptly dropped out of the race on July 16, 1992, only to resurface on October 1. However, his momentum had been irreparably set back.

Early into the campaign, it became evident that Bush was fighting an uphill battle. Unease and economic discontent eroded his support, and the Clinton camp was quick to capitalize on the prevailing sentiment. “It’s the economy, stupid” became the campaign’s catchphrase. Clinton’s pledges for national health insurance and revival of the jobs market helped boost him in the polls. The one chance the Republicans had to regain the initiative perhaps laid in scoring points on national television during a series of four televised debates in October. The debates were disastrous for the Republicans. Bush was perceived as nervous, his attacks on Clinton’s character and patriotism for his part in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations were not well received by the viewers, and Clinton was generally conceded to have done best of the three candidates. Perot was polled as having performed best in the first debate but thereafter went into decline.

Election Results

As expected, Clinton won the presidency: He did so with 370 electoral votes to 168 for Bush. The popular vote tallied at 44,909,806 for Clinton, 39,104,550 for Bush, and 19,743,821 for Perot. Perot’s total equaled 18.9 percent of the popular vote and made the Texan the most successful third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive (“Bullmoose”) Party campaign of 1912.

In the congressional elections, Clinton’s coattails did not prove to be very effective; the Democratic Party lost nine seats in the House of Representatives but maintained a majority. The Senate saw no strengthening of the Democratic majority there. Notable casualties were Democrat Terry Sanford of North Carolina, Republican John Seymour of California, Republican Bob Kasten of Wisconsin, and Democrat Wyche Fowler, Jr., of Georgia. The elections brought an unprecedented twenty-four new women to the House and four new women to the Senate, marking 1992 as the “Year of the Woman.”

Impact

The 1992 election in effect marked the end of the vestiges of the twelve-year-old conservative Republican “Reagan Revolution” and the advent on the national scene of the new president, who was to become one of the most dominant and controversial political figures of the 1990’s. In another sense, it marked the passing of an era: George H. W. Bush was the last of the World War II generation to hold the presidency, and Bill Clinton the first of the baby boomers to assume that post.

Bibliography

Clinton, Bill. My Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Though written from an unavoidably slanted point of view, the rendition of events surrounding the 1992 elections in the former president’s autobiography reveals much about the ultimately victorious strategy of the “Comeback Kid.”

Germond, Jack W., and Jules Witcover. Mad as Hell: Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992. New York: Warner Books, 1993. Written in a lively style, this volume views the 1992 elections as something of a spontaneous electoral insurgency, in which anger and frustration over what was seen as “politics as usual” and a desire for a change of direction were at the crux of the popular mood of the period.

Goldman, Peter, et al. Quest for the Presidency: 1992. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1994. A most detailed account of the 1992 elections; at times heavy reading, but thorough.

Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of George Bush. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. A balanced work that examines whether the Bush administration was a failure and whether presidential miscommunication with the American public was a factor in its demise.

Hohenberg, John. The Bill Clinton Story: Winning the Presidency. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1994. A very pro-Clinton work that pinpoints the New Hampshire race as crucial to both major party campaigns. Easy to read and succinct, this is a good starting point regardless of its slant.

Matalin, Mary, and James Carville, with Peter Knobler. All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. The 1992 presidential election presented as a sort of running dialogue between significant operatives in the Republican and Democratic camps, respectively, in a rather intriguing juxtaposition.

Perot, Ross. United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country. New York: Hyperion, 1992. Perot’s political manifesto, which provides some clue as to why his movement gained such support.

Podhoretz, John. Hell of a Ride: Backstage at the White House Follies, 1989-1993. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. A scathing and humorous insider account of the Bush administration. Takes the position that the Democratic success in 1992 was more a matter of Bush losing than of Clinton actually winning.

Schell, Jonathan. Writing in Time: A Political Chronicle. Wakefield, R.I.: Moyer Bell, 1997. Columns from Newsday and The Atlantic Monthly picked by the author and written in a diary style, chronicling and commenting on election events.