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“Dole only needed Perot’s support and supporters, and he would’ve beaten Clinton in almost all the states that Dubya carried in 2000.”

Had Dole gotten Perot’s votes in 1996, he would have won with exactly 270 EVs (with PA giving him the narrowest victory). If you gave the Dole + Perot 1996 % to Bush and subtracted the Buchanan 2000 % from it, and gave the Clinton 1996 % to Gore and subtracted the Nader 2000 % from it, you would be able to predict the 2000 presidential election results in just about every state (the only outliers IIRC being LA, AR and WV going to Bush and PA going to Gore).

But that hypothetical assumes that EVERY single Perot voter would switch to Bush with Perot out of the race. While I'm fairly certain Perot drew more GOP crossover votes than Dem crossover votes (in spite of his claims that he drew equally from both parties), but there are also a great deal of Perot voters that would have stayed home or voted for Clinton if Perot had not been in the race. If was to guess, I'd say that at best, only about 60-65% Perot voters would have switched to Dole with Perot out of the race.

Bottom line: Had it been a two way race between Clinton and Dole, I think Bob Dole still loses. He did do pretty good under the circumstances and made it closer than people expected, but even in a two-way race I don't think he defeats an incumbant President. He was too old, too dull(yes Dole has a wonderful dry sense of humor but I'm pretty sure the MSM worked to bury it during the election season), too establishment, and too tied to a safe, rural midwestern electorate that was in the GOP's pocket no matter what. His choice of Jack Kemp for V.P. seemed like an excellnt pick at first (in fact many Republicans had "dreamed" of "rising star" Kemp going on to the Presidency since the Reagan years), but he too, fizzled, and lost a debate to Albore of all people. GOP Senators from "safe" states don't win, and Dem Senators from "safe" states don't win either. I'm sure you can hypothetically come up with a way Kerry won in 2004 if he had carried Ohio and done some other things differently, but the bottom line is, both he and Dole still lost.

If Fred Thompson put an end to this pattern he'd be the first Presidential candidate since Warren Harding to do so. Harding, incidentially, had the advantage of running against Woodrow Wilson fatigue and spent the entire campaign season shoring up votes with his "return to Normalcy" platform of throwing out the Dems. He had the wind at his back because people were sick and tired of Democrats after 8 years of Woody. This year, the GOP has the opposite problem, we have to win in spite of "Bush fatigue" after 8 years of "Republican" control of the white house.