[Kenny Bunk]

If Perot had never entered the race and it was one-on-one, Bubba still would’ve won.

Disagree.

[BlackElk]

Kenny Bunk:

You may disagree but that is what the polls stated at the time. I have never seen an actual refutation just childlike, naive faith that RINOs are just, well, more popular than those awful reactionaries and baby-lovers and bitter clingers and gun nuts with the general electorate. All the Lamestreamers tell us so a thousand times a day so it just must be true, right??? Well, no it is not.

Bush the Elder pissed away Reagan's legacy in no time. His height of popularity was achieved by Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf and had little to do with the POTUS called, even by George Will, a lapdog with a thin tinny arf. With or without Perot, the paranoid nutcase with nonetheless a great grasp of the problems of globalization and a real dedication to American jobs, Bush was bound to get his ass kicked by Bubba who was a substantially more talented candidate despite his wife, his draft-dodging, his anti-Americanism, his personal radicalism and his unimaginably poor taste in Oval Office bimbos. As Poppy and Planned Barrenmhood Barbara would gladly tell you, gentlemen simply do not take advantage of the personal peccadilloes of others. Of course, Carville the Serpent is and was no gentlemen and never played by the rules. Also, Poppy is, of course, a devotee of the "New World Order," the one where the whole world is run by those who own it, sort of similar to the views of the Massachusetts mushball and well-funded serial liar.

[fieldmarshaldj]

This is not a new conclusion. GHW Bush's approvals were ghastly going into the '92 election. Clinton's weren't as low. I recall seeing data some time ago that showed in a one-on-one race that Clinton would win. Though obviously a number of the Perot voters cast votes for Bush in 1988, many of them were angry and in a one-on-one situation, I believe more than half would've broken for Clinton. In fact, this is what I surmise what it would've looked like (note that blue is GOP & red is Democrat, the right colors)... Absent Perot, Clinton may have scored a landslide in the EC, 387 to 151. Even giving Bush, Sr. FL, AZ & CO, it wouldn't have mattered. Basically, it would've been effectively the states Dole carried in 1996 (except Colorado). Almost any way you slice it, I can't see any scenario given the dynamics of the time that would've had Bush carry 1992 (and add in even that his candidacy was in such disarray -- it was a dreadful mess, and hadn't recovered from the death of Lee Atwater. Total amateur hour stuff). This even makes one wonder if Bush (and not Reagan) had been the nominee in 1980 if he could've even beaten Carter. He might've not been able to.