[Kenny Bunk]

Unlike all you young whippersnappers, I had the highly dubious honor of actually working (yes Virginia, for money) on Bush '92. (I was ignominiously fired and fairly well paid off at the behest of Mary Matalin, et al. when I suggested rather strongly, (a) that she was 'pillow-talking' with then fiancé Snakehead, and (b) that GHWB's strange refusal to use rock-solid anti-Clinton information was tantamount to his throwing in the towel ... which I shall believe to my final day on the planet (hopefully AFTER Fidel) he did. He had enough to sink BJ in that three-way debate with Ross Perot. Why didn't he use it? What the Hell did BJ have on HIM? The greatest political mystery IMNSVHO of the 20th C.

Anyway, my children, believe what you must about Ross Perot, but our internal numbers showed him taking votes from the Republican side of the equation, NOT from Billie-Boy.

GHWB? Wimp? Who knows? Just an AWFUL STUPID LACKADAISICAL CAMPAIGN ... maybe blame Matalin and Karl Rove. Among the many things I will never forgive Bush AND Rove for is the Rodney King Debacle in LA ... an ounce of toughness there just might have won him CA! If ever the peasants needed "a whiff of grape..." that was it. (Napoleon said that, FYI)

[fieldmarshaldj]

I was 18 in 1992 and didn’t want to fathom the country electing my odious Senator as VP and the creepy philanderer from across Big Muddy as President. You can obviously attest to the fact it was one of the worst-run campaigns for reelection. In hindsight, it’s almost as though he just didn’t want to win. If that was the case, he should’ve stepped down and had someone else step in (though probably not Quayle).

With respect to the statement of Perot taking more votes from Bush, the question is whether how many of them ultimately would’ve voted for him in a two-person race. I think enough would’ve not voted for him (as in not voting or just voting downballot), or voted for Bubba in a fit of pique for my above scenario to play out. IIRC, after Perot first pulled out (when it appeared he was in first place, and frankly, I don’t think he wanted to be President), that’s about when Clinton went ahead in the polls and never lost his lead.

As for the Rodney King debacle, I almost ended up in the middle of it. I was on a long cross-country business trip with my parents this time 20 years ago in California. We were in San Diego for about a week and went to Tijuana for the day (4/29/92). It wasn’t until late in the evening we learned what happened. If we left a day earlier, our next destination was Los Angeles, and we would’ve been driving right through the middle of the fun zone when the $hit hit the fan. Scary stuff.

I’d go so far as to say that from a cultural standpoint, the Rodney King thing was the “end” of the Reagan 1980s and marked the beginning of the national deterioration that has never really abated since (although I’d trace its actual start to around 1963-65, Reagan gave us a decade-long reprieve).