H. Ross Perot's Legacy: The Lessons From the 1992 Presidential Election

Self-made billionaire and political maverick H. Ross Perot passed away
this week, leaving many stories about his rather unique life, including
his historic 1992 presidential campaign in which he ran as an
independent against an incumbent Republican president (George H.W.
Bush) and the Democrat's nominee William J. Clinton. What made
his campaign historic was that he won 10% or more of the popular
vote in several states, siphoning off enough votes which many political
observers believed would have gone to President Bush, thus causing
Bush to lose the election and the presidency.

But further analysis is warranted here, for there is more than meets the
eye to this story. President Bush had astronomical favorability numbers
in the polls after winning election to the presidency. What caused his
tailspin and crash was the results of a deal which he entered into with
Congressional Democrats pertaining to the budget: The Dems wanted
to increase taxes in order to decrease the national budget deficit (HA!),
while President Bush wanted to hold to his word which he gave at the
1988 Republican National Convention ("Read my lips: no new taxes!).
During his negotiations with Congress in his efforts to obtain a budget
which would meet his requirements on taxes he faced stiff opposition
from both chambers of Congress, as they were under the Democrats'
control. Bush agreed to a compromise which would let the Democrats
raise several existing taxes in exchange for spending cuts favored by
the president. The upshot of it all was that the Dems both raised taxes
and increased spending, pulling an unconscionable "Gotcha!" The
economy went into a tailspin, causing President Bush's ratings to do
likewise as the country became engulfed in a resultant recession. And
the surest way to ruin a presidential re-election campaign is to have
an economic calamity; If Bush hadn't agreed to that fateful budget
bargain which even a four-year-old child would have known better
than to enter into, the economy would have remained robust and
with the successful prosecution of the first Gulf War, President Bush
would certainly have been handily re-elected, dispatching both Gov.
Clinton and the billionaire Perot, with the latter failing to gain 10 %
in any states; Perot would have just gone down in U.S. electoral
history as just another independent or third-party presidential
candidate gaining maybe barely a single percentage point of the
popular vote.

To his credit, it must be said, H. Ross Perot was a colorful,
charismatic, and sometimes rather fun candidate. He was also
quite good at pointing out, in fine detail, the economic pro-
blems our country faced, along with trade imbalances. But for
all his showmanship and attention to the tiniest details, Perot
was deficient in giving any solutions to said problems.
Perot was also an outsider (not necessarily a bad thing), and
in some ways may have paved the way for another outsider
to run for, and get elected to the presidency, namely the
present incumbent. And said incumbent ran against a nominee
from the political party whose outgoing incumbent was respon-
sible for a very sickly economy accompanied by sky-high
unemployment numbers, not to mention a health insurance
scheme which proved to be anything but affordable (The
Affordable Health Care Act).

In the end, H. Ross Perot's candidacy for the presidency was
an example in color, flash, audacity, and a bit of excitement.
But what helped Perot to be a factor in the race was a moment
of weakness in the incumbent's performance and the effects
in had on the country. Perot could have done even better if
he had given even a hint of an idea for a solution to each
or any of the problems that he so expertly outlined and
detailed. But Perot did leave us a lesson to be learned in the
workings of a presidential election and its vicissitudes, a
lesson which will be discussed by electoral historians for
generations to come. That lesson is: if an independent or
third-party presidential candidate is to have even a ghost
of a chance in a presidential election, he'd better have some
ideas for how to tackle the big and pressing problems,
especially those affecting the economy, to share when
in a debate. And if the incumbent is compromised by
having compromised away an important pledge not to
raise taxes, then that will be the combination of factors
that could boost said candidate.

Mr. Perot, rest in peace.


MEM