1992: THE PEROT FACTOR

	VS
B.Clinton 43 %		G.Bush

It could have been a simple election, as far as American elections go. But in the early spring of 1992, billionaire businessman and political oddity Ross Perot, who gained notoriety with the successful rescue of two of his own employees from the hands of Iranian hostage takers in 1978, offhandedly mentioned on a television talk show that he would run for president if volunteers could get his name on the ballot in 50 states. The timing couldn't have been better and the disenchanted took the ball and ran. His homegrown idioms, especially his graphic depiction of the decline of the American economy as a "sucking sound," were celebrated by comics across the country even as the incumbent, President George Bush, was enjoying great public support with the end of the Cold War and the successful Gulf War attack on Iraq.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Governor William Jefferson Clinton managed to secure the Democratic nomination despite ceaseless press reports regarding his alleged 12-year affair with lounge singer Gennifer Flowers, his "I never inhaled" response to questions about smoking pot, and charges of draft-dodging.

At first, the three men were in a virtual dead heat, until Perot dropped out of the race. From there on out, even as Perot jumped back into the race again just a month before the election, Clinton ran a smart campaign that focused on domestic issues. Bush's campaign tried attacking Clinton's character but misread public sentiment and lost public support by failing to talk about how Bush would make everyday life better in America. Clinton, at first thought to be in the race as only a trial run, managed a landslide win of the electoral votes, 370 to Bush's 168, even though he captured only a slim majority of the popular vote.

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