If Bush didn’t run in 92, would Perot have run?
Of course, there were benefits to Bush losing in 92, such as the Republican Congress in 94. That would probably not have happened if a Republican other than Bush had won in 88 and again in 92. It took a disastrous Democrat President, coupled with a voting populace that had been won over by the conservative principles of Reagan, to sweep out the Democrats when they overreached. Even a popular Republican might not have been the impetus for that to happen, and a lot of good things in the 90s resulted from the Republican Congress. A lot of bad things resulted from Clinton, so it is a conundrum of "what ifs". Best we can say is that Bushes are disasters.