It does. There’s 3rd party candidates all the time. The only thing really different about Perot is had enough cash to throw around to actually break the fog and get a somewhat serious vote count.
The CPD was just dealing with reality. Perot was popular enough they knew the debates would be thought of as a joke (they are a joke, but that’s for another day) if they didn’t include him.
Incumbents have certain advantages from being in power. Of course the two largest sources of incumbents in America are the House and State Legislatures. And they’re protected by gerrymandering. When you throw them out and only pay attention to offices that don’t have rigged voting bases incumbent advantage shrinks, still over 50% but not nearly as insane.
Clinton won with less than 50% because a strong 3rd party candidate syphoned a lot of the mushy middle. Historically sitting VPs don’t win. The middle doesn’t like allies of incumbents when the incumbent isn’t running. It’s why the party of the sitting president usually loses seats in midterms. There’s a reason Bush was the only the 2nd sitting VP to win the office in the ticket era. And both only went 1 term. Very popular outbound presidents let the VP run on “4 more years” and 4 years later the voters said “you ain’t him”.
Nobody would want me as a campaign manager. I’d tell them whether or not they were going to win, that there was little they could do about it and move on.
I think you are ignoring the reality that Perot was a conservative.
He was a Texas business entrepreneur. He thought Bush to be overly cooperative with the political establishment. That is a proto Trump candidate.
he did not evenly split the vote. Perot voters would have voted Republican but decided to try for a third party.
CPD is a massive control. The debates are watched by 50-100 million people. It was a huge factor.