[WhiskeyPapa]

Bush lost for two reasons in 1992. (1) Bill Clinton was able to manufacture the perception that the economy was still bad and blame it on Bush even though it had been on the rise for a year, and (2) Ross Perot.

Read my lips.

Those are two of the reasons.

It bears repeating that Bush I was a foreign policy "expert". He had been ambassador to China and head of the CIA. His major expertise was in foreign policy. He was in way over his head and uncomfortable with the economy. I'm one of those who thinks the president can't control the economy that much any way. There was a big expansion under Reagan (another guy shot full of luck), it was only natural that there be a slow down. It didn't much help Bush I to look so clueless though.

But on foreign policy -- he'd been immersed in that, and the president DOES have a lot of power and leeway to conduct foreign policy -- and he blew it, plain and simple when it comes to Iraq.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

It bears repeating that Bush I was a foreign policy "expert". He had been ambassador to China and head of the CIA. His major expertise was in foreign policy.

Yes Walt. And practically everybody out there save a few left wing wackos and YOU believes that foreign policy was the strength of the Bush administration.

There was a big expansion under Reagan (another guy shot full of luck), it was only natural that there be a slow down.

Not really. Methinks it had more to do with a combination of the capital gains rollback two sessions earlier, the failure to abide by Gramm-Rudman, and various economic price factors elsewhere. Either way it was a very mild recession that was long over before Bill Clinton came along. Clinton simply pretended it was still there a year after the fact and lied his way into office on the false claim that it was.