>I’m reminded of the 1992 Presidential Election. Ross Perot, seeing widespread dissatisfaction with George Bush I, entered the race as a common sense conservative. He got 18.9% of the popular vote against Bush, from people who wanted to punish Bush for violating his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.
The net result was that Bill Clinton won in an electoral landslide, while getting just 43% of the popular vote.
The lesson to learn here: STOP GIVING US RINO CANDIDATES OR YOU WILL LOSE TO A DEMOCRAT.
Let's look at the WHOLE story, however.
In June and early July 1992, Perot was consistently polling in the low 40s, meaning he was leading.
Then he started to go crazy, making all kinds of accusations against the other candidates (esp. Bush I). Additionally, he made a number of tactical errors in his campaign that were the result of his trying to micromanage everything and not letting his campaign managers do their job. As well, he made an extremely poor choice in his VP running mate (nothing against Admiral Stockwell, but he did come off as being out to lunch, esp. in debates) that turned a lot of folks off. Then, he ended up dropping out of the race while accusing Bush and the Republicans of plotting to disrupt his daughter's wedding. In short, Perot more or less blew a fuse and went crazy around mid-to-late July.
He then got back into the race in early October, after having pulled all of these stunts and basically revealing himself to be a whackjob to the country.
So THIS is the context for Perot's 19% finish.
Really, the take home message is not that Perot only got 19%, but that he actually still managed to get 19%, despite it all.
Chances are, if he'd stayed in the race and not started seeing little green men on his front lawn, history books would probably be talking about President Perot (I-TX, 1993-2001).