And that could have been true, had the GOP not rolled over and nominated Dole.
Atleast 3 things happened that would have made it hard to defeat Clinton in 1996 even with a good candidate:
Oklahoma City, he blamed conservatives and government critics and it worked
Greenspan kept interest rates low enough that the Clinton tax hikes didn't cripple the economy
The Clinton war room did a great job demonizing Dole, turning him into Newt. We should all have been so lucky for this to have been true.
In other words, the Clinton war room did a fantastic job taking the events that happened and spinning them in their favor, with the help of their willing accomplices in the press. They could do that again, because they did it before.