The Perot votes gave us Clinton.
George H.W. Bush's policy reversals---read his lips, anyone?---gave us Clinton. Even if you accept the Perot votes as merely, and mostly, a direct result of reading President Lips, remember always that the only votes that counted for Droopy-Drawers were the votes he got. The votes for Perot were merely votes for Perot. Nothing more, nothing less. (And who's to say how many of those who did vote for Perot would have voted a) for H.W. Lips; b) for Clinton, considering H. Ross Peroxide wasn't exactly shy about going to or praising the government teat when it suited him; or, c) for someone else; or, for nobody, period?)
We would have done better without a Clinton.For the first half of his first term, quite right---especially between Droopy-Drawers's taxes and the Waco siege.
For the second half of his first term, not quite, not with a Republican Capitol Hill sweep actually pincing him into a balanced budget and a surplus among other things . . . which, unfortunately, the Republican'ts couldn't wait to undo, as soon as feasible, at every damn last three-card monte stand in town, including but not limited to answering Clinton's budget proposals with budgets proposals calling for even more spending than Droopy-Drawers himself called for.
Did I mention the real reason for the loss of Republican House seats in 1998? It wasn't the impeachment---it was the budget issue. Led by Newtie Gingrich himself, trying to cram down the House throat a bloated budget and arguing on its behalf that you young whippersnapping kids with all that balanced-budget/spending-cut yammering just didn't get the Big Picture . . . and yet, every House member who voted against that bloat got re-elected, some in landslides, while most of the ones who lost their seats just so happened to have voted for the budget bloat . . . (It was enought to make you appreciate even further George F. Will's old wisecrack, "Once upon a time, Gingrich made eloquent arguments on behalf of term limits. Now he has become an eloquent argument on behalf of term limits.")
Not to mention how the balls were dropped on Clinton's impeachment. (It became conservative when to let a sitting president get away with perjury, suborning perjury, or obstructing justice, on whatever the actual or alleged original act, as the Republican Senate allowed? It became conservative when to argue---as God only knows Democrats did, but God help us some Republicans actually did, too---that it wasn't "right" to impeach a sitting president because nobody voted for the vice president to take the gig, after all, it isn't fair to "the people" to shove down their throats a president they didn't vote for, never mind that when you vote for a president you are giving, concurrently, your approval to his running mate on all implied counts including the prospect that said running mate might have to assume the top job in the event the president becomes incapacitated, impeached, or interred . . .)
p.s. Who were the geniuses who thought Bob Dole was the best man to square off against Droopy-Drawers in 1996 because it was, well, his time? Once Dole became the nominee Clinton could have run on a parking ticket and been re-elected by a small landslide . . .
Bill and Hillary did much more damage than a Bush 2nd term IMO and because of it we today still have Madame Hillary wreaking havoc and she will not let go of the power voters gave her and her husband.I'm no fan of Droopy or Hilarious Rodent Clinton, but they weren't the ones who put the truth into the title of this book that should have been required reading for anyone stepping into the primary booths in 2008:
In that book, by the way, will one find splendid arguments against Newt Gingrich as a conservative icon of any kind, never mind whether we should feel all that comfortable with a Gingrich Administration . . .