All the racket being made by clearly unqualified progressive candidates is but short term noise from non-students of history who, it would appear are unfamiliar with the wording in the Constitution. I carry a copy of the Cato Institute’s little Constitution with me everywhere I go, often accompanied by a compound interest table. In 1992 Bill Clinton won the presidency with a plurality of the vote. Despite his powerful message, Ross Perot pulled 19% of the popular vote. The Encyclopedia Britannica gives readers a synopsis of the presidential race that year:
United States presidential election of 1992, American presidential election held on Nov. 3, 1992, in which Democrat Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican Pres. George Bush. Independent candidate Ross Perot secured nearly 19 percent of the vote—the highest percentage of any third-party candidate in a U.S. presidential election in 80 years.
Bush faced a stiff early challenge from conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. At the Republican National Convention in 1988, Bush had pledged to the delegates that he would resist any tax increases, giving his famous “read my lips” pledge. But in 1990, in an attempt to cope with a soaring budget deficit, Bush reneged on that primary pledge. Despite the challenge, Bush went on to win the Republican nomination.
Clinton, on the strength of his middle-of-the-road approach, his apparent sympathy for the concerns of ordinary Americans (his statement “I feel your pain” became a well-known phrase), and his personal warmth, ultimately was able to defeat Bush and Perot, winning 43 percent of the vote to Bush’s 37.4 percent and Perot’s 18.9 percent. In the electoral college, Clinton’s victory was more dramatic: he captured 370 electoral votes to Bush’s 168, thus ending 12 years of Republican control of the presidency.
Results of the 1992 election
The results of the 1992 U.S. presidential election are provided in the table.
American presidential election, 1992 presidential candidate political party electoral votes popular votes Source: Federal Election Commission. Bill Clinton Democratic 370 44,909,889 George Bush Republican 168 39,104,545 Ross Perot Independent 19,742,267
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