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HANSON: Remembering false gloom and doom of 1992 U.S. elections — and upcoming midterms

Despite overwrought claims about a recession or even a new Great Depression, in truth, the recession had ended in March 1991

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In 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidential election partly on the basis of his campaign’s false accusation that George H. W. Bush had overseen “the worst economic performance since the Great Depression.” Or so claimed Clinton’s running mate Al Gore.

HANSON: Remembering false gloom and doom of 1992 U.S. elections — and upcoming midterms Back to video

James Carville, chief campaign adviser to Clinton/Gore, amplified that message with the constant refrain: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

That strategy worked for three reasons.

First, third-party candidate Ross Perot siphoned off nearly 19 percent of the vote. Most of his supporters would otherwise likely have gone to Bush. Perot allowed Clinton to win with a mere 43% of the popular vote, in part by echoing the false narrative of a crushing Bush recession.

Second, the brilliant Bush campaign strategist Lee Atwater, who had virtually destroyed the Dukakis campaign in 1988 — remember the tank ad, the Boston Harbor ad, and the Willie Horton ad?–had died in 1991 at the age of 40 from a brain tumor.

Atwater’s canny but hardball 1988 tactics had turned off establishment Republicans. So in 1992, Republicans reverted to the notion of losing nobly rather than winning ugly and resumed unilaterally playing by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. The result of Democratic demagoguery was that the sober and competent elder Bush was branded a heartless elitist who had wrecked the economy and defended Kuwait only for “blood for oil.” And without Atwater, the Bush team utterly failed........

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