Even though Donald Trump has signed the GOP loyalty oath, comparisons of Trump to third party candidates still come up, mainly because it took a lot to get him to sign it. Rand Paul likened him a few days ago once again to Perot. Also, whenever Bill or Hillary is either involved in a campaign, their own or others, a popular myth, both used on the right and amazingly, the left too, rears its ugly, baseless head.
Rarely is a popular myth so in blatant contradiction of easily accessible facts and data. This myth though is also used as a smear against both the Clintons and the Democratic Party. That is the myth that Ross Perot "elected" Clinton, "de-elected" Bush Sr. from a second term, etc. The myth does have many uses. In a democracy though, history must not be falsified or rewritten so blatantly. If it can, then anything can be. Here are the data to show the Perot-lie for what it is.
1. Exit polls from election night 1992, a better method than just saying what one wants to believe, show that Clinton would have won over 50% of the vote absent Perot, and thus in more than 9 in 10 trials, the election.
2. George H.W. Bush's approval ratings in 1992 rivaled Jimmy Carter's in 1980. Both in their election years were not only lower than Reagan 84 and Clinton 96, but lower than Bush 04 and Obama 12. You don't win with under 40% and below approvals. 40% is where LBJ was in 1968 when HHH (his VP and stand-in) lost to Nixon.
3. The GOP (and the anti-Clinton fringe left) also leave out that when Perot was not in the race, which was from July to the start of October 1992, Bush Sr. still polled near the 37% that approved of his performance and that he won in the end. Nate Silver, a data and stats expert, also disagrees with the idea that Perot cost Bush tho he does believe he hurt Clinton.
4. Ross Perot was not a conservative like Nader was a liberal or Trump is running as a conservative. Perot was pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and against supply-side economics.
5. With regard to the electoral college, Bush would have needed to win nearly every state he lost by less than 5% to win 270. Entirely implausible given his lagging poll numbers that year. If you just change WI (a Dukakis '88 state) on that map, or NJ (blue since '92), Clinton STILL wins. Also, 1992 was clearly the start of a 2 decade trend in which NJ, CT, ME, NH, MI, CA, DE, MD, VT, and IL showed themselves to be entirely willing to vote Dem.
6. For Bush to have won 50% of the popular vote (and thus probably the election), assuming ALL Perot voters still would have voted in his absense, he would have needed to win 66.367% of Perot vote (12.55 out of 18.91%). Do the math. If the >24% of Perot who told the exit polls they'd have stayed home indeed had abstained in his absence, then he needs 71.5% of the remaining Perot voters to get to 50%. Doesn't happen with sub-40% approvals.
7. When the data becomes too much for conservatives to handle, they say "Perot greatly weakened Bush" as if Perot was a cause of Bush's problem. That goes against history; by February, before Perot announced on the 22nd of that month in 1992, Bush had fallen hard and fast in approvals (cited above) to barely 40%. Other elections which featured an incumbent that unpopular, 1968 and 1980, also had 3rd party candidates with strong showings. Neither Wallace or Anderson changed the outcome of their elections, even tho the losing sides of those elections tried to argue they did (Carter still believes Anderson was a major cause of his 1980 loss). A strong 3rd party candidate is a symptom of looming defeat, as are =< 40% approvals.
The smear against Bill that "he only won because of a 3rd party spoiler" was not only factually incorrect, but rather damaging to his presidency and legacy. Without a press-validated mandate, health care reform was likely harder back then than it would've been in the absence of Perot's vote stealing . It also gave the Republicans cover to slime him in the press as well as the media to slime Clinton too with the lies of "Whitewater," and other Bullshit-"gates" because he didn't "win a majority." They've also pushed hard-right policies because the Perot-lie is the impetus to believe this country is to the "right." The Perot lie was also used against Hillary in 2008 and can even be found on places on our side of the fence somehow, probably due to the self-flaggelating tendencies of progressives at times. The Perot myth helped the GOP bring about Monica, which brought about W. Bush.
Here's a cool semantic game; "relative majority" is another name for "plurality," so Bill Clinton actually did win "a majority" twice. The >50% majority is also known as an "absolute majority," which Perot robbed Clinton of. But hey, at least Clinton got the most votes. Nixon and JFK also came to office with relative majorities. Clinton, like Nixon, Obama, Reagan, Eisenhower, etc. all won the highest number of votes (more than any other candidate) twice. No Bush has ever done that, nor is one likely. George W. Bush joins fellow Republicans Ben Harrison in 1888 and Rutherford Hayes in 1876 who won less than a plurality (relative majority), meaning only Republicans have ever been elected against the will of the people.
Also, 1992 is an election with little parallel in recent history with regards to impact. It was absolutely a realigning election to which every Democrat who has won since owes a debt, whoever wins the 2016 nod, and every Democrat who didn't win still ought to thank for keeping their losses from being landslide losses in the molds of George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis. Kerry and Gore were not very media savvy at all as Obama and Clinton were, but were very gaffe prone. From 1968-1988, IL, CA, NJ, VT, and NH went Republican 6 out of 6 times, MI, NM, DE, CT, ME 5 out of 6 times, PA, ME, MD 4 out of 6 times. Those states alone add up to 161 EVS. All of them except NH have voted Dem 6 for 6 times since 1992 and comprise this "blue wall" that exists now. Before from 1968-1988, the GOP averaged over 400 electoral votes. Since Bill Clinton came along, they average 210, meaning on average they lose. No wonder why the GOP really hates the Clintons. This is why Clinton reformed welfare and was tough on crime. Even for some of the downsides to that, it beat and still beats more GOP presidents any day.
Clinton also did for our party in 1992 what Nixon did for his in 1968. In 1968, Nixon got working class whites to vote against their economic interests in the name of social issues, and brought the south to the GOP permanently. In 1992, Bill Clinton got wealthy suburbanites to vote against their economic interests in the name of being against the far-right social platform Pat Buchanan and Dan Quayle were pushing and got the northeast and west coast to vote Dem permanently. Nonetheless, Nixon worked within the New Deal paradigm and got America ready for the true believer, Reagan. Clinton worked within the Reagan Revolution paradigm and got America ready for Obama. Both 1968 and 1992 races had third party candidates who got accused of "spoiling."
Its time to recognize history as it was, not merely as a vehicle for a narrative or ideological goal. Or an excuse for a wing or a party that lost. Its also why whoever gets the Democratic nomination in 2016 ( I think Hillary will get it), our party and country cannot afford the political turmoil that comes if any third party runs and makes the winner come out with less than 50% of the vote. Even if Trump would take more from Bush than Hillary, polls have shown Hillary would still win, as she would in most non-Quinnipiac polls against Bush.