Why did Clinton win the Democratic primaries in 1992?

[Higgins]

I was only 2 in November 1992. For people who voted that year, why did Clinton manage to nab the nomination? And are there any other contenders who would've performed better against HW Bush in the fall?

[SingingAnalyst]

I was only 2 in November 1992. For people who voted that year, why did Clinton manage to nab the nomination? And are there any other contenders who would've performed better against HW Bush in the fall?

I suspect because he wanted it so badly, and knew how to connect with common people. He had had experience losing an election (for AR governor in 1980) and apparently learned from it. He correctly felt the national mood, and was a great communicator, possibly on a par with Ronald Reagan (and the most skilled politician of our time, IMHO).

Sidenote: I didn't vote for him.

[nclib]

I recall hearing about how since HW Bush was so popular in 1991, the presumed stronger candidates (IIRC Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley) backed out, so Clinton had an opening and took advantage of how unpopular HW Bush ended up in November 1992.

[This is Eharding, guys]

Not too different from why HRC won the Democratic primaries in 2016: strong support from Blacks and White Southerners.

[Pollster]

This was the first election in which I was professionally working in politics, albeit not yet at the federal level (let alone presidential) and I have a lot of great memories from this cycle.

A lot of Clinton winning the nomination was luck - as somebody else pointed out many heavy-hitter candidates (particularly Mario Cuomo, who in hindsight was probably a weaker GE candidate than thought at the time) sat the race out because of Bush's popularity. This presumption ignored a lot of signs - the difficulty of one party winning four straight elections, the modest gains made by Dems in 1990 despite Bush's popularity (not yet at his Gulf War peak but solidly above water) and most of all the source of Bush's popularity being a war which would have been long-over by election day.

Clinton was also lucky to have been attacked as early in the primary as he was. His dirt coming up as early as it did actually increased his visibility and helped his name recognition, and as soon as he was able to neutralize the attacks, he reverted back to the message and got his platform out there. Additionally, this effectively neutralized a lot of the attacks for the general election.

He learned a lot from Dukakis' defeat as well - used the optics of winning election after election in his home state of Arkansas to distance himself from the "coastal elites" and make himself look like a natural winner in parts of the country that Dukakis struggled in.

A largely overlooked aspect of the primary that I can not stress enough as key to Clinton's victory was Tom Harkin's candidacy. Harkin's presence in the race removed Iowa from contention and allowed Clinton to focus on NH and Southern voters which as everyone knows famously buoyed his candidacy.

Lastly, this doesn't have much to do with the primary, but Bush's reelection was imperiled early on by Lee Atwater's death in 1991. Atwater essentially masterminded Bush's 1988 victory, and the Bush reelection campaign would have been significantly less incompetent if Atwater was running it. Winning would have still been an uphill battle, but Atwater probably could've improved Bush's PV number significantly and certainly would have foreseen the threat of Perot and neutralized him early on.

[BlueDogDemocrat]

I recall hearing about how since HW Bush was so popular in 1991, the presumed stronger candidates (IIRC Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley) backed out, so Clinton had an opening and took advantage of how unpopular HW Bush ended up in November 1992.

I believe it was this. Bush had a high approval rating after the war so many democrats didn't want to ruin their careers by running against him and possibly loosing in a landslide.

[dw93]

This was the first election in which I was professionally working in politics, albeit not yet at the federal level (let alone presidential) and I have a lot of great memories from this cycle.

A lot of Clinton winning the nomination was luck - as somebody else pointed out many heavy-hitter candidates (particularly Mario Cuomo, who in hindsight was probably a weaker GE candidate than thought at the time) sat the race out because of Bush's popularity. This presumption ignored a lot of signs - the difficulty of one party winning four straight elections, the modest gains made by Dems in 1990 despite Bush's popularity (not yet at his Gulf War peak but solidly above water) and most of all the source of Bush's popularity being a war which would have been long-over by election day.

Clinton was also lucky to have been attacked as early in the primary as he was. His dirt coming up as early as it did actually increased his visibility and helped his name recognition, and as soon as he was able to neutralize the attacks, he reverted back to the message and got his platform out there. Additionally, this effectively neutralized a lot of the attacks for the general election.

He learned a lot from Dukakis' defeat as well - used the optics of winning election after election in his home state of Arkansas to distance himself from the "coastal elites" and make himself look like a natural winner in parts of the country that Dukakis struggled in.

A largely overlooked aspect of the primary that I can not stress enough as key to Clinton's victory was Tom Harkin's candidacy. Harkin's presence in the race removed Iowa from contention and allowed Clinton to focus on NH and Southern voters which as everyone knows famously buoyed his candidacy.

Lastly, this doesn't have much to do with the primary, but Bush's reelection was imperiled early on by Lee Atwater's death in 1991. Atwater essentially masterminded Bush's 1988 victory, and the Bush reelection campaign would have been significantly less incompetent if Atwater was running it. Winning would have still been an uphill battle, but Atwater probably could've improved Bush's PV number significantly and certainly would have foreseen the threat of Perot and neutralized him early on.

People never seem to mention this. Atwater also realized Clinton was a threat to Bush's re election before anyone else did.

[136or142]

Sam Nunn was the other major Democrat that didn't run in 1992 along with Bill Bradley and Mario Cuomo.

I was a 21 year old Canadian at the time and I was hoping another politician from Arkansas would run: Senator Dale Bumpers.


As others have written here, Bill Clinton survived his major early scandals by running against a weak field. The person considered to be the frontrunner by the media at any rate (Bill Clinton was considered the second most likely to win the Democratic nomination) was former Nebraska Governor Bob Kerrey.  Kerrey was regarded as being somewhat similar to Bill Clinton in terms of being a 'New Democrat' (not in the Canadian sense but in the U.S sense that he wasn't a New Deal liberal Democrat but was a centrist Democrat) but was not seen to have the ethical baggage of Bill Clinton.  

But, Bob Kerrey was a quirky person (for example, he was a one term Nebraska governor because he decided to not seek reelection even though he had a 65% or so approval rating and, if I recall correctly, when he won the Nebraska governorship at the start of his victory speech, he (a Vietnam veteran) started singing 'And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda.)

So, Bob Kerrey turned his Presidential campaign over to professional advisers and they told him to run against free trade in New Hampshire even though he was a free trade supporter and even though free trade was relatively popular in New Hampshire and after Bill Clinton ran a pro free trade advertisement in New Hampshire that basically said "anybody who opposes free trade doesn't believe America can compete and anybody who believes that is anti-American" and after Kerrey saw that ad  his campaigning became even more diffident than it had been, and he essentially quit campaigning.

After that, Clinton's major opponent was Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas.  Tsongas was the favored candidate of the Washington media because he claimed to be telling 'hard truths' about the government and the need to cut government spending.  This contrasted with Bill Clinton whose 'middle class tax cut' prompted Tsongas to refer to Clinton as the 'pander bear.'  If I recall correctly, Clinton responded by running against Tsongas as the 'candidate of the elite media' (not a direct quote of anything, I don't think Clinton specifically referred to the media as 'elite') who don't understand the challenges that average Americans are facing and, so, don't see how the government spending helps their lives.  

I believe what did Tsongas in though is that as a U.S Senator from Massachusetts running four years after the Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis ran a terrible Presidential campaign, Tsongas simply could not convince major donors that he could win the Presidency, and Bill Clinton who had built up his national 'friends of Bill' donor list for years (Bill Clinton had been chair of the National Governor's Association) as well as relying on donations from major corporations from Arkansas that his primary competitors didn't realize were based in Arkansas (Tyson Chicken, Wall-Mart and a couple others)  and Bill Clinton basically outspent Paul Tsongas into the ground.

Finally, Bill Clinton's last major challenger was the surprisingly durable campaign of then former California governor Jerry Brown.  This  wasn't the Jerry Brown of today or even the Jerry Brown who had been governor until 1982 (and subsequently lost a race for the U.S Senate) but was a holier than though campaign finance reform advocate (which is fine) but was also a rather weird loony conspiracy theorist (JFK film director Oliver Stone was a major supporter of his.)  

I forget exactly what happened but Bill Clinton ultimately ended Jerry Brown as a serious competitor by defeating him in the, I believe, California primary.

[Phony Moderate]

It was both a weak and small field and so his personality was able to stand out.

Had the 2016 GOP field been as small as the 1992 Dem field then Clinton's fellow Arkansan, Mike Huckabee (who also has a big personality), might have made more inroads.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

This was the first election in which I was professionally working in politics, albeit not yet at the federal level (let alone presidential) and I have a lot of great memories from this cycle.

A lot of Clinton winning the nomination was luck - as somebody else pointed out many heavy-hitter candidates (particularly Mario Cuomo, who in hindsight was probably a weaker GE candidate than thought at the time) sat the race out because of Bush's popularity. This presumption ignored a lot of signs - the difficulty of one party winning four straight elections, the modest gains made by Dems in 1990 despite Bush's popularity (not yet at his Gulf War peak but solidly above water) and most of all the source of Bush's popularity being a war which would have been long-over by election day.

Clinton was also lucky to have been attacked as early in the primary as he was. His dirt coming up as early as it did actually increased his visibility and helped his name recognition, and as soon as he was able to neutralize the attacks, he reverted back to the message and got his platform out there. Additionally, this effectively neutralized a lot of the attacks for the general election.

He learned a lot from Dukakis' defeat as well - used the optics of winning election after election in his home state of Arkansas to distance himself from the "coastal elites" and make himself look like a natural winner in parts of the country that Dukakis struggled in.

A largely overlooked aspect of the primary that I can not stress enough as key to Clinton's victory was Tom Harkin's candidacy. Harkin's presence in the race removed Iowa from contention and allowed Clinton to focus on NH and Southern voters which as everyone knows famously buoyed his candidacy.

Lastly, this doesn't have much to do with the primary, but Bush's reelection was imperiled early on by Lee Atwater's death in 1991. Atwater essentially masterminded Bush's 1988 victory, and the Bush reelection campaign would have been significantly less incompetent if Atwater was running it. Winning would have still been an uphill battle, but Atwater probably could've improved Bush's PV number significantly and certainly would have foreseen the threat of Perot and neutralized him early on.

People never seem to mention this. Atwater also realized Clinton was a threat to Bush's re election before anyone else did.

That SOB Lee Atwater also targeted Clinton in the 1990 AR gubernatorial race. Lee Atwater helped recruit Sheffield Nelson to run. Clinton said that race was the toughest and nastiest campaign he was in, even worse than in 1980.