Who were the perceived 5 most likely nexts as guessed from Mays of past re-election years?
I'll go with this:
92
1.Perot
2.Clinton
3.Cuomo
4.Quayle
5.Dole
Ha ha, good point on Perot's polling lead as of May 1992. I was just a geeky kid back then, who was aware of Perot's polling lead (I remember the newspaper headline, announcing that he'd taken the lead in the national polls), but wouldn't have been politically astute enough to know if this was expected to be a transient phenomenon or not. I don't remember to what extent political experts were suggesting that it was just a fluke, and Perot's numbers would inevitably deflate, and to what extent they thought he might actually win. I do remember that there was a lot of talk about the possibility of a deadlocked electoral college. Anyway, I think this ranking as actually pretty good.
I highly doubt Quayle would be as high as #4. His public image was such that he was regarded as being way too dumb to ever win a national election. And the fact that he passed on running in 1996 suggested that he knew that. I don't think there was much expectation that he'd run in 2000. I would put Alexander at #4, though I don't know who to put at #5. Maybe Colin Powell. There was buzz about him running in 1996, though he opted out in the end (supposedly because of family considerations). Even if he was a longshot to ever run, he was so popular, that he would have had a good chance of winning if he did run.
Alternatively, I would think that it might be one of the many then-popular Rust Belt Republican governors (Edgar, Engler, Thompson, Ridge, Voinovich), though I guess none of them stood out enough from the field, so maybe you have to go back to Powell.
I agree with #1 and probably #2, but I did not really think that Giuliani was that likely to ever run for prez back in 2004 (or that he'd get very far if he did), because of his positions on social issues. I would have put McCain as #3, and maybe Bill Frist as either 4 or 5, with Edwards in the remaining slot.
