Changes

</ref> Worse, he was held responsible by conservative voters for reneging on his pledge, 'Read my lips - no new taxes'. He agreed to a major tax hike. More moderate and less charismatic than Reagan, Bush had no personal following could do little to find an issue to energize his party or the American people.  In the debates he stressed the idea of the American people giving him a Republican Congress to work with, which at the time seemed out of touch as the Democrats enjoyed large leads in both the House and the Senate.  His campaign never caught fire.  Attempts to paint Clinton as a tax-and-spend liberal governor with no foreign policy experience didn't resonate. Bush never found a way to deal with Perot.

</ref> Worse, he was held responsible by conservative voters for reneging on his pledge, 'Read my lips - no new taxes'. He agreed to a major tax hike. More moderate and less charismatic than Reagan, Bush had no personal following could do little to find an issue to energize his party or the American people.  In the debates he stressed the idea of the American people giving him a Republican Congress to work with, which at the time seemed out of touch as the Democrats enjoyed large leads in both the House and the Senate.  His campaign never caught fire.  Attempts to paint Clinton as a tax-and-spend liberal governor with no foreign policy experience didn't resonate. Bush never found a way to deal with Perot.

In Ross Perot’s surprisingly strong third-party campaign he ran as a crusading expert--a successful businessman--who was qualified to fix the economy and the huge federal budget deficits. He damaged the Bush campaign by asserting that the economy was worse then it was and giving disenchanted voters who didn't want to support Clinton a protest vote.

In Ross Perot’s surprisingly strong third-party campaign he ran as a crusading expert--a successful businessman--who was qualified to fix the economy and the huge federal budget deficits. Perot argued that defits were a kind of corruption, and represented a failure that could no longer be tolerated. He damaged the Bush campaign by asserting that the economy was worse then it was and giving disenchanted voters who didn't want to support Clinton a protest vote.

==Results==

==Results==

<ref>  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260688,00.html </ref>

<ref>  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260688,00.html </ref>

==Analysis==

==Analysis==

The 1992 election was unique for a number of reasons: a perception that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed incumbent President Bush; a strong third-party candidate in Perot; and, perhaps most importantly, Bill Clinton's ability to unite not only the Democratic Party, but a number of heterogeneous coalitions, much as Franklin Roosevelt, also a consummate politician, did in the [[New Deal Coalition]] after 1932.<ref> Seymour Martin Lipset, "The Significance of the 1992 Election." ''PS: Political Science & Politics'' 1993 26(1): 7-16. 1049-0965 </ref>

The 1992 election was unique for a number of reasons: a perception that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed incumbent President Bush; a strong third-party candidate in Perot who won over alienated conservatives by arguing 12 years of Republican rule had only raised the deficit; and, perhaps most importantly, Bill Clinton's ability to unite not only the Democratic Party, but a number of heterogeneous coalitions, much as Franklin Roosevelt, also a consummate politician, did in the [[New Deal Coalition]] after 1932.<ref> Seymour Martin Lipset, "The Significance of the 1992 Election." ''PS: Political Science & Politics'' 1993 26(1): 7-16. 1049-0965 </ref>

==Further reading==

==Further reading==