A history course, taught in one short sentence
W
riting in Commentary, John Steele Gordon notes the passing last week of Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire, philanthropist, and two-time candidate for president, in 1992 and 1996.
Perot ran on a third-party ticket, and was the most successful such candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. In 1992, the nearly 19 percent of the popular vote he garnered was enough to ensure that no candidate won a majority, and Bill Clinton was elected with a mere 43 percent. Indeed, neither Clinton nor George H. W. Bush won a majority of any state other than Arkansas, where native son Clinton received 53 percent.
With this history as background, Gordon observes that
we will never know for sure, but Perot’s quixotic campaign probably deeply affected American history. It is not hard to see how many of Perot’s voters in states won by Clinton would have gone to Bush if Perot hadn’t run, tipping those states to the incumbent president. For instance, Georgia was carried by Clinton 1,008,966 to 995,252.
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