How Well Could Powell Have Done in '96?
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Powell is the rare Republican who would stand a chance against Bill Clinton in 1996. In addition to Dole voters he'd probably win some of Clinton's voters as well. If there was a candidate Clinton was worried about-Powell was that candidate.
The problem is.
A. He was never going to run.
B. If he did conservatives would never let someone as moderate as Powell be the nominee.
Powell is as close to a perfect national election candidate as the Republicans have in 1996. But that doesn't mean the primary audience would have embraced him.
I think the election might be much closer than 1996 had any right to be. But unless Powell's candidacy is combined with significant Clinton failures in 1993 that did not occur historically-Clinton wins.
The problem is.
A. He was never going to run.
B. If he did conservatives would never let someone as moderate as Powell be the nominee.
Powell is as close to a perfect national election candidate as the Republicans have in 1996. But that doesn't mean the primary audience would have embraced him.
I think the election might be much closer than 1996 had any right to be. But unless Powell's candidacy is combined with significant Clinton failures in 1993 that did not occur historically-Clinton wins.
Powell could have won if he ran anti-Nafta. He's not a socio-con, so he isn't going to alienate independents, and Perot would probably support Powell if he's pro-Nafta. If Powell runs anti-Nafta, then I don't see him being strong enough to win.
I honestly feel that going full nutter like Pat Buchanan would have been the Republican's best shot, simply because it pre-empts Perot and as Trump is proof of now his issues are very popular with a very large section of the US, a section that has only shrunk since the 90s.
I honestly feel that going full nutter like Pat Buchanan would have been the Republican's best shot, simply because it pre-empts Perot and as Trump is proof of now his issues are very popular with a very large section of the US, a section that has only shrunk since the 90s.
Perot did just as well with liberals and moderates as he did with conservatives, in both 1992 and 1996. The big difference was independents, who Perot did extremely well with, v. registered Democrats/Republicans who stayed loyal. Don't overestimate how much ideology matters.
Independents went with Perot over his big issue, trade. Buchanan is anti-globalist. So, he had the "whole package" and could have won.
This assumes no significant right-wing third party. Pat Buchanan threatened to lead one if Powell was even nominated for *vice*-president. (To be sure, Buchanan did very poorly in 2000--but that was against GW Bush who was quite acceptable to most conservative Republicans, especially evangelicals. Powell was not, and racism was not by any means the only reason. He described himself after all as a "Rockefeller Republican." And to much of the GOP Right, Rockefeller Republicanism was the worst of enemies--even worse than the Democrats. In particular, unless Powell modified his pro-choice stance on abortion he would be unacceptable to religious conservatives.)
EMTSATX
Banned
Bringing back good memories of Uncle Pat. Ross tried to tell us starting in '92 the deficit and the giant sucking sound. Both of my parents voted for Perot in '92. My Dad is gone now but, my Mother (along with the entire state of West Virginia) is voting for Trump.
My favorite scene in "W." Is the scene where Cheney tells Powell tells "If you had gone to Baghdad you could have been President." Powell replies "F**k you Dick"
I'm not sure why Powell ever identified himself as a Republican. Maybe, in the Ike way. But, not in any modern sense. In our reality I'm not sure if any Republican could have beaten Clinton in 1996. I also remember as recently as 2000, people saying "there will never be a black President in my life." I wonder if Powell could have broken that. I know a lot of people who thought he would be. Wasn't his Wife very against him running.
My favorite scene in "W." Is the scene where Cheney tells Powell tells "If you had gone to Baghdad you could have been President." Powell replies "F**k you Dick"
I'm not sure why Powell ever identified himself as a Republican. Maybe, in the Ike way. But, not in any modern sense. In our reality I'm not sure if any Republican could have beaten Clinton in 1996. I also remember as recently as 2000, people saying "there will never be a black President in my life." I wonder if Powell could have broken that. I know a lot of people who thought he would be. Wasn't his Wife very against him running.
EMTSATX
Banned
What did Perot think about Buchanan getting being the nominee for the reform party in 2000? What would the result have been of a Perot/Buchanan ticket be? Assuming Perot was open to it.
Third party cannot win, and Perot as a VP would be a loser ticket. Perot, in my estimation, was not looking to really be in politics (he did drop out in 92 when he was leading the polls.) So, if someone was running representing his issues, he'd probably bow out which is just as good as an endorsement.
He dropped out because his poll numbers were dropping and people were starting to dig into his history as they would with any other serious contender. It was nothing to do with 'the issues'.
Even if one makes the (IMO) absurd assumption that Buchanan would have gotten *every* Dole vote and *every* Perot vote (adding up to 49.21% of the total vote) he would have gotten slightly fewer popular votes than Clinton (49.24%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996
But in fact Buchanan could not possibly do so well. For one thing, many Perot voters supported Perot not on the basis of trade or any other particular issue but on the idea that we need a successful businessman in Washington to fix things--an appeal that Buchanan could not make. Second, not all Dole voters would support Buchanan by any means. By 2016 politics are so polarized that most (though not all) Republicans will vote for any Republican candidate but that was not the case to the same extent in 1996. Buchanan's staunch defense of World War II era isolationism and the background of some of his supporters would hurt him. They hurt him in the primaries btw. He only got 20.8% of the Republican primary vote (compared to Dole's 58.8%). Yes, he won the NH primary--*with 27% of the vote, worse than he got in the state in 1992!* This was his only primary victory in 1996, and it was due (apart from the support of the *Union-Leader*) to the divided nature of his opposition--Buchanan 27%, Dole 26%, Alexander 22%, Forbes 12%, etc. There is in fact no way Buchanan could have gotten the GOP nomination in 1996, once he had to face one-on-one opposition. And if he ran as a third party candidate, he would not have done much better than his 0.43% showing of 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 (Unless of course Powell was the GOP nominee, but even then I find it hard to believe Buchanan would get more than about five or six percent of the vote--though that would probably be enough to defeat Powell..)
1996 was simply not like 2016 (and Buchanan was no Trump). There was much less dissatisfaction with the economy (which is one reason Perot's vote dropped so much between 1992 and 1996). Republican voters were much less disenchanted with their party establishment. Appalachia was not yet in revolt against the Democrats--Clinton got more votes than Dole and Perot combined in West Virginia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_West_Virginia,_1996 In short, it was just not Pat Buchanan's year. (Not that I think there was ever a year he could win, but if there was, 1996 was not it.)
FWIW, the Gallup poll of February 1996 had Clinton beating Buchanan 59-35. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/polls/cnn.usa.gallup/022396.shtml#clinton.buchanan Now party loyalties being what they were (even in 1996, when they were less polarized than today) it would not have been *that* overwhelming (the same poll showed Clinton beating Dole by 56-40, whereas in the end he beat Dole by "only" eight percent ). But IMO the idea that Buchanan could have won either the GOP nomination or the election in 1996 shows a complete misreading of the politics of that year.
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