tired
President George H. W. Bush had an approval rating of 90% the year before the election, the highest ever recorded since pollsters began tracking such a thing. Mario Cuomo was the popular Democratic Governor of New York and everyone assumed that he would challenge Bush for the Presidency in 1992. But Cuomo didn't think Bush could be beat and decided not to run. A little known governor from the state of Arkansas named Bill Clinton announced his candidacy and nobody thought he had a chance. He was covered in scandal and had admitted to marital infidelity at a time when the Moral Majority was a force to be reckoned with. Nobody gave Clinton a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination, let alone the election.
Clinton's message was very similar to the one that Romney trumpeted in New Hampshire yesterday. Clinton's spin doctors said "it's the economy stupid!" Romney is much more squeaky clean than Clinton ever was, and in 1992 a strong third party candidate Ross Perot siphoned off a lot of Bush's support. But whoever the Republican candidate is in 2012 only needs to win a few swing states to make a difference in today's climate of polarized red states vs. blue states.
Clinton gave his acceptance speech on July 17, 1992. He promised to heal the gap that had developed between the rich and the poor during the Reagan/Bush years. The Clinton campaign received the biggest convention "bounce" in history which brought him from 25 percent in the spring, behind Bush and Perot, to 55 percent versus Bush's 31 percent. The Bush/Quayle campaign tried to recover by criticizing Clinton's character, highlighting accusations of infidelity and draft dodging. The Bush campaign also emphasized its foreign policy successes such as Desert Storm, and the end of the Cold War. Bush also contrasted his military service to Clinton's lack thereof, and criticized Clinton's lack of foreign policy expertise. But it was the economy that was the main issue.
On November 3, Bill Clinton won the election, receiving 43 percent of the popular vote against 37% for Bush and 19% for Perot. President Bush's 37.4% was the lowest percentage total for a sitting president seeking re-election since William Howard Taft in 1912 (23.2%). It was also the lowest percentage for a major-party candidate since Alf Landon received 36.5% of the vote in 1936. Bush had a lower percentage of the popular vote than even Herbert Hoover who was defeated in 1932 (Hoover received 39.7%). Exit polling showed that for voters, it was all about "the economy stupid."
I'm not saying that Mitt Romney is the Republican reincarnation of Bill Clinton, or that I predict that he'll be President in 2012. But never underestimate the power of voter anger over a bad economy and its ability to defeat a very popular president.