Let’s test your presidential election knowledge. In how many presidential elections did Bill Clinton win a majority of the popular vote?
The answer, of course, is zero.
That’s right. In 1992, Bill Clinton won his first presidential term with just 43 percent of the vote. Republican George H. W. Bush received 37.5 percent. Ross Perot — America’s proto-tea partier — received 18.9 percent (without receiving a single Electoral College vote).
In 1996, Clinton nearly managed to claw his way over the 50 percent barrier. But he didn’t. The New Democrat eked out a second plurality victory with only 49.2 of the vote. Bob Dole, his Republican opponent, garnered 40.7 percent. In a second try, Perot wound up with 8.4 percent of the total 1996 presidential vote (and still not a single Electoral College vote).
These actual, historical facts fly in the face of the widely-held conventional wisdom that Clinton’s presidential campaign was some kind of electoral juggernaut which steamrolled all opponents in the way.
On the Bush side, both George H.W. and his son George W. have been even weaker.
Yes, it’s true that George H. W. Bush won the 1988 election handily. He won 53.4 percent of the popular vote compared to just 45.7 won for Democrat Michael Dukakis. And Bush absolutely trounced Dukakis in the Electoral College.
However, Bush was succeeding Ronald Reagan, one of the most popular and profoundly well-liked presidents in American history. Moreover, it’s fair to say, Bush ran in 1988 promising to assume Reagan’s mantle; people were consciously voting for a third Reagan term.
On his own, Bush was nothing but a loser. He lost the 1980 Republican nomination to Reagan, and he won just 37.5 percent of the vote in his 1992 reelection bid.
The case of George W. Bush is well known. He barely, barely managed to beat Al Gore in 2000. At the time, that victory seemed pretty significant. After all, Clinton was leaving office with high popularity. Gore didn’t exactly ride Clinton’s reputation to victory the way Bush’s father had with Reagan, though. In many ways, Gore ran away from Clinton. And, of course, Gore — who was never a natural or charismatic campaigner — has shown himself in the last 15 years to be an eccentric, unlikable, nearly clownish weirdo.
In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry — an eccentric, unlikable, definitely clownish weirdo who makes Gore look like some quarterback prom king — by an electoral vote result of 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent.
This U.S. presidential election minutiae is important to bear in mind as the horse race for what already is the 2016 campaign endlessly transpires.
Hillary Clinton has already run for president, in 2008, and has already lost — to a guy with a couple years of experience in the U.S. Senate. Yet she is considered the heavy front runner for the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.
Jeb Bush has never run for president, and hasn’t governed anything of any significance for seven years, and yet he is considered a front runner — if not the front runner — for the 2016 Republican nomination.
Why exactly? Why is it that these two candidates from the House of Bush and the House of Clinton are so heavily favored?
Part of it is name recognition, of course — as if political candidates were brand names and electing the president is the same as choosing a new cola because it has a name similar to the cola you know but don’t really love.
Another part of it is laziness on the part of the national media.
There are probably other parts, too.
However, none of those parts really have anything to do with reality. In cold, hard historical reality, no Bush and no Clinton who has run for president has fared particularly amazingly.
As history shows, both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are ripe to be beaten — and are likely to be beaten — by other candidates.
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