When Michael Dukakis ran for president in 1988, he pledged to a decent campaign- above the fray. He did and became a punching bag for his opponent. He as attacked brutally and relentlessly- and lost.

            In 1992, Democrats had lost five of the last six elections. Only Jimmy Carter’s 1976 close call broke the Republican reign. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990. George Bush skillfully organized a coalition of forty-two nations to drive the Iraqis out, which they did in early 1991. His approval ratings soared to an astonishing 89% and he looked unbeatable in 1992. Several Democratic challengers decided to sit this race out and wait for next time.

            Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was a relative unknown. He was elected to the post at just thirty-one in 1978 and received notoriety then. “Slick Willie,” as he would come to be known, considered running in 1988 but decided against it after Gary Hart’s frontrunner campaign exploded because of allegations of womanizing. Clinton was only forty-two and decided to wait a cycle.

            Clinton was able to assemble a skilled and diverse campaign organization. He was charismatic, intelligent, and the best retail politician perhaps ever. This was needed because he had more skeletons in his closet than many crazy Halloween aficionados have in their front yards.   Besides womanizing, his draft status in the Vietnam War was fuzzy, as was his smoking marijuana- whether he inhaled or not.

            Four years earlier, George Bush’s campaign went after Michael Dukakis with little or no reaction. Clinton’s team wasn’t playing that game this time. Arkansas First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had the idea to set up a ‘war room,” a tactic that seemed more military than political. James Carville, “The Ragin’ Cajun” a former Marine who directed the operation. He’ll use terms like ‘Defcom-5’ to signify the highest alert.

Communications Director George Stephanopoulos assisted him, and his ‘Good Morning America’ at the time was a 7 AM meeting (followed by another at 7 PM) to plot both attacks and counterpunches on President George Bush. Young staffers monitored the news for material that could be used against the president, as well as charges against the challenger. If they got hit, unlike Dukakis, they hit back quickly and often harder. It worked. How? This was 1992, and the technology of the day was a fax machine, remember those?

            1992 was also a very unusual year because of the presence, disappearance, and reemergence of Texas businessman Ross Perot. The cocky, diminutive billionaire used Larry King’s nightly CNN show to bolster his ideas, which evolved into his campaign with his ‘volunteers.’ People were looking for a businessman/president before 2016. He ended his campaign in July but came back in October. He won no states but collected nearly twenty million votes, which represented 18.9 percent of the popular vote. Clinton would defeat Bush 370-168 in the electoral college.

            Saturday Night Live had some great sketches with Dana Carvey playing both Bush and Perot. The late Phil Harman did a great Clinton as well. In 1993, a movie called “The War Room” was released, chronicling the efforts of the campaign.  CNN just, and I mean just produced a fascinating documentary called “Carville; Winning is Everything, Stupid,” which covers 1992 as well as 2024.