Suppose that Clinton, for some reason, just wasn’t going to win in 1992. Who would you have preferred to win instead; Bush Sr. or Perot?
I say Perot; I think his election could have really shaken up the Republican-Democrat duopoly. However…his presidency might have been disastrous.
Perot would have been a far worse President than Bush ever could be. His repeated shtick of “just fix it” offered nothing of sense or substance, and once he got into the White House he would have discovered that neither Democrats nor Republicans could be won over with plain-speakin’ nonsense.
Perot, for the same reason as the OP, and yes we would have regretted it.
Assuming Bush still has sub 40% approvals throughout 1992;
I’d have much preferred Perot; his policies were much closer to Clinton than Bush.
[ul]
[li]pro-choice[/li][li]raise taxes on the wealthy[/li][li]for gun control[/li][/ul]
I think he’d have beaten Bush if he had been the Dem nominee, for many of the same reasons Clinton won; to the left but not Dukakis left, from the South (which even tho Bush would’ve won the south, would’ve convinced Northern Reagan Dems and suburbanites his southernness would mean not as left-wing as Dukakis), etc.
I voted for Clinton, but would have preferred Bush over Perot. I despised the Clarence Thomas nomination , but other than that, I didn’t often disagree with Bush. He was good during the end of the Cold War and Desert Storm.
Perot, because it would have made the fissures developing in American politics impossible to ignore. When the Dems were willing to work with him, and the GOP wasn’t, the bullshit that the GOP was digging in their heels because of Dem intransigence wouldn’t have flown with anyone other than those paid to believe it.
Perot would have been out after one term, and very few positive accomplishments would have resulted from that term, but no lasting harm done, and possibly some eyes opened then that are only finally getting opened by the GOP House clown car right now.
Perot’s policies were mostly decent, but it doesn’t matter, because the man was insane. Sanity is very high on my list of priorities for a holder of high office.
[QUOTE=Groucho and Chico]
Fiorello: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here? This thing here.
Driftwood: Oh, that? Oh, that’s the usual clause. That’s in every contract. That just says uh, it says uh, “If any of the parties participating in this contract is shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.”
Fiorello: Well, I don’t know…
Driftwood: It’s all right, that’s, that’s in every contract. That’s, that’s what they call a ‘sanity clause’.
Fiorello: Ha ha ha ha ha! You can’t fool me! There ain’t no Sanity Clause!
[/QUOTE]
This. I didn’t think that President Bush was (overall) a bad President. Granted, at the time I considered myself a Republican. That’s not to say I agreed with 100% of the Republican Party platform, the seeds were already planted for my later rejection of the party. But as far as Republican Presidents go, he wasn’t horrible and I still believe he was an honorable, intelligent, and decent man.
He just couldn’t raise a decent kid to save his life.
If you’d vote for Perot, you’re definitely a Trump supporter. 
I still can’t stop laughing at that poor pie chart…
At the time, I was more of an idealist and eschewed the notion of only 2 parties. Perot was “fine” as an option against the evil Republicans (I thought Bush was also “fine”, but that is a low bar coming from the evil Republican side.)
Since then, I am less idealistic and have resigned myself to the notion of only 2 parties (for now).
Perot of course.
I voted for Bush with Clinton in the race so it’s not much of a hypothetical for me. Clinton outperformed my expectations and became my favorite Democrat to hold the office in the last 50 years. Bush is my favorite from either Party though.
Perot on the other hand had a strongly authoritarian leadership style that wouldn’t have worked well dealing with Congress to get his proposals implemented. He tended towards paranoia when he wasn’t getting his way (because obviously that’s the only reason he didn’t get what he wanted.) He was a conspiracy theorist. His ideas were interesting and powerful but as a person and leader he was ill suited to the job. Anybody but Perot in that election. He’s simply got too much risk of being incredibly damaging.
I always thought Bush, Sr. was a reasonable and fine president, so I’d pick him. Add to that that I thought Perot was a bit of a nutter, and it’s an easy choice for me.
Shit, as of the state of this poll right now, 43% of folks would prefer Perot? Seriously?
Your youth betrays you here my friend. Perot was only a couple notches less crazy than Trump. Being southern fried made it more palatable in some ways but he would have been equally ill equipped to deal with a system that required finding consensus and compromise to get things done. He earned his wealth rather than inheriting it but, he did not handle dissent well at EDS and was prone to doing things in a dictatorial fashion. Plus, the way he dropped out and then back in is a good illustration of his instability.
GHWB would have been the better of the two without doubt here. I had many issues I disagreed with him about but he was far and away better than any of the yahoos who claim the GOP mantle these days. And yeah, that includes JEB!
I think you’re being too kind to Perot. He did bring more substance than Trump cues the charts but for genuine crazy, not just his policies seem crazy, I put Perot as the clear winner.
Trump’s a narcissist who’s dabbled with anti-vaxxers and birthers. Perot believed the Vietnamese government actively tried to assassinate him. His crazy candidate dial went to 11.
Distance in time can make things fade. I forgot the crazy Vietnam crap.