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Subject: Clinton Elected 42nd President/In Sweeping Victory Over Bush;Democrats Win
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 04:54:43 EST
Message-ID: <22.1992Nov4.045444@AmeriCast.com>

Clinton Elected 42nd President/In Sweeping Victory Over
Bush;Democrats Win Northeast, Carry Battleground States<By Dan
Balz and Ann Devroy=Washington Post Staff Writers=

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, riding a wave of voter sentiment to
revitalize the economy and change the country, was elected the
42nd president of the United States last night in a sweeping vic-
tory that ended 12 years of Republican rule in the White House
and restored one-party government in Washington.

Clinton, 46, captured states from coast to coast as the voters
turned President Bush out of office after one term. Texas in-
dependent Ross Perot, whose campaign shook the political rafters
this year, was running third in what appeared to be the best per-
formance by a third-party candidate since 1924.

Driven by their anxiety over the economy, voters abandoned a
president whose leadership in the Persian Gulf War had briefly
raised his popularity to record levels. Exit polls projected he
eventually would receive less than 40 percent of the vote. Clin-
ton appeared likely to win with less than a majority of the popu-
lar vote.

Clinton won pluralities of voters in every age group and every
level of education and won among all but the wealthiest voters,
breaking the presumed Republican "lock" on the electoral college
map and winning back many of the voters who abandoned the Demo-
cratic Party beginning with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.

Clinton swept economically hard-hit New England, according to
network projections, only the second Democrat in this century to
do so. He won New Hampshire and Vermont, which had not voted
Democratic since 1964, along with two states Bush has called
home: Connecticut, where he grew up, and Maine, where he has a
vacation home.

The Democrats also rolled through the battleground states of the
industrial heartland, capturing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michi-
gan, Illinois and Missouri, according to projections. Clinton
also broke into the Republican stranglehold of the Rocky Mountain
West, winning New Mexico and Colorado.

Bush won Indiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Nebraska. But he
was battling to hold onto his adopted home state of Texas and the
southern GOP strongholds of Florida and North Carolina, according
to early returns and network projections.

Clinton and his running mate, Sen. Albert Gore Jr.  (Tenn.), cam-
paigned as representatives of a new generation of Democrats who
moderated their party's image and represented a break from the
policies that were soundly rejected by the voters in the last
three elections.

With long lines reported at many polling places around the coun-
try, there was anecdotal evidence that an electorate that had ex-
pressed disgust with the gridlock in Washington and felt alienat-
ed from the political process may have turned out in numbers high
enough to reverse the almost relentless decline in voter partici-
pation over the past three decades.

At the same time, voters were moving to enact term limits on pol-
iticians in a series of states across the country, with early
projections showing the term limits initiatives winning 2 to 1 in
some places.

With the Democrats expected to retain substantial control of both
the House and Senate, Clinton will preside without a decisive po-
pular mandate but with the strength in Washington to break the
deadlock of divided government that has frustrated voters and
politicians alike for much of the past decade.

Clinton promised to "put people first" with an economic program
that called for increased government spending to rebuild the
country's roads and bridges, tax incentives for business and for
a revamped national health care system that would control costs
and provide coverage to all Americans. At the same time, Clinton
called for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans and foreign
corporations, with a modest tax cut for the middle class.

The impact of the economy was clear from the results last night.
About four in 10 voters cited the economy as among the top two
issues affecting their vote, and Clinton was winning an absolute
majority of those voters.

The worse voters saw their own financial situation, the more they
supported Clinton. Two-thirds of those who saw themselves in
worse shape financially than in 1988 supported the Democratic
ticket, with about one in five supporting Perot. Only about one
in 10 backed the president. Only those who saw themselves as
better off than they were four years ago strongly supported Bush.

Perot's influence on the electorate was evident from the percen-
tage of voters who cited the deficit as one of the two major is-
sues, but Clinton also was winning a plurality of them.

Almost four in 10 voters said their desire for change was one of
the top two influences on their vote, with Clinton capturing
three in five of those votes. He also won a strong majority among
the quarter of the electorate who cited the candidates' plans for
the country as the reason for their decision.

Clinton arrived back in Little Rock about 11 a.m. yesterday after
a 29-hour marathon that took him to nine cities in eight states.
With his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea at his side, Clinton
told reporters, "I'm just glad it's over. . . . No matter what
happens, I'm at peace."

Clinton went directly to the Dunbar Community Center to cast his
ballot, then returned to the governor's mansion to rest. Gore and
his wife Tipper flew into Little Rock yesterday afternoon to join
the Clintons.

Bush awaited the results in Houston, arriving Monday night for a
final rally with friends and supporters. After a morning jog,
Bush went to vote and then ran a few errands, expressing confi-
dence that he would win. He appeared cheerful and upbeat, but
called the campaign "certainly probably the most unpleasant year
of my life."

Perot was home in Dallas, and after voting went to his campaign
headquarters to thank the volunteers who have manned his tele-
phone banks through the campaign. "You are the saints of this
operation," Perot told them, according to several people who were
there.<

The 1992 presidential campaign defied predictions, embarrassed
the experts and was fought out against a backdrop of domestic
anxiety and unease unmatched since the early 1970s.

Eighteen months ago, it appeared Bush might be reelected in a
walk. With the president's approval ratings at 90 percent in the
afterglow of the Persian Gulf War, Democrats feared Bush's popu-
larity could be powerful enough to restore Republican control to
the Senate and register dramatic gains in the House.

During the long summer of 1991, one prominent Democrat after
another made news by declining to challenge Bush, among them
Gore, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Sens.
Lloyd M. Bentsen (Tex.), Sam Nunn (Ga.), Bill Bradley (N.J.) and
John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (W.Va.).  At that time, the only
Democrat bold enough to join the race was former Massachusetts
senator Paul E. Tsongas, who had been out of politics for seven
years. But 1991 brought a rush of Democrats into the race: Clin-
ton, Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa), Sen. Bob Kerrey (Neb.), former Cali-
fornia governor Edmund G.  "Jerry" Brown Jr., and Virginia Gov.
L. Douglas Wilder. But they were overshadowed for the last two
months of the year by New York Gov. Mario M.  Cuomo's most seri-
ous flirtation with the presidency, which ended a few days before
Christmas.

Meanwhile, as the recession began to erode Bush's standing with
the voters, the first clear danger signs to his presidency popped
up on the horizon. In November, Dick Thornburgh, Bush's former
attorney general, lost a special Senate election in Pennsylvania
to Harris Wofford (D), whose message of economic renewal and na-
tional health insurance became a model for the presidential can-
didates.

By the beginning of December, conservative commentator Patrick J.
Buchanan announced that he would challenge the president in the
Republican primaries, and with restive Republicans suddenly
fighting, Bush shook up his White House staff, replacing Chief of
Staff John H. Sununu with then-Transportation Secretary Samuel K.
Skinner. His campaign lurched toward the 1992 starting line.

Clinton arrived in New Hampshire last January already dubbed the
Democratic front-runner, but ran into immediate trouble. First
came allegations from lounge singer Gennifer Flowers that she had
carried on a 12-year affair with Clinton. Reeling, Clinton and
his wife Hillary did an extraordinary interview on CBS's "60
Minutes" to affirm their marriage.

A few weeks later, another controversy hit Clinton: that he had
manipulated the Selective Service System to avoid military ser-
vice during the Vietnam War. Within five days, Clinton's support
had plunged by 20 points and his campaign team feared he might
not survive the first primary of the year.  Tsongas, preaching
economic realism, benefited from Clinton's problems, surging to
the front of the Democratic pack.

But Clinton mounted an aggressive comeback in the final week of
the primary contest, and though he finished second in the polls,
grabbed the limelight by declaring victory and dubbing himself
the "Comeback Kid." The bleak economic landscape of New Hampshire
proved particularly difficult for Bush. Buchanan trooped through
the state, battering Bush over his failure to address the economy
and his broken "no new taxes" pledge from 1988. Bush made several
forays into a state that had saved his nomination in 1988, carry-
ing the message "we care," but the voters had a different message
on primary day, spelled out the morning after the primary in big,
black type in the Manchester Union-Leader: "Read Our Lips." Bush
won the Feb. 18 GOP primary with a bare majority of the vote,
while Buchanan rode the protest vote to capture 37 percent.

Two days later, Texas billionare Ross Perot went on CNN's "Larry
King Live" and said he would run for president if the people put
him on the ballot in all 50 states.

Bush soon disposed of Buchanan, but not without sustaining furth-
er damage, as his approval ratings continued to slide and his
campaign grappled with a strategy and message for the fight
ahead.

Clinton had a more difficult time. He got his first primary vic-
tory in Georgia, scored a near-sweep on "Super Tuesday" and fi-
nally dispatched Tsongas with twin victories in Illinois and
Michigan on March 17. But a week later he was upset by Brown in
Connecticut and entered the lion's den in New York with his nega-
tives rising and Democrats still talking about finding another
candidate.

As the primary season ground to a close, Perot grabbed center
stage. Volunteers fanned out around the country, stationing them-
selves in shopping malls and grocery stores, signing up support-
ers by the thousands. Perot began a round of appearances on
television talk shows and soon was challenging Clinton for second
place in the race. By May, he was leading Bush and Clinton in
California, as Perotmania swept the country.

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in July, Clinton
picked Gore as his running mate, and the popular selection gave
the party a burst of energy as the delegates began arriving in
New York. The Clintons took a symbolic walk down Seventh Avenue
from Macy's to Madison Square Garden to claim his nomination in a
shower of silvery confetti.

On the final day of the convention, Perot stunned the political
world by announcing that he would not be a candidate after all,
citing a revitalized Democratic Party and his fear of disrupting
the election.

With Clinton on a roll, the Republicans scrambled to repair their
fractured coalition. Bush summoned his closest friend and
adviser, James A. Baker III, from the State Department, made him
White House chief of staff and de facto campaign chief and
prepared for his own convention in Houston.

But the conclave in the Astrodome that was designed to lift Bush
back into the race backfired, as the religious right dominated
the platform drafting process and then a procession of speakers,
with Buchanan as leadoff hitter, sent out a sharply conservative
message that conveyed to many swing voters a sense of intoler-
ance. Bush attempted to rescue the convention with his acceptance
speech, but the only result of the spectacle in August was to
firm up the Republicans' conservative base.  Democrats said the
convention had made Bush's comeback bid even more difficult.

The general election campaign turned conventional assumptions up-
side down. In the early stages, the Democrats could do little
wrong, while the Republicans tried one unsuccessful tactic after
another.

Clinton's camp built its strategy around the economy and the is-
sue of change, then decided to challenge Bush in traditional
Republican strongholds from coast to coast. They stretched the
electoral map at every opportunity, pinning Bush down in the
South and the Rocky Mountains, and even the GOP wrote off Cali-
fornia almost immediately.

Bush first invoked Harry S. Truman, then seized on Clinton's
draft record, and raised the issue of trust and character. In
September he appeared before the Economic Club of Detroit to out-
line a second-term economic agenda that was well received, but it
did little to convince voters that he would take on the country's
domestic ills if he were reelected.

Suddenly, Perot popped back up on television suggesting he might
reenter the race. The two campaigns sent teams to Dallas to brief
Perot's state coordinators, hoping to head off his reentry, but
he was soon back in the race, this time with an open checkbook.
His half-hour television commercials, with the candidate offering
the country a tutorial on the economy, complete with pointer and
charts, proved a ratings success.

At the time Perot entered the race, Clinton held a comfortable
lead in the national polls, and state polls showed an alarming
pattern to the GOP, with Bush losing many usually Republican
states. The presidential debates offered him the opportunity to
redefine the contest.

Bush, Clinton and Perot met three times in October, with Vice
President Quayle, Gore and retired Adm. James B. Stockdale debat-
ing once. When they ended, Perot had refurbished his image and
doubled his support in the polls, triggering a week of nervous-
ness in the Little Rock, headquarters of Clinton's campaign and
giving Bush's camp hope that victory was still possible.

As the final run began, Perot created an uproar by charging that
the GOP had a plot to disrupt his daughter's wedding and claiming
that was the real reason he has pulled out of the race in July.
The next day, in a testy news conference in Dallas, he withdrew
the accusation, but appeared to have blunted his own hopes of at-
tracting more support.

The final week was a blur of rallies and rhetoric, as the
president scrambled through must-win states, attacking his op-
ponents as "bozos," urging his supporters to prove the polls and
the pundits wrong, promising to pull off the biggest upset victo-
ry in history. Perot left the television studios long enough to
hold rallies in several states, his head thrown back and laughing
at the critics to the end.  Clinton, his voice weakening, cruised
through a punishing final weekend, ending his long quest with a
29-hour, eight-state day that did not end until he returned to
Little Rock yesterday morning.<Staff researcher Mark Stencel con-
tributed to this report.<02:21 11-04C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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