In 1992, President George HW Bush was hoping for an easy re-election against Governor Bill Clinton. The cold war was over and the United States had just won a quick and decisive war against a brutal middle-east tyrant.
Then out of the blue appeared Ross Perot, an outspoken Texas billionaire who had a clear message: Balance the budget. He recognized the need to reduce the size of our bloated federal government. His ability to finance his own campaign and his numerous television appearances, especially on Larry King’s show, helped him eventually earn 19% of the vote that November. Clearly, this cost the election for the Republican party, allowing Bill Clinton to take the presidency with only 43% of the vote.
The GOP was punished for straying from one of their core principles. President Bush had abandoned one of the major factions of the party. That faction was the fiscal conservatives.
In an earlier post I mentioned that the 2 major parties are each made up of factions. President Reagan defined the Republican party as a “three legged stool“. The three legs being social conservatives, national security conservatives, and fiscal conservatives. When Republican politicians ignore any one of those factions, they lose.
By 1994, the party had learned its lesson. It wanted, moreover needed those Perot voters back. Newt Gingrich and other leaders in Congress formulated the Contract With America. The contract contained 10 major acts:
- The Fiscal Responsibility Act
- The Taking Back Our Streets Act
- The Personal Responsibility Act
- The American Dream Restoration Act
- The National Security Restoration Act
- The “Common Sense” Legal Reform Act
- The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act
- The Citizen Legislature Act
- The Family Reinforcement Act
- The Senior Citizens Fairness Act
Each of these acts appealed to at least one of the party’s major factions. The voters were convinced that they were serious about these reforms. The Republicans won…big time. After over 40 years as a minority party, they were finally in charge of Congress.
Once in office, they went to work and actually passed those bills. Many were vetoed by President Clinton, but when it came to spending, Congress dug in its heels. They would not let Clinton grow government beyond its means. By the end of the decade, the federal budget deficit, which had been $203B in 1994, had been slashed to a $236B surplus!!
So, in 1992 an independent candidate appears on the scene carrying the banner of fiscal conservatism, and loses. But did he really lose? In my opinion, he lost the battle, but won the war.
I am proud to have voted for Ross Perot in 1992. At the time, many people called it a wasted vote. History has proven otherwise.
Bruce Morton and his wife (Lake Stevens, Washington) have four children. A conservative activist, Bruce didn’t give up or go away after 2008. He is an electrical engineer and holds degrees from Brigham Young University and the University of Florida. He spent two years as a missionary in Guatemala. He blogs occasionally at Bruce Morton
contrarianconformist.blogspot.com
Ah yes, we remember it well. The stroke of perfidious and traitorous genius dreamed up by the CFR through their lackeys, Gingrich and ‘Billy Boy’ Kristol!
It resulted in a congressional class of freshman elected in 1994 who became within 10 years as constitutionally challenged and as equally globalist, as those against whom they had campaigned! Where have we seen that before and since?!
To quote the greatest congressman in US history, Dr. Ron Paul: “… Instead they proposed a toothless, soporific agenda called the contract for America…” allowing their leaders Clinton and Kristol, to snatch victory for bigger, socialistic, globalist government, under Clinton, right from the jaws of limited constitutional government!
I give you the ‘toothless, soporific agenda’!
The Fiscal Responsibility Act
The Taking Back Our Streets Act
The Personal Responsibility Act
The American Dream Restoration Act
The National Security Restoration Act
The “Common Sense” Legal Reform Act
The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act
The Citizen Legislature Act
The Family Reinforcement Act
The Senior Citizens Fairness Act
I agree that the Contract for America could have been better in many ways. My point is that it was a strong step in the right direction. The GOP never would have proposed such a policy shift if they had not lost the ’92 election due to a faction that left the party.
The success of the GOP in ’94 was the primary impetus for Dr. Paul to re-enter politics in ’96. So, in some sense, Ross Perot can take some credit for getting Ron Paul back into Congress.
That is a stretch…:) Especially the Clinton/Bush best friend Ross helping Paul make a comeback! :)
There is nothing good about a ‘toothless, soporific, agenda’! There was nothing Ron Paul constitutional about it! It was designed by the CFR as a gimmick to deceive the people (and the new naive congressmen) into thinking they were taking back government. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The ruse worked perfectly! Gingrich and Kristol are masters at this trade!
It was Prof. Carroll Quigley’s election-time business as usual, and the whole charade was the continuance of the ‘Tweedledee vs Tweedledum’ election process which had been underway as the CFR’s means of total control of the outcomes for several decades already. No doubt the grassroots were becoming restless and this was the simple and commonly successful plan to satisfy their fears and concerns, still keeping the ‘bus of state’ shuffling along towards the cliff, same speed, same direction.
The still commonly held myth that Ross Perot was some sort of ‘Paul-like’ libertarian maverick who came along in history as a response to the grassroots need, narrowly missing the long sought coup of a third party take over, completely ignores the truth of history.
Consider Perot’s amassing of ill-gotten gain under the tutelage and enablement of Nelson Rockefeller, his personal close ‘fishing buddy’ friendship with both his opponents, Bush and Clinton, his personal nomination to the Council on Foreign Relations by none less than George Bush himself, and the real need for the CFR, like the use of most of the lackeys running to distract the grassroots from Paul in the last two elections, to utilize Perot and his millions robbed from NY tax-payers, as a distraction for the naive grassroots who had become enamored with the rising true conservative, Col. Bo Gritz!
There is much more detail necessary to explaining away the recent events of the last two election cycles, and the CRITICAL need of the CFR to circle their wagons in protection of their biggest baby and candy store, the Federal Reserve! This was, after all, the closest call the Fed and CFR have experienced, and the length to which they are willing to go in protecting this evil counterfeiting and wealth thieving system, was only partly revealed in our being able to force the hand of the perfidious devils at the RNC in Tampa. They were forced to reveal their fangs at last, for all their faithful lemmings to see.
This latter was the surest sign of the damage the liberty movement is doing to the powers that be in the CFR and Fed! More power to them…to the grassroots and liberty movement.
Knowledge drives away fear, but it also exposes darkness with the light!
So… that’s three votes for Johnson, then?
As a Texan, I was appalled by the arrogance and ego of Ross Perot. He got 19% of the vote, ensuring that we now have the Clintons, the Obamas and their minions. We have been trashed by this sequence, but it is my hope that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will bring us out of this morass.
Ross Perot has now endorsed Gov. Romney. Hmmmn?
Anyone who thinks Ross Perot, his personality, character, or then-undisclosed political proclivities is pertinent to this article doesn’t get what Bruce is talking about. Perot is irrelevant. What he purported to REPRESENT is everything. George Bush, after eight years as the Vice President for the greatest President of the last hundred years (and the only Conservative) had won the Presidency the way Mitt Romney is attempting to… by masquerade. Ross Perot convinced the 19% of the electorate principled enough to be outraged at the masquerade to refuse to vote for it.
If Romney wins this will happen again in 2016.
Anyone who thinks there is any responsibility that can be laid at the feet of Perot or his run in 1992 for the victory of Obama in 2008 has been smoking contraband.