an exploration of a new country!
Help Save the Youth Of America: The American Left and the Hope of ‘92
Opposition was not kind to the Democratic Party. Unlike most of the Western world, neoliberalism remained the dominant ideology from throughout the disappointing presidency of President Carter to the extremely impactful Reagan administration. In a sign of the times, George H.W. Bush, the man who once derided Reagan’s supply-side philosophy as “voodoo economics” was now forced to put those ideas in practice. After a resounding victory in the Gulf War, the public saw Bush as the man that brought about the end of history.
Perhaps the 1992 primaries shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as the 1976 ones, though history certainly has set up their victors as obscure upstarts. Part of the difference emerged in which candidates ended up running; despite the absence of Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy, the 1976 election involved over a dozen of the top Democrats in the country. This was in sharp contrast to 1992, where the DNC failed to get anyone with an equivalent stature to Scoop Jackson or Birch Bayh. With Gore, Cuomo, and Jackson staying out, the party even looked towards George McGovern as a viable option (though the aging McGovern didn’t move past an exploratory committee).
Arkansas’ Bill Clinton was almost a cut-rate version of Al Gore; his speech at the 1988 DNC was so dreadfully long that the audience prematurely applauded to beg for its end. Paul Tsongas was the closest thing the field had to a conventional liberal, but the formerly retired senator went a little too far going off about a balanced budget. Rounding off the field were senators Tom Harkin and Bob Kerrey, governors Douglas Wilder and Jerry Brown, and one candidate of note, former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran.
Agran’s background was unconventional for a presidential candidate - as a democratic socialist endorsed by Noam Chomsky, he became mayor of a city that voted for Bush with 66% of the vote. Irvine is a small town in Orange County, an area previously known for President Nixon, “B1 Bob” Dornan, and the punk band Social Distortion. After heading McGovern’s exploratory committee, he eventually went for a run himself once McGovern bowed out of the contest. Few expected him to run for the presidency; his mother only learned about her son’s decision on a local talk radio show.
For most of the campaign, he was grouped together with Eugene McCarthy and Lyndon LaRouche as a fringe candidate. In one of the few interviews he received, Roger Mudd openly said “it does stretch credibility to think that a Jewish ex-mayor of a suburban town can make it.” This media blackout continued until Agran literally forced his way into a forum hosted by Senator Jay Rockefeller and began polling ahead of candidates such as former frontrunner Jerry Brown and Harkin. On his former supporter’s behalf, McGovern wrote to DNC Chairman Ron Brown, putting enough pressure on him to allow Agran to appear in the national debates.
Ahead of New Hampshire, all eyes were on Clinton and Tsongas, but it was clear the former senator had a clear advantage. Clinton was met with allegations of an affair with Jennifer Flowers, in which several phone calls were taped (including tapes of Clinton disparaging the Italian-American community). His interview with 60 Minutes was widely seen as a failure, and with it directly following the Super Bowl, a flop couldn’t have come at a worse time. Tsongas predictably won the New Hampshire primary, but jaws dropped when the public learned who came in second. Agran, seizing his newfound media attention, called a press conference earlier than the other candidates. Declaring himself “the underdog no longer,” few would realize that Tsongas actually won the primary without looking at the results. 7% of the vote went to write-ins for Mario Cuomo, again fueling speculation that the New York governor would run; further weakening Tsongas’ position as the mainstream liberal.
Super Tuesday was designed by the moderate Democrats to give a Southern DLC candidate a clear shot at the nomination, but as in 1988, this strategy clearly did not play out. Clinton, much weakened but still in the race, was forced to compete for a similar brand of votes with Douglas Wilder, the first African-American Governor of Virginia; and while one would expect Wilder to do well in urban areas, Agran capitalized on his endorsement from the National Council of Mayors and friendship with Desmond Tutu. While the results weren’t conclusive for Agran, they were an embarrassment for Tsongas, Clinton, and Wilder, who saw their assumed bases of support in the northeast and the south eroded. As March turned into April, the race was down to two candidates, with many speculating whether neither Tsongas nor Agran would win a majority; this fear and/or hope was quelled by Agran’s inherent advantage in his home state of California.
While expected to easily win the election in January, Bush’s campaign was now much less confident about their victory. The president lost the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries to firebrand populist Pat Buchanan, and independent candidate Ross Perot was polling ahead or even with Bush. With dark times ahead and Agran becoming a viable candidate after the Democratic Convention, Bush needed to bring back his prince of darkness; former RNC Chairman Lee Atwater. While Atwater converted to Catholicism and repented for his prior campaign sins, like many people, his brain reverted to his normal ways after miraculously surviving his treatment. The same strategies that gave Bush in 1988 a landslide could be applied again, by going negative on Bush’s opponents. Pat Buchanan was front and center at the RNC, giving his infamous culture war speech to consolidate the right-wing vote. In a controversial ad, Atwater openly questioned Perot’s mental health as the businessman bizarrely accused Bush and the CIA of sabotaging his daughter’s wedding. As the two Texans fought each other off in the debates, Agran was able to overcome attacks on his affiliation with socialist and gay rights groups.
Agran’s share of the vote was similar to George McGovern’s in 1972, but in a three-way race, solidifying the base and driving up turnout was enough to pull off a victory. A number of British journalists reporting on the election drew comparisons to Clement Attlee’s victory in 1945; after winning the Cold War, the American public was looking for a new direction. Agran’s proposal for an education plan to overtake Europe and Japan, a $400 million peace dividend, and national health insurance were cornerstones of the new 1990s.