If only Jesse Jackson hadn't run third party in 1992 and cost Dukakis a second term. President Gingrich (Nixon 2.0) and the 1995 impeachment would've never happened. With that said, President Gingrich was far better than President Santorum.
Iraq was handled pretty well when compared to most recent interventions and Dukakis responded well to the early 90s recession (better than Santorum handled the Great Recession), and even with the issues of his Presidency (majority of which were beyond his control) he was still one of the better Post War Presidents, and in some ways was better than Moonbeam (President from 1997-2005)Iran-Contra really hit Bush hard, he was 20 points up in the polls after the Conventions, but when the CIA torture scandal and the Bush Papers both came up in October, he was done for. Dukakis wasn't that good as a President. He almost managed to botch Iraq, the Red Wave in the 1990 midterms and dragging Reagan in front of the Senate in 92 (although that was mainly Senator Jackson's idea) really messed up his presidency.
Iraq was handled pretty well when compared to most recent interventions and Dukakis responded well to the early 90s recession (better than Santorum handled the Great Recession), and even with the issues of his Presidency (majority of which were beyond his control) he was still one of the better Post War Presidents, and in some ways was better than Moonbeam (President from 1997-2005)
I still think he was. Dukakis with a Democratic Congress in 1989 and 1990 got a lot of good legislation passed. Family Medical Leave, the Brady Bill, the Assault Weapons Ban, clean air amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Infrastructure investment, and even with the GOP Congress, he was able to pass a Middle Class Tax Cut in 1991. His handling of the early 90s recession set Gingrich (who would've suffered even bigger defeats in 94 and 96 if there were a bad economy) and Brown up nicely economically speaking. Also, Brown caved a lot more to the GOP after the Red waves of 1998 and 2002 (2002 at the time being the worst midterm for any Presidential party since 1974) than Duke did after 1990. Regardless, it's a sad state of affairs when Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown are the only Presidents post Eisenhower to get re elected and finish out their second term (not including President Huntsman as he hasn't finished out his second term yet, but it's likely that he'll be there till Jan 2025).I disagree with him being better than Brown and Powell and Schwarzkof won Iraq imo. But he was undoubtedly better than John Edwards and Santorum (what was he thinking - Trump for SecTreas
The irony though is that Clinton was driven out of Congress in 1998 for fooling around with his intern and for ethics violations of his own. None of this bothered the people of Arkansas though as his wife was elected Senator in 2004.