Bush's victory in that election in retrospect was kind of a fluke. Bush was by no means a bad President, every indication is that he should have lost had all things been equal. He had faced a primary challenge. The conservatives were bolting because of the 1990 budget deal. And indeed, they didn't really turn out in large numbers. Bush didn't really like campaigning in 1992 from what I've read. He was reelected for one simple reason, Brown's campaign was a disaster. Clinton supporters acted towards him in the way movement conservatives acted towards Bush. Brown's appeal was limited even within the Democratic party. The death of Bill Clinton led to a divided and apathetic democratic party, and that considerably helped Bush's chances for reelection. Also, Brown is somewhat abrasive, and that doesn't really work on the national scene. If Clinton had lived, it's impossible to say where the election would have gone. He might well have won. He had support in the south, where Brown emphatically did not. He was considerably more charismatic and media friendly than either Bush or Brown. On the other hand, there was the Jennifer Flowers problem, and was America really ready for a baby boomer in the White House in 1992? If Clinton wins, perhaps anti-President sentiment means the Republicans actually take control of congress in 1994? I know that sounds out there, but the then minority whip Newt Gingrich managed to create a Republican campaign that did surprisingly well considering the incumbent was a Republican. It's one of the few midterms in which the incumbent's party picked up seats. But anti-incumbent sentiment meant that there was a ceiling to how far Republican gains could go. If Clinton is President, Gingrich might have been Speaker of the House. But perhaps I'm extrapolating too far here. In any case, with a Democratic President the Republican upset of 1994 would have been larger, but there's no telling how large.
1996 is going to be incredibly boring on all sides. I mean, it's going to come down to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. What would 1996 be like without the Al Gore vs. Mario Cuomo show down on the Democratic side, and the Gingrich vs. Dole vs. Vice President Quayle campaign on the Republican side? Of course, the end result after 16 years was almost inevitable. I mean the Republicans were not going to win even if the economy was better. Plus Bush wasn't exactly popular in 1996.