If Walter McKeithen's tenure as President could be defined in one phrase, it would be “good enough.” By 1992 he was polling above 50%, broadly popular in his own party (strongest with southerners and moderates, less so with liberals and northerners) and with enough of the nation to be deemed an easy shoe-in for re-election in a three way field.
Despite this, many Republicans considered him to be a paper tiger. 1988 must have been a fluke, because after 12 years of GOP rule things were bound to be an uphill battle for them. The various Republican successes across 1989, 1990, and 1991 put them in a strong position to claim that they were the ones Americans trusted to rule. After 4 years of what they called anemic economic growth, a focus on the environment instead of resource utilization; a focus on foreign policy and massive government loans to other countries instead of addressing domestic concerns and cutting the deficit; and the lack of any one big success McKeithen could point his finger at, a large number of Republicans declared their intentions to run.
Among the heavy hitters of the Republican Primary were Pete du Pont, former Governor and then-Senator of Delaware polled the highest in the early days of the primary. As the popular and rich governor of a small and moderate state, he held a lot of endorsements and the support of the party hierarchy in various states.
Bill Clinton, like du Pont was the former Governor and then-Senator of his own state, Arkansas. He came out swinging against both his primary opponents and McKeithen. He attacked du Pont and McKeithen as being sons of privilege, being all but handed their political careers, while playing up his poor rural upbringing and self-made man status (and his wife's success independent of him). He attacked McKeithen for simultaneously being too focused on international concerns and being “weak” and “disrespected” on the national stage, and for not paying enough attention to the deficit.
Jack Eckerd, former Governor of Florida, polled highly in the beginning but quickly struggled before voting had began. Despite being the only Republican Governor of Florida since Reconstruction, he had a track record of donating to and endorsing Democrats in his state over the years. It was a policy which made for good allies in Tallahassee, and proved invaluable to passing legislation, but made him anathema to Republican primary voters even in the South. His success as a businessman and minority-party Governor were largely ignored in light of this, even with his massive amounts of funding.
Ed Clark, despite being the two-term Governor of the largest state in the country, California, fared poorly throughout the pre-campaign season. His polling numbers spiked up several times but quickly deflated over time. His hostility towards the press, which had never been good and had only grown worse over 1991, won him many detractors and few allies in the battle of the airwaves. His fervent support and implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment in California state law and his refusal to support anti-gay referendums and legislation as Governor, as well as his refusal to back the proposed Right to Life Amendment in the state legislature or the reintroduction of death penalty alienated socially conservative voters.
His promises to formally abolish the draft, and to scale back all American involvement across the world (including the Middle East and Korea) if elected alienated interventionist voters. His stated willingness to “hack apart” the budget (including the military’s share), eliminate the deficit within two terms, and also cut taxes to the lowest in recent history aliened fiscally liberal voters. He had too much of a history as a candidate, and was too willing to engage in bold and radical ideas to appeal to all factions of the Republican Party.
Finally was Robert Budd Dwyer, known only Budd Dwyer, former Governor of Pennsylvania. Strictly seen as a regional candidate, something of a poorer if more jovial and friendly du Pont, Dwyer made it clear he intended to stick it out for the long haul. As the popular moderate Governor of a larger state, he campaigned as the man who offered something for everyone. Cities and towns, blue-collar and white-collar, black and white; a tactic which put him in the predicable role of being everyone's second candidate and no ones first. He polled fairly weak across 1991, peaking at only 6% by the end of the year.
Among the candidates seen as disposable or second tier were Claudine Schneider, former Representative from Rhode Island's 2nd district and Administer of the EPA under Cohn. She declared her candidacy on the basis of promoting women's rights in the United States and abroad. Her most memorable claim was that the Democratic Party did not care about women, citing McKeithen's hesitancy to push for maternal leave after campaigning on it, appointing three men to the Supreme Court and not a single woman (no woman had served on the Court since Lorna Lockwood passed away in 1978), and a general lack of attention to women's issues in foreign policy.
Harold Stassen, at the ripe old age of 84, was running for a 9th time for the Republican nomination. What made this run stand out was that two years previously, he had won a Congressional race for Minnesota's 1st district. Proving himself both capable in Congress as both a constituent-pleaser and debater, he hoped to parlay that into a successful Presidential run.
John Raese, two term Governor of West Virginia, came into the race with little notoriety other than being the youngest candidate, and ended it with him being one of the few candidates to stick through until the end of the race. Surprisingly he had picked up support near the end of 1991, peaking at 12%, due to him being seen as the loud and flamboyant adversary of the “liberal media” and the “enemies of coal and West Virginian culture”.
Jack Fellure, the Republican candidate for West Virginia's 3rd House seat in 1990, ran on a right-wing, socially conservative, Christian nationalist platform. He polled little and received a similar amount of votes. Some accused him of running solely to siphon votes from Raese, a claim which his campaign denied and countered by accusing Raese of being afraid of a challenge from in the state.
Mark Siljander, former member of the House from Michigan and then-Senator of Michigan ran on a unique platform. He promised to bridge the gap between the right-wing of the Republican Party and the National Conservative Party, a tactic he had previous used in 1988 to win election to the Senate. His plan immediate fell through, as the National Conservatives ran their own candidates in their primary, none of which indicated they had any intention of stepping aside from him. Siljander polled little, never breaking past single digits, and had no successes anywhere, even in his own home state.
Jon Huntsman, Governor of Utah, resembled a younger, Mormon Jack Eckerd in terms of money, style, and being a political outsider/businessman elected to the governorship. Rumors flew around 1991 if the former Press Secretary was approached by President Cohn to run, but little came of it as Cohn stayed out of the limelight and did not endorse anyone.
Ron Paul, former House member and Governor from Texas ran but was laughed off on cable television and by fellow candidates of being a washed out has-been, a loser who placed third as the incumbent governor, and someone who shouldn't be taken seriously.
Jay Rockefeller, former Secretary of State and then-Senator from New York, came into the primary with plenty of name recognition, both his own and his families, plenty of money and support, but surprisingly flamed out early and dropped out before New York was even set to vote.
Pat Paulsen was a self admitted joke candidate, with the slogan of “Don't vote. For me, or at all.”
The final aggregate polling for 1991 was:
Ed Clark - 8%
Bill Clinton - 15%
Pete du Pont - 20%
R. Budd Dwyer - 6%
Jack Eckerd - 3%
Jack Fellure - 0%
Jon Huntsman Sr. - 8%
Eugene McCarthy - 3%
Ron Paul - 2%
Pat Paulsen - 0%
John Raese - 12%
Jay Rockefeller - 7%
Claudine Schneider - 9%
Mark Siljander - 1%
Harold Stassen - 0%
NOTA - 2%
Undecided - 4%
The first actual elections came February 10th, in Kansas' winner take all primary. With a respectable 37% of the vote, du Pont took the state and solidified his position as front runner. Bill Clinton took second with 19%, John Raese with 18%, Jon Huntsman with 12%, and the remaining candidates receiving less than 10%.
The second primary in New Jersey came February 17th, which despite polling putting du Pont in the lead, had Governor Dwyer win with 46%, to Bill Clinton's 22% and du Pont's 17%. The dramatic shift in Dwyer's favor was thought to be due to Governor William K. Dickey campaigning for his friend across the state, despite most establishment Republicans in the state preferring du Pont.
The third primary, in Ohio, came the very next day on February 18th, with Dwyer winning a second victory by a dominant lead of 41% (enough to win all of the state's delegates), John Raese at 22.2%, du Pont at a close 20.5%, and Clinton at a rather distant 9%. Immediately this vaunted the former Pennsylvania Governor as either the new frontrunner, or a close second behind du Pont.
Oregon, with it's winner take all primary a week later, had du Pont win 35%, Claudine Schneider a surprisingly low 14% for second place, Bill Clinton at 13%, Rockefeller at 12%, and the rest of the candidates receiving less than 10%.
Florida, Idaho, Iowa, and California were all scheduled to be March 6th, and they proved to be the game changers of the primary season. Despite polling anemically in the state and nationally, Fellure proved popular enough among his states primary goers to win an outright majority in Florida's primary, a narrow 51%, which under the states rules entitled him to all of the delegates.
Idaho, which featured a system similar to Oregon, had John Raese win 30%, John Huntsman 21%, du Pont 20%, and Budd Dwyer 14%.
Iowa, a proportional state, had Dwyer win 25%, Bill Clinton 22%, Raese 20%, and du Pont 19%.
California, the big proportional state, whose moral victory was considered to be bigger than her share of the delegates, embarrassed her home state Governor Ed Clark when he polled third place. First was Bill Clinton, with only 25%, Raese with 20%, Clark with an abysmal 17%, Dwyer with 14%, and a field of candidates with less than 10% of the vote each. Clark pulled out shortly thereafter, becoming the first major candidate to do so.
It was soon clear that not only was the first open Presidential primary the Republicans had since 1976 was likely going to be as chaotic, if not more so, than that year. The remainder of the primary season featured vote-split after vote split, with candidates peaking in their home states, like Huntsman in Utah, Dwyer in Pennsylvania, and Rockefeller in New York, but otherwise the field remained largely crammed and fractional.
Come the Republican Convention, no one candidate had a majority. No one candidate had even a third of the delegates, although Bill Clinton did have a plurality of both the votes and the delegates. After a weak start, he picked up California and swept many Southern states, putting him in a tight race for first among three other candidates. The original frontrunner, du Pont, slowly climbed his way to seize a plurality of the states, but crucially not the delegates or the popular vote. Dwyer, despite an early and promising start in two big states, slowed to a crawl in terms and remained consigned mostly to east of the Mississippi, winning New Mexico as his only western state. He still remained as the third place finisher in terms of voters, delegates, and states.
After an exhaustive 67 rounds of balloting, many bitter recriminations aired between the du Pont and Clinton camp, with accusations of sexual and business improprieties, corruption, malfeasance in office, and the hardening of lines between the two camps: the Republicans settled on third place finisher Budd Dwyer of Pennsylvania as a mutually acceptable candidate. He picked Oregon Senator Tonie Nathan as his Vice-Presidential nominee.
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Despite being rather popular in his own party, President McKeithen received several challengers in his primary, none of which were taken seriously by McKeithen or the media. Among the most high-profile challengers were Roy Innis and Ralph Nader. Innis, the long time National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality, and one time political candidate for Mayor of New York in 1989, was fervently critical of McKeithen for spending so much time and money overseas. He attacked the President for caring more about the well being of foreigners than the lives of black and inner city Americans, for excessive military intervention and government bureaucracy, and for “not being the moral leader Americans need and deserve” at the time.
Innis' run for President was more noteworthy for his role in the Supreme Court case Innis v. Williams. Long time political opponents sued Innis as being ineligible to run for President, as he was born in the U. S. Virgin Island, a territory and not a state. While persons born in US territories had run for President before, including Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, Innis v. Williams explicitly ruled that US citizens born in territories counted as natural-born citizens and were eligible for President. He was also the only candidate to beat the President in a major urban area, winning Chicago and Cook County by a narrow margin while losing the statewide vote to a massive extent.
Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and critic of the two-party system, simultaneously planned an independent run for President while running against McKeithen in the Democratic primaries, something he called “dress rehearsal”. He brought up the lack of economic progress made during the McKeithen years, the declining school graduation rates, increasing poverty across the nation, weakening environmental standards, and the bloated funding and imperialistic role of the military.
Other political opponents of McKeithen included Lyndon LaRouche, former Chairman of the United States Labor Party, several times their candidate for President, and semi-famous political eccentric with a shallow but wide-reaching base of political supporters. LaRouche was long derided as being racist, antisemitic, paranoid, cult-like, and various other unlikable epithets.
Despite being on trial for harassment at the time, LaRouche ran for the entire primary season. He campaigned on, among many other things, abolishing the Federal Reserve, impeaching the entire Supreme Court for dereliction of duty, recognizing the People's Republic of China as the legitimate Chinese government and allying with them to wage war on the Soviet-British-French bloc, and sending the military into inner cities to wage war on drug dealers.
Larry Agran, at times the city councilman and mayor of Irvine, California, was immortalized in comic strips across the nation for an interview where he silently flipped off a reporter who was in the middle of asking if Agran was seriously running for President. Said reporter later admitted he voted for Agran in the primary for “being honest and unfiltered” as a candidate.
Charles Wood was the Lieutenant Governor of Alabama in 1971, and Governor from 1971 to 1975 after the ascension of Albert Brewer to the Vice-President. After stepping down in 1975, he was largely a businessman and family man with no political ambitions. In 1991 he came out of political retirement to make a self-admitted quixotic bid for the Presidency. Wood was most famous for his unusual appearance, following many rounds of skin grafts and surgery caused severe burns he received in an accident during his time as an Air Force pilot. He ran on a platform of economic deregulation, tax cuts, free trade, and increased military support.
Wood was the only candidate that McKeithen directly referenced during the primary, mentioning in an interview that he was proud that it was possible for two white southern candidates to run in the Democratic primary for President without resorting to race-baiting. He was also the challenger who received the most amount of votes in a state, just shy of 26% in his native Alabama.
McKeithen, despite the relatively high amount of high-profile candidates running against him, easily won re-nomination. He had no debates with his primary opponents, despite plenty of attacks on him from them, and walked into the general elections fresh and ready.
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Compared to the nearly year long campaign for the Democratic and Republican nominations, the National Conservative Party spent only 4 months in total. Candidates declared in March of 1992, and the national primary happened in July of that same year.
Joe Barton, despite being the Governor of Texas and thus the most high profile NatCon, ran only a half hearted campaign for the nomination. Thought to be the best candidate they had, he spent the least amount of time campaigning for the nomination, preferring to spend time working in his state, and the second least amount of money (behind only California's Bobby Fischer).
This left a handful of people in the running, such as former North Carolina Governor Jim Broyhill, who would drop out and endorse then-South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell soon after. Also in the running was former Texas Senator John Tower, and former Virginia Senator Pat Robertson (the latter two both lost re-election in 1990), both of whom would also drop out, Tower endorsing first the Barton campaign, then the Bob Dornan one.
William Carney, Representative from New York, Woody Jenkins, Louisiana Senator, and Bobby Fischer, California Representative also jumped in. Soon after former nominee Jesse Helms endorsed Bobby Fischer, former California Senator Bob Dornan jumped in solely to sabotage the “nihilistic vulgar campaign” of Fischer and Helms, a tactic that worked marvelously as both placed last among the qualifying candidates.
Carroll Campbell, a popular Governor in the South, and as the intelligent, photogenic leader of a “new Conservatism” won by a strong plurality, gaining over 40% in a field of middling candidates, many of whom were mocked and heckled on the basis of not being able to win re-election in their own states.
As a unifying measuring to the western states, Campbell picked Bob Dornan, former California Senator, as his Vice-Presidential nominee and a direct rebuke to the “vile, reactionary, antisemitic Fischer wing” of the party. By challenging the President on his home turf of the South, and the Vice-President's home turf of the Southwest, party insiders believed they could pull out a surprisingly large victory against the big two and truly establish themselves nationally by taking the White House.
Out the gate it looked like the map and numbers favored President McKeithen. Popular, against a divided field of candidates, against a Republican candidate whom won the nominee as a result of old school intra-party wheeling and dealing rather than directly as was the case with the modern primary system, and a National Conservative candidate who was popular, but not popular enough to break the traditional third party ceiling.
The Republicans and National Conservatives believed now was there chance to take out the weak and ineffectual President and either take back their rightful office, as the Republicans believed, or ascend to new ground, as the National Conservatives believed.
Despite this, many Republicans considered him to be a paper tiger. 1988 must have been a fluke, because after 12 years of GOP rule things were bound to be an uphill battle for them. The various Republican successes across 1989, 1990, and 1991 put them in a strong position to claim that they were the ones Americans trusted to rule. After 4 years of what they called anemic economic growth, a focus on the environment instead of resource utilization; a focus on foreign policy and massive government loans to other countries instead of addressing domestic concerns and cutting the deficit; and the lack of any one big success McKeithen could point his finger at, a large number of Republicans declared their intentions to run.
Among the heavy hitters of the Republican Primary were Pete du Pont, former Governor and then-Senator of Delaware polled the highest in the early days of the primary. As the popular and rich governor of a small and moderate state, he held a lot of endorsements and the support of the party hierarchy in various states.
Bill Clinton, like du Pont was the former Governor and then-Senator of his own state, Arkansas. He came out swinging against both his primary opponents and McKeithen. He attacked du Pont and McKeithen as being sons of privilege, being all but handed their political careers, while playing up his poor rural upbringing and self-made man status (and his wife's success independent of him). He attacked McKeithen for simultaneously being too focused on international concerns and being “weak” and “disrespected” on the national stage, and for not paying enough attention to the deficit.
Jack Eckerd, former Governor of Florida, polled highly in the beginning but quickly struggled before voting had began. Despite being the only Republican Governor of Florida since Reconstruction, he had a track record of donating to and endorsing Democrats in his state over the years. It was a policy which made for good allies in Tallahassee, and proved invaluable to passing legislation, but made him anathema to Republican primary voters even in the South. His success as a businessman and minority-party Governor were largely ignored in light of this, even with his massive amounts of funding.
Ed Clark, despite being the two-term Governor of the largest state in the country, California, fared poorly throughout the pre-campaign season. His polling numbers spiked up several times but quickly deflated over time. His hostility towards the press, which had never been good and had only grown worse over 1991, won him many detractors and few allies in the battle of the airwaves. His fervent support and implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment in California state law and his refusal to support anti-gay referendums and legislation as Governor, as well as his refusal to back the proposed Right to Life Amendment in the state legislature or the reintroduction of death penalty alienated socially conservative voters.
His promises to formally abolish the draft, and to scale back all American involvement across the world (including the Middle East and Korea) if elected alienated interventionist voters. His stated willingness to “hack apart” the budget (including the military’s share), eliminate the deficit within two terms, and also cut taxes to the lowest in recent history aliened fiscally liberal voters. He had too much of a history as a candidate, and was too willing to engage in bold and radical ideas to appeal to all factions of the Republican Party.
Finally was Robert Budd Dwyer, known only Budd Dwyer, former Governor of Pennsylvania. Strictly seen as a regional candidate, something of a poorer if more jovial and friendly du Pont, Dwyer made it clear he intended to stick it out for the long haul. As the popular moderate Governor of a larger state, he campaigned as the man who offered something for everyone. Cities and towns, blue-collar and white-collar, black and white; a tactic which put him in the predicable role of being everyone's second candidate and no ones first. He polled fairly weak across 1991, peaking at only 6% by the end of the year.
Among the candidates seen as disposable or second tier were Claudine Schneider, former Representative from Rhode Island's 2nd district and Administer of the EPA under Cohn. She declared her candidacy on the basis of promoting women's rights in the United States and abroad. Her most memorable claim was that the Democratic Party did not care about women, citing McKeithen's hesitancy to push for maternal leave after campaigning on it, appointing three men to the Supreme Court and not a single woman (no woman had served on the Court since Lorna Lockwood passed away in 1978), and a general lack of attention to women's issues in foreign policy.
Harold Stassen, at the ripe old age of 84, was running for a 9th time for the Republican nomination. What made this run stand out was that two years previously, he had won a Congressional race for Minnesota's 1st district. Proving himself both capable in Congress as both a constituent-pleaser and debater, he hoped to parlay that into a successful Presidential run.
John Raese, two term Governor of West Virginia, came into the race with little notoriety other than being the youngest candidate, and ended it with him being one of the few candidates to stick through until the end of the race. Surprisingly he had picked up support near the end of 1991, peaking at 12%, due to him being seen as the loud and flamboyant adversary of the “liberal media” and the “enemies of coal and West Virginian culture”.
Jack Fellure, the Republican candidate for West Virginia's 3rd House seat in 1990, ran on a right-wing, socially conservative, Christian nationalist platform. He polled little and received a similar amount of votes. Some accused him of running solely to siphon votes from Raese, a claim which his campaign denied and countered by accusing Raese of being afraid of a challenge from in the state.
Mark Siljander, former member of the House from Michigan and then-Senator of Michigan ran on a unique platform. He promised to bridge the gap between the right-wing of the Republican Party and the National Conservative Party, a tactic he had previous used in 1988 to win election to the Senate. His plan immediate fell through, as the National Conservatives ran their own candidates in their primary, none of which indicated they had any intention of stepping aside from him. Siljander polled little, never breaking past single digits, and had no successes anywhere, even in his own home state.
Jon Huntsman, Governor of Utah, resembled a younger, Mormon Jack Eckerd in terms of money, style, and being a political outsider/businessman elected to the governorship. Rumors flew around 1991 if the former Press Secretary was approached by President Cohn to run, but little came of it as Cohn stayed out of the limelight and did not endorse anyone.
Ron Paul, former House member and Governor from Texas ran but was laughed off on cable television and by fellow candidates of being a washed out has-been, a loser who placed third as the incumbent governor, and someone who shouldn't be taken seriously.
Jay Rockefeller, former Secretary of State and then-Senator from New York, came into the primary with plenty of name recognition, both his own and his families, plenty of money and support, but surprisingly flamed out early and dropped out before New York was even set to vote.
Pat Paulsen was a self admitted joke candidate, with the slogan of “Don't vote. For me, or at all.”
The final aggregate polling for 1991 was:
Ed Clark - 8%
Bill Clinton - 15%
Pete du Pont - 20%
R. Budd Dwyer - 6%
Jack Eckerd - 3%
Jack Fellure - 0%
Jon Huntsman Sr. - 8%
Eugene McCarthy - 3%
Ron Paul - 2%
Pat Paulsen - 0%
John Raese - 12%
Jay Rockefeller - 7%
Claudine Schneider - 9%
Mark Siljander - 1%
Harold Stassen - 0%
NOTA - 2%
Undecided - 4%
The first actual elections came February 10th, in Kansas' winner take all primary. With a respectable 37% of the vote, du Pont took the state and solidified his position as front runner. Bill Clinton took second with 19%, John Raese with 18%, Jon Huntsman with 12%, and the remaining candidates receiving less than 10%.
The second primary in New Jersey came February 17th, which despite polling putting du Pont in the lead, had Governor Dwyer win with 46%, to Bill Clinton's 22% and du Pont's 17%. The dramatic shift in Dwyer's favor was thought to be due to Governor William K. Dickey campaigning for his friend across the state, despite most establishment Republicans in the state preferring du Pont.
The third primary, in Ohio, came the very next day on February 18th, with Dwyer winning a second victory by a dominant lead of 41% (enough to win all of the state's delegates), John Raese at 22.2%, du Pont at a close 20.5%, and Clinton at a rather distant 9%. Immediately this vaunted the former Pennsylvania Governor as either the new frontrunner, or a close second behind du Pont.
Oregon, with it's winner take all primary a week later, had du Pont win 35%, Claudine Schneider a surprisingly low 14% for second place, Bill Clinton at 13%, Rockefeller at 12%, and the rest of the candidates receiving less than 10%.
Florida, Idaho, Iowa, and California were all scheduled to be March 6th, and they proved to be the game changers of the primary season. Despite polling anemically in the state and nationally, Fellure proved popular enough among his states primary goers to win an outright majority in Florida's primary, a narrow 51%, which under the states rules entitled him to all of the delegates.
Idaho, which featured a system similar to Oregon, had John Raese win 30%, John Huntsman 21%, du Pont 20%, and Budd Dwyer 14%.
Iowa, a proportional state, had Dwyer win 25%, Bill Clinton 22%, Raese 20%, and du Pont 19%.
California, the big proportional state, whose moral victory was considered to be bigger than her share of the delegates, embarrassed her home state Governor Ed Clark when he polled third place. First was Bill Clinton, with only 25%, Raese with 20%, Clark with an abysmal 17%, Dwyer with 14%, and a field of candidates with less than 10% of the vote each. Clark pulled out shortly thereafter, becoming the first major candidate to do so.
It was soon clear that not only was the first open Presidential primary the Republicans had since 1976 was likely going to be as chaotic, if not more so, than that year. The remainder of the primary season featured vote-split after vote split, with candidates peaking in their home states, like Huntsman in Utah, Dwyer in Pennsylvania, and Rockefeller in New York, but otherwise the field remained largely crammed and fractional.
Come the Republican Convention, no one candidate had a majority. No one candidate had even a third of the delegates, although Bill Clinton did have a plurality of both the votes and the delegates. After a weak start, he picked up California and swept many Southern states, putting him in a tight race for first among three other candidates. The original frontrunner, du Pont, slowly climbed his way to seize a plurality of the states, but crucially not the delegates or the popular vote. Dwyer, despite an early and promising start in two big states, slowed to a crawl in terms and remained consigned mostly to east of the Mississippi, winning New Mexico as his only western state. He still remained as the third place finisher in terms of voters, delegates, and states.
After an exhaustive 67 rounds of balloting, many bitter recriminations aired between the du Pont and Clinton camp, with accusations of sexual and business improprieties, corruption, malfeasance in office, and the hardening of lines between the two camps: the Republicans settled on third place finisher Budd Dwyer of Pennsylvania as a mutually acceptable candidate. He picked Oregon Senator Tonie Nathan as his Vice-Presidential nominee.
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Despite being rather popular in his own party, President McKeithen received several challengers in his primary, none of which were taken seriously by McKeithen or the media. Among the most high-profile challengers were Roy Innis and Ralph Nader. Innis, the long time National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality, and one time political candidate for Mayor of New York in 1989, was fervently critical of McKeithen for spending so much time and money overseas. He attacked the President for caring more about the well being of foreigners than the lives of black and inner city Americans, for excessive military intervention and government bureaucracy, and for “not being the moral leader Americans need and deserve” at the time.
Innis' run for President was more noteworthy for his role in the Supreme Court case Innis v. Williams. Long time political opponents sued Innis as being ineligible to run for President, as he was born in the U. S. Virgin Island, a territory and not a state. While persons born in US territories had run for President before, including Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, Innis v. Williams explicitly ruled that US citizens born in territories counted as natural-born citizens and were eligible for President. He was also the only candidate to beat the President in a major urban area, winning Chicago and Cook County by a narrow margin while losing the statewide vote to a massive extent.
Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and critic of the two-party system, simultaneously planned an independent run for President while running against McKeithen in the Democratic primaries, something he called “dress rehearsal”. He brought up the lack of economic progress made during the McKeithen years, the declining school graduation rates, increasing poverty across the nation, weakening environmental standards, and the bloated funding and imperialistic role of the military.
Other political opponents of McKeithen included Lyndon LaRouche, former Chairman of the United States Labor Party, several times their candidate for President, and semi-famous political eccentric with a shallow but wide-reaching base of political supporters. LaRouche was long derided as being racist, antisemitic, paranoid, cult-like, and various other unlikable epithets.
Despite being on trial for harassment at the time, LaRouche ran for the entire primary season. He campaigned on, among many other things, abolishing the Federal Reserve, impeaching the entire Supreme Court for dereliction of duty, recognizing the People's Republic of China as the legitimate Chinese government and allying with them to wage war on the Soviet-British-French bloc, and sending the military into inner cities to wage war on drug dealers.
Larry Agran, at times the city councilman and mayor of Irvine, California, was immortalized in comic strips across the nation for an interview where he silently flipped off a reporter who was in the middle of asking if Agran was seriously running for President. Said reporter later admitted he voted for Agran in the primary for “being honest and unfiltered” as a candidate.
Charles Wood was the Lieutenant Governor of Alabama in 1971, and Governor from 1971 to 1975 after the ascension of Albert Brewer to the Vice-President. After stepping down in 1975, he was largely a businessman and family man with no political ambitions. In 1991 he came out of political retirement to make a self-admitted quixotic bid for the Presidency. Wood was most famous for his unusual appearance, following many rounds of skin grafts and surgery caused severe burns he received in an accident during his time as an Air Force pilot. He ran on a platform of economic deregulation, tax cuts, free trade, and increased military support.
Wood was the only candidate that McKeithen directly referenced during the primary, mentioning in an interview that he was proud that it was possible for two white southern candidates to run in the Democratic primary for President without resorting to race-baiting. He was also the challenger who received the most amount of votes in a state, just shy of 26% in his native Alabama.
McKeithen, despite the relatively high amount of high-profile candidates running against him, easily won re-nomination. He had no debates with his primary opponents, despite plenty of attacks on him from them, and walked into the general elections fresh and ready.
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Compared to the nearly year long campaign for the Democratic and Republican nominations, the National Conservative Party spent only 4 months in total. Candidates declared in March of 1992, and the national primary happened in July of that same year.
Joe Barton, despite being the Governor of Texas and thus the most high profile NatCon, ran only a half hearted campaign for the nomination. Thought to be the best candidate they had, he spent the least amount of time campaigning for the nomination, preferring to spend time working in his state, and the second least amount of money (behind only California's Bobby Fischer).
This left a handful of people in the running, such as former North Carolina Governor Jim Broyhill, who would drop out and endorse then-South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell soon after. Also in the running was former Texas Senator John Tower, and former Virginia Senator Pat Robertson (the latter two both lost re-election in 1990), both of whom would also drop out, Tower endorsing first the Barton campaign, then the Bob Dornan one.
William Carney, Representative from New York, Woody Jenkins, Louisiana Senator, and Bobby Fischer, California Representative also jumped in. Soon after former nominee Jesse Helms endorsed Bobby Fischer, former California Senator Bob Dornan jumped in solely to sabotage the “nihilistic vulgar campaign” of Fischer and Helms, a tactic that worked marvelously as both placed last among the qualifying candidates.
Carroll Campbell, a popular Governor in the South, and as the intelligent, photogenic leader of a “new Conservatism” won by a strong plurality, gaining over 40% in a field of middling candidates, many of whom were mocked and heckled on the basis of not being able to win re-election in their own states.
As a unifying measuring to the western states, Campbell picked Bob Dornan, former California Senator, as his Vice-Presidential nominee and a direct rebuke to the “vile, reactionary, antisemitic Fischer wing” of the party. By challenging the President on his home turf of the South, and the Vice-President's home turf of the Southwest, party insiders believed they could pull out a surprisingly large victory against the big two and truly establish themselves nationally by taking the White House.
Out the gate it looked like the map and numbers favored President McKeithen. Popular, against a divided field of candidates, against a Republican candidate whom won the nominee as a result of old school intra-party wheeling and dealing rather than directly as was the case with the modern primary system, and a National Conservative candidate who was popular, but not popular enough to break the traditional third party ceiling.
The Republicans and National Conservatives believed now was there chance to take out the weak and ineffectual President and either take back their rightful office, as the Republicans believed, or ascend to new ground, as the National Conservatives believed.
