If McCain had run in 1996 he would end up getting lost in the sea of Republican candidates that year unless he ran the kind of "tell it like it is" campaign that garnered so much attention in 2000. If McCain comes in second, as he did in 2000, then he'd be the frontrunner that year and might end up beating Bush despite a spirited challenge on Dubya's part. Were McCain to be nominated, he'd most likely beat Gore and be re-elected in 2004. But all that hinges on the quality of his performance in 1996...
 
Clinton's approval ratings were sinking into the low 40s during the midterms, but they rose to the mid-to-high 50s by the time of the general election. A different candidate might help, but the best way to make the Republicans competitive is to stop Clinton from regaining his popularity.

From I remember (without doing the correct thing and looking it up) Clinton's approval numbers climbed as did the personal attack (right or wrong).

A strange political dynamic came out of his post impeachment numbers. CW usually has it that when a President seeks re-election (or his party's replacement seeks election come retirement) his popular percentage will mimic his current approval rating. Therefore CW predicted that Gore in 2000 would produce Clinton's approval numbers, but there was a problem, which numbers?

There were two sets of poll numbers regarding Clinton's approval rating floating about: as for his presidency, after impeachment, for the traditional question, his numbers stayed high, and CW should have predicted an easy victory for Gore, but for the second question, one asking the on the approval of Clinton's 'character,' (a second question not usually posed by pollsters seeking an approval rating) his numbers sank to the low 40s.

In a way CW did turn out to be correct: Gore did mimic Clinton's approval rating(s), his popular percentage in 2000 (around 50%) split Clinton's two poll numbers down the middle. (High 50s with low 40s).
 
Maybe but I hear his wife’s standing threat is divorce if he runs for President. Not sure if that extends to other office, like Senate.

His wife suffers from depression and it's questionable whether she could have handled campaigning and being FLOTUS. He also said he did not want to be America's first black POTUS because he did not want to be a poster boy for the guilty white liberals.
 
Scoff all you want but the mid 1990s were the closest thing we've had to anything remotely resembling fiscal responsibility in the very long, especially compared to the past 17 or 18 years and frankly it all seems rather quaint today.
I recall someone on uselectionatlas.org saying that Clinton-Dole/Lott-Gingrich was the most fiscally responsible US federal government since Harding/Coolidge-Lodge/Curtis-Gillet/Longworth.
 
I recall someone on uselectionatlas.org saying that Clinton-Dole/Lott-Gingrich was the most fiscally responsible US federal government since Harding/Coolidge-Lodge/Curtis-Gillet/Longworth.

That may be right, another aspect of that dynamic is that Clinton and Dole actually got along fairly well and there was even a level a mutual respect between them that again seems rather quaint today. I even read that Clinton was happy when Dole got the Republican nomination because if things went off the rails for whatever reason and the voters tossed, he felt like Dole would be fairly good POTUS.
 
That may be right, another aspect of that dynamic is that Clinton and Dole actually got along fairly well and there was even a level a mutual respect between them that again seems rather quaint today. I even read that Clinton was happy when Dole got the Republican nomination because if things went off the rails for whatever reason and the voters tossed, he felt like Dole would be fairly good POTUS.
Clinton probably strongly preferred Dole over Pat Buchanan (or should I say Proto-Trump?)
 
. . . the mid 1990s were the closest thing we've had to anything remotely resembling fiscal responsibility in the very long, especially compared to the past 17 or 18 years . . .
I more focus on the late ‘90s when we ran slight surpluses during economic good times, and yes, I view this as the fiscally responsible thing to do during economic good times.

However, as a good Keynesian, I also view the deficit spending during the 2008 and 2009 Recession, and during the recovery, as the fiscally responsible thing to do.
 
I don't think I or Geography/Dude were trying to say it wasn't. IMO the Clinton-Gingrich tangent was the last the great bipartisan, majoritarian rule America may ever again witness. They didn't like each other and still made it work. Like Ike and LBJ; LBJ/Dirksen; Nixon/Moynihan; Reagan/O'Neill, Clinton/Gingrich, made government work. . .
Thanks for you vote of confidence, and I certainly agree that Clinton and Gingrich working together was better than the scorched earth politics of today.

Please understand that I am fairly hardcore about the importance of the stagnation of middle-class jobs, much less the slow decline. To the body politic, just the stagnation is a type of poison.
 
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