WI: Perot/ Trump 92?

What if Ross Perot had picked Donald Trump to be his running mate in 1992 instead of James Stockdale? Would he do better in the election?
 
What if Ross Perot had picked Donald Trump to be his running mate in 1992 instead of James Stockdale? Would he do better in the election?

Probably not, unless Perot gets in the race and actually stays in the race rather than getting in, withdrawing, and re entering like he did OTL.
 
If Trump was similar on 1992 as on 2015 Perot would do worse. I don't know then how it would affect for Trump's later seeking of presidency if he even tries.
 
No change other than butterflies.

In 1992, Perot was the candidate of ideas. Well, one idea, anyway: deficit reduction. His message as a successful businessperson was not, "Hey, I'm a good businessman, so I'll be a good President" but rather "Hey, I'm willing to talk about this thing that no other candidate is willing to talk about, and if you agree with me that it's serious, vote for me."

To that end, what Perot needed in a VP candidate was a serious, establishment political veteran. Stockdale was meant to be a placeholder; the problem was that veteran campaign manager Ed Rollins quit in June, and then Perot himself (temporarily) dropped out of the race in July, meaning that Stockdale was never replaced.

Trump wouldn't have ticked any of those boxes for Perot in '92. You might replace "Who am I? Why am I here?" with some equally gaffe-tastic remark, but the end result, IMO, would be the same.
 

It's certainly true that the Perot campaign *thought* they needed someone with some establishment cred and did shop around for such a person. In the end a military figure of any kind is not an ideal fit for that model. Running on military experience alone is always going to be a bit iconoclastic in the US. Not to mention Stockdale's terrible performance.

Honestly, Trump in 1992 had very different politics and he could've added an interesting dimension to the debates. He would've brought more to the table than Stockdale on a personal level, that's certainly likely.

But it's still a non-starter, since 1991 and 1992 were all about his ongoing bankruptcies. Rather undercuts Perot's argument about being a good businessman.
 
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