ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 1992 presidential campaign, George Bush had several advantages vis-a-vis the Democrats for reelection. He enjoyed a big lead in the polls. Bush’s leadership of the allied coalition during the war against Iraq had propelled him to the highest level of popularity of his presidency. Throughout 1991, he downplayed economic issues in his political statements. He failed even to pay sufficient attention on the campaign trail to the modest reforms he had outlined in his January 1992 State of the Union speech. Bush’s passivity during the 1992 campaign seems to have been at base a reflection of the ambivalence he felt about his job as president. For a long time he had seen himself as a good president who was bound to win, as good people must. Until the end of the campaign, he repeatedly stressed that the polls were wrong and that the American people would honor his experience and let him “finish the job”.
