During the rest of May, a series of primary victories added to my delegate total, including a 68 percent win in Arkansas on the twenty-sixth, rivaling the best I’d ever done in a contested primary at home. Meanwhile, I campaigned in California, hoping to complete my fight for the nomination in Jerry Brown’s home state. I called for federal aid to make our schools safer and for an all-out effort to turn back the tide of AIDS in America. And I began the search for a vice-presidential nominee. I entrusted the vetting process to Warren Christopher, a Los Angeles lawyer who had been President Carter’s deputy secretary of state, and who had a well-deserved reputation for competence and discretion. In 1980, Chris had negotiated the release of our hostages in Iran. Sadly, their release was delayed until the day of President Reagan’s inauguration, proof that all leaders play politics, even in a theocracy. Meanwhile, Ross Perot’s still-undeclared candidacy continued to gather steam. He resigned as chairman of his company and continued to rise in the polls. Just as I was about to wrap up the nomination, the papers were filled with headlines like “Clinton Set to Clinch Nomination, but All Eyes Are on Perot,”
“U.S. Primary Season Near End, Perot Man to Watch,” and “New Poll Shows Perot Leading Bush and Clinton.” Perot was unburdened by President Bush’s record or my primary battle scars. For the Republicans, he must have seemed a Frankenstein’s monster of their own making: a businessman who had slipped into the space created by their assault on me. For Democrats, he was also a bad dream, proof that the President could be defeated, but perhaps not by their wounded nominee. On June 2, I won the primaries in Ohio, New Jersey, New Mexico, Alabama, Montana, and California, where I defeated Brown 48 to 40 percent. Finally, I had clinched the nomination. Of all the primary votes cast in 1992, I had received more than 10.3 million, or 52 percent. Brown got nearly 4 million votes, 20 percent; Tsongas received about 3.6 million, 18 percent; the rest were cast for the other candidates and those who voted for uncommitted delegates.
But the big story that night was the willingness of so many voters in both parties, according to exit polls, to desert their parties’ nominees to vote for Perot. It put a big damper on our celebration at the Los Angeles Biltmore. As Hillary and I watched the returns in my suite, even I was having trouble maintaining my congenital optimism. Not long before we were scheduled to go down to the ballroom to give a victory speech, Hillary and I had a visitor—Chevy Chase. Just as he had done on Long Island four years earlier, he showed up at a low moment to lift my spirits. This time, we were joined by his movie partner Goldie Hawn. By the time they finished making jokes about the absurd situation we were in, I was feeling better and ready to roll on.
Once again, press pundits said I was dead. Now Perot was the man to beat. A Reuters news service story captured the situation in one line: “Bill Clinton, who struggled for months to avoid publicity about his personal life, Friday faced an even worse political curse—being ignored.” President Nixon predicted that Bush would beat Perot in a close race, with me a distant third.
Our campaign had to regain momentum. We decided to reach out to specific constituencies and the general public directly, and to keep pushing the issues. I went on Arsenio Hall’s late-night TV show, which was especially popular with younger viewers. I wore sunglasses and played “Heartbreak Hotel”
and “God Bless the Child” on my sax. I answered viewers’ questions on
and 12, the Democratic platform committee produced a draft that reflected my philosophy and campaign commitments, and avoided the polarizing language that had hurt us in the past. On June 13, I appeared before the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. At the outset, both Jesse and I saw it as an opportunity to bridge our differences and build a united front for the campaign. It didn’t work out that way. The night before I spoke, the popular rap artist Sister Souljah addressed the coalition. She was a bright woman who could have an impact on young people. A month earlier, in an interview in the
“If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? . . . So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?”
