Bob Dole 1993 - 1995 The Last Man Standing

Episode 334 GEORGE H.W. BUSH 1992 The Changing of the Guard (Part 16) James Baker rides in


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It is just days before the Republican National Convention and the campaign of George H. W. Bush is losing, badly. It appears unfocused and seems to be reacting to events instead of controlling them or leading them. The worsening economy has the argument for change being made by Bill Clinton stronger with each passing day. Finally, Ross Perot decided to withdraw and did so on the last night of the 1992 Democratic National Convention delivering for Governor Clinton an enormously huge audience to listen to his acceptance speech. 

One of the problems is that George Bush is without two of his most trusted political advisors. Lee Atwater, the native South Carolinian, who had helped guide Bush to the Presidency had died of brain cancer, and James Baker, his former campaign manager, had moved on to the job of Secretary of State. Bush needed them badly and he finally went to James Baker and asked him to take over the campaign for that final stretch. 

James Baker was, as James Carville once said of him, "the Joe Montana of American Politics" (Montana is a widely heralded Super Bowl MVP Quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers) Baker arrived in Washington D.C. when his friend George Bush had moved from Texas in the early 1970s.  He got a job working for President Gerald Ford in 1975. He then moved over and almost pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in political history moving Ford from 33% points down to only losing by one in 1976 to Jimmy Carter. He took Bush from an asterisk in the polls to almost wrestling away the 1980 nomination from Ronald Reagan, he then helped guide the Reagan Presidency in its first term, was Secretary of State to Bush as they soft landed the Cold War, and now Bush was calling him back in to pull off yet another miracle and get him re-elected to the Presidency. 

As you will see, it almost worked, if not for the Sinister forces of a Special Prosecutor. Here is the story of James Baker stepping back in to take over the 1992 campaign of George H. W. Bush, on the eve of the 1992 Republican National Convention. 

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Bob Dole 1993 - 1995 The Last Man StandingBy Randal Wallace

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