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In 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidential election partly on the basis of his campaign’s false accusation that George H. W. Bush had overseen “the worst economic performance since the Great Depression.” Or so claimed Clinton’s running mate Al Gore.
James Carville, chief campaign adviser to Clinton/Gore, amplified that message with the constant refrain: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
That strategy worked for three reasons.
First, third-party candidate Ross Perot siphoned off nearly 19 percent of the vote. Most of his supporters would otherwise likely have gone to Bush. Perot allowed Clinton to win with a mere 43% of the popular vote, in part by echoing the false narrative of a crushing Bush recession.
Second, the brilliant Bush campaign strategist Lee Atwater, who had virtually destroyed the Dukakis campaign in 1988, remember the tank ad, the Boston Harbor ad, and the Willie Horton ad?, had died in 1991 at the age of 40 from a brain tumor.
Third, and most important, the anemic Bush reelection campaign never refuted the Clinton-Gore economic hysteria. That “recession” deception had drowned out the historic foreign policy achievements of Bush’s four years, from the successful policies that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the decisive 1991 Gulf War.
Despite overwrought claims about a recession or even a new Great Depression, in truth, the recession had ended in March 1991.
While unemployment was still high at 7.5%, the 1992 stock market nonetheless grew by 7.6%. And the 1992 inflation rate had stayed moderate at 2.9%.
In other words, the economy had already begun to recover from the 1990-91 recession, which–to reiterate–had officially ended 20 months before the 1992 election.
One cause, eerily now familiar, of the earlier 1990-91 downturn was that oil prices had initially doubled after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the U.S. military response. But prices collapsed as soon as Operation Desert Storm began, despite the later torching of the Kuwaiti oil fields and continued uncertainty in the Gulf. Yet by the November 1992 election, oil prices had long been back to pre-invasion levels.
Fast forward to the present. The economy today is far better than in 1992.
Take the just-released 2025 poverty rate. It hit an all-time low of 10.2%. Child poverty also fell to a historic low.
Median household income also hit a record high of $87,460. That is the highest median household income in the world, dwarfing all other large industrial nations that are not petro-states or tax havens. The same holds true for our GDP per capita–which, incidentally, was already over $34,000 higher than in Canada.
New business reports show that this past August manufacturing achieved its largest monthly increase since 2022. And service-sector growth jumped to its highest level since 2021. New orders for metals, machinery, computers, appliances, communications, in truth, almost everything, continue to rise every month, especially and most recently in August.
Despite the Iran war and its global petroleum interruptions, the Atlanta Federal Reserve now predicts that third-quarter GDP growth will finish at a blistering 5%. The Dow and the S&P have grown by a strong 8.1% and a staggering 13.5%, respectively, in 2026.
Take away the climb in gas prices from a January 2026 average of $2.81 a gallon to $4.50, and the inflation rate was only 2.5% – below the 2025 yearly average of 2.7% – and Wall Street estimates put the annual rate at around 2.2% once the Iran war ends and a huge influx of oil hits the global market. The United States is now the greatest producer of oil and the greatest producer and exporter of natural gas in history–and is still increasing output.
August unemployment was a low 4.1%, while 162,000 new jobs were created in that month alone. Consumer spending remains strong.
The U.S. economy is entering a boom cycle. Its growth ensures that it remains the largest in the world and continues to outpace all competitors.
In key categories such as digital media, software, AI, bioengineering, and space technology, American companies remain the world’s largest and most successful.
The war will be judged by historians, fairly or not, on whether it delays for years or, if not, ends Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons altogether, and on whether it so weakens the theocracy that it permanently loses its terrorist leverage over the Middle East – if not eventually implodes from popular resistance.
So much is at stake.