Post-Primary

In a campaign, one can often identify one or two key periods when the tide shifts.  In 1992, the month of June such a time.  While Ross Perot garnered lots of attention, Bill Clinton effectively used this period to recover from his bruising primary battles. 
 
By late May, the Clinton campaign was gearing up for the general election.  The decision had been made to stay in Little Rock, and the campaign had begun moving to new offices in the Gazette Building.  It also purchased a large amount of computing equipment in May and June.

For a while, however, Bill Clinton seemed ready to disappear from the map.  His campaign reported debts of $3.9 million at the end of May, with cash on hand of only about $162,000.  On June 3, the day after the California primary, Ed Rollins and Hamilton Jordan signed on with Perot, greatly increasing the credibility of the Texan's probable campaign.  A June 23 analysis by The Field Institute, based on polls and estimates from every state, gave Perot 233 electoral votes, Bush 149 and Clinton 9. 

Such were the Democrats' concerns that the Democratic National Committee paid for a half-hour "America Speaks" town meeting that was broadcast nationally on June 12 (>).  Clinton also reintroduced himself to the American people in a number of nontraditional formats.  Two free media appearances drew particular notice.  On June 3 Clinton donned shades and played sax (and engaged in a serious discussion) on "The Arsenio Hall Show" (>) and his appearance on MTV for a "Choose or Lose" special aired on June 16 (>).
"What I've tried to do in this last month is essentially to try to recreate New Hampshire by doing all these nationally televised town meetings and interview programs and question and answer programs on MTV and Arsenio Hall as well as the morning programs -- trying to recreate a sense of commonality to try to cut through the superficial bull that tends to dominate politics."
        --Bill Clinton during July 7 interview with Bill Moyers on "Listening to America"



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