Steve Kornacki has a fascinating look back at the 1992 Democratic presidential primary in New York, which was a dramatic and chaotic do-or-die test for Bill Clinton after he lost the Connecticut primary unexpectedly to Jerry Brown.
“When the Connecticut result came in, the basic nature of the Democratic
race changed on the spot, transforming the next major contest on the
calendar into a make-or-break test for Bill Clinton. If he could win it,
his inevitability would be restored. But lose again, to Jerry Brown,
and all hell would break loose.”
“And here was the worst part for Clinton. Of all the venues for that that next major test, that do-or-die battle, it would be playing out in a state where they practiced a notoriously cutthroat brand of politics; a state where his southern accent marked him as a suspicious outsider, a used car salesman; where the media delighted in chewing up supposed front-runners; where an unusually powerful tabloid press would giddily plaster his personal baggage on its covers; where one major liberal columnist was already calling him “Slick Willie” while another simply branded him “a fraud”; where one of the biggest-name Democratic politicians was openly arguing that his “character problems” made him “unacceptable to the vast majority of Democrats”; a state whose Democratic governor had nearly launched a presidential campaign of his own, and who was now being touted as the white knight who could rescue the party if Clinton stumbled just once more – a governor, by the way, whom Clinton had personally insulted in secretly recorded conversations that had come to light months earlier.”
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