Bob Dole has died

Even though the results were never really in doubt, that's not too bad of a showing against an incumbent president.

Somewhat famously, in the 1992 cycle the Democrats were going up against an incumbent president who had just overseen a successful war, and was enjoying 89%(!) approval ratings. Some of the highest profile candidates (such as Mario Cuomo) sat it out, leaving the field to minor players including the then little-known governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. In the event, Bush crumbled and Clinton won, in large part due to a very brief recession. July 1990 marked the end of the longest peacetime expansion in US history, and by March 1991 the recession officially ended...but when voters went to the polls in 1992, they still punished the incumbent.

(I'm just old enough to remember a political joke from back then. It went something like: President Bush is walking along a beach when he finds an old lamp. He picks it up, rubs it, and a genie comes out and grants him three wishes. Bush asks for the Persian Gulf conflict to be a smashing success, the economy to recover, and some other policy success I can't quite recall after all these years. The genie agrees and vanishes. One of his advisors looks worried. "Are you sure you shouldn't have wished to win the election?" Bush confidently replies "Are you kidding? After all those successes, how could I lose?")

1996 was, again, a race against an incumbent, but consider: Clinton was vastly less popular than Bush had been, and he had some obvious weaknesses as a candidate. It was by no means absurd to think a respected, straight shooting war hero could come out ahead against the tarnished, draft dodging Bill Clinton. And of course, as with 1992, there was every chance that by the time people went to vote, the situation might look very different.

So...I think Dole (and the many others who competed for the nomination) did so because they thought they could win, and they weren't wrong. The immediately prior election was proof of that! That being said, it was always going to be a challenge, and I think some strong candidates did decide to wait for the hopefully friendlier 2020 cycle. On the other hand, Dole was running out of time. So was Dole running because he thought he could win, or because he thought this was his last chance? Both, probably. And then he was nominated as the strongest candidate running. (It's not like a party is ever going to survey the field and decide just not to contest a presidential election, regardless of the odds.)