June 3, 1992, 30 years ago: Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, having wrapped up the Democratic Party's nomination for President by winning the previous day's California Primary, appears on The Arsenio Hall Show, in syndication. He opens the show by sitting in with Arsenio's band, The Posse, and playing Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" on his saxophone.
He and Arsenio discuss big issues, such as the current economic recession, the recent riot in Los Angeles and the disillusionment of young people, and what can be done about them. Late in the show, the Governor's wife, Hillary, joins him, and takes questions from Arsenio.
When the night began, Clinton was trailing the Republican incumbent, George H.W. Bush, in pretty much every poll. In some of them, he was actually 3rd, behind independent candidate H. Ross Perot, a strange wealthy businessman, who hadn't even announced his candidacy yet. Clinton was in trouble.
The interview not only secured Arsenio's place in TV history, and showed that Jay Leno had a long way to go as the new host of NBC's The Tonight Show; it made Clinton not the candidate of "draft dodging," "sex scandals," and "I didn't inhale," or any other silly things the opposition tried to define him with, but the candidate that understood struggling people, especially the young – and now, they understood him, too.
As much as Hillary, or campaign manager James Carville, or Bush himself with his incompetent campaign, Arsenio Hall made Bill Clinton the 42nd President of the United States.
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