Schwarzlose's unexpected strong challenge in primaries and his 31 percent of the primary vote foreshadowed that Clinton could be in trouble for the upcoming general election.[3]
Clinton's increase in the cost of automobile registration tags had been unpopular. He was also hurt by President Jimmy Carter's decision to send thousands of Cuban refugees, some unruly, to a detention camp at Fort Chaffee, outside Fort Smith in Sebastian County in western Arkansas.[3][4] (See Mariel boatlift.)
After Clinton lost the election in 1980, Max Brantley said: "The guy was like a death in the family. He was really destroyed after that election".[5] Rudy Moore also added: "He never blamed anybody else. He accepted the responsibility. He didn't whine about it. In fact, it was within days, we were trying to figure out what we could to do to improve his political life after that".[5]
After Clinton was defeated, he was offered the chance to lead the Democratic National Committee, instead of seeking reelection as Governor of Arkansas.[clarification needed] When he campaigned for election in 1982 against White, he said that he had learned the importance of adaptability and compromise from his defeat two years beforehand.[6]
^ abTakiff, Michael. A Complicated Man : The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him. New Haven, US: Yale University Press, 2010. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 19 April 2017.
^Clinton House Museum. CHM, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.