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The U.S. presidential election of 1992 featured a three-way battle between Republican George Bush, the incumbent President; Democrat Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas; and independent candidate Ross Perot, a Texas businessman. Bush had alienated much of his conservative base by breaking his 1988 campaign pledge against raising taxes, the economy had sunk into recession, and the President's perceived best strength, foreign policy, was regarded as much less important following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the relatively peaceful climate in the Middle East following the defeat of Iraq in the First Gulf War. Clinton successfully capitalized on the split in the conservative vote between Perot and Bush by running as a centrist New Democrat and won the presidency.