(FORTUNE Magazine) – Here's a crazy election-year scenario: An incumbent Republican President with approval ratings in the stratosphere is suddenly toast. An unknown governor of a small Southern state wins the Democratic nomination despite serious questions about his personal life. A cornpone billionaire with a weakness for paramilitary operations bankrolls his own campaign, leads the polls, drops out, and gets back in the race again.

You know that plot, and you're living out its consequences. But here's a consequence you may not have thought of: The true history of campaign 1992 shows that in presidential politics, anything's possible.

Anything's possible again in 1996 because Bill Clinton is the weakest candidate in the field, save for all the rest. The Democrats are in upheaval--and denial. Republicans are fighting a cultural war--among themselves. The public is fed up with the whole foolishness, while pundits are convinced that the upcoming political season will prove depressing, disheartening--anything but boring. Just how wild could it get? Let's imagine.

Scenario No. 1: Colin Powell finally announces he won't enter the Republican primaries but doesn't close the door on running for President. Ten days before the New Hampshire primary, GOP activists start a write-in campaign for Powell with the slogan "Tired of all the rest? Why not the best?" But the Democrats, increasingly impatient with President Clinton, wonder why they should let the Republicans have Powell and begin a write-in campaign for Powell themselves. He wins both primaries.

Scenario No. 2: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole wins the Iowa caucuses on February 12, just as he did in 1988, but this time he comes in only two percentage points ahead of Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. Former governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee gets the moderate vote in New Hampshire eight days later, while commentator-candidate Pat Buchanan gets the conservative vote and Dole gets the traditional vote, leaving those three bunched together at the top. Dole, who is third by a fraction, suffers a terrible wound. But he remains in the race. Alexander, Buchanan, and Gramm are clustered together again a few weeks later in the New England and Southern regional primaries. Dole suspends his campaign, and the three others fight on, increasingly bitterly, leaving the race unresolved and the party hopelessly bloodied by the end of the primaries in early June.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich allows his name to be floated as a compromise candidate. Meanwhile, Powell announces an independent candidacy. With no nominee and with Powell's support growing, the Republicans worry about a third-place finish. Governor Pete Wilson of California, brandishing a 54-electoral-vote trump card, reenters the GOP race as a moderate counterpoint to Gingrich. At a divided convention in Wilson's hometown of San Diego, Dole ends up as the power broker. He spurns Gingrich and throws his support to Wilson, who wins the nomination.

Scenario No. 3: Powell enters the race as a Republican, finishes third in Iowa but then wins New Hampshire. Gramm, second in both states, hangs on. Powell wins the New England primary, but Gramm sweeps the South, with Dole trailing badly in both places. Powell, who looks like a winner but is no conservative, and Gramm, who looks like a loser but is no liberal, slug it out. In mid-March, Gramm wins Michigan by being a hard-liner on abortion and affirmative action, and that same day Powell wins Illinois because he's not a hard-liner on those issues. The two go to the San Diego convention with about 40% of the delegates, and Gingrich, who is already set to preside over the convention, swings the nomination to Powell.

Scenario No. 4: Powell enters the GOP race, finishes second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire, and first everyplace else. Dole and Gramm leave the field, but Buchanan breaks away, mounting an independent campaign and railing against abortion, taxes, immigration, affirmative action, and gun control. Jesse Jackson, troubled as Clinton moves to the right and as blacks flock to the GOP, mounts an independent campaign. So does former governor Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, using Ross Perot's new party as a platform. Result: five major candidates at the table in the fall debates--and grave worries that the election might be thrown into the House.

Scenario No. 5: Here's the wackiest one of all. Dole wins the Republican nomination. President Clinton wins renomination. There are no other candidates. The election yields a clear winner. In 1996 anything--even this--is possible.

David Shribman is Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter.