According to Joe Scarborough of MSNBC, Iraq admitted in 1998 to having said WsMD but still refused for 5 years to divulge them. Doesn't that factor in? Is it not true?
This is not factual. Perot helped the incumbent both times he ran. The hard right Cato Institute verifies this. Sometimes the truth is inconvenient. Deal with it.
That is interesting. I wonder how high the margin of victory would've been had it been a two-man race (if Perot was hurting Clinton more than Bush in 1992).
Helped the incumbent? Give me a break. Perot took from Bush 41's base, just as Nader did with Gore, removing all the cougar cuddlers and other fun left-wing whackoes. Remove Perot from the running and you have a Bush 41 victory and deny the country eight years of sorrow. Granted, a lot of that too was that the Republicans ran one of the most inept campaigns of modern times. A combination of their own stupidity and Perot doomed Bush 41 to one term.
Guess again. That article was much ado about nothing. It is no surprise that the far right does not like the far left.
You're right. The economy had nothing to do with it, just like it will have nothing to do with King George II's loss next year. Eight years of sorrow under Clinton, eh? If that is sorrow, my Roth IRA says "bring on the sorrow"!
If your investment thesis does not extend beyond linking the President to the gains or losses in the stock market, expect to work until you are 90 years old, Bubba.
Read it and weep. A VOTE FOR PEROT WAS A VOTE FOR THE STATUS QUO You know better than to repeat this lie.
So I wonder if a vote for Ralph Nader helped Al Gore in 2000. Certainly that's not the conventional wisdom, but neither would be the idea that Perot helped Bush in 1992.
The 2000 race did not have an incumbent. The Perot effect could be explained by the fact that the anti-incumbent voters voted for a third party instead of the main party out of power.
Helped the incumbent? Give me a break. Perot took from Bush 41's base, just as Nader did with Gore, removing all the cougar cuddlers and other fun left-wing whackoes. Remove Perot from the running and you have a Bush 41 victory and deny the country eight years of sorrow. Not true. Essentially, anyone who liked the current way things were voted for the incumbent. People who wanted "change" split their votes amongst the "change" candidates - Clinton and Perot in 1992, Dole and Perot in 1996. It's pretty well documented in multiple places. The 2000 election was different because Gore didn't run as a "status quo" candidate - he was not Clinton.
I know, but one would expect Al Gore to be considered the status quo candidate of the two, and though not the incumbent President, relatively close to an incumbent. And though he did not run that way, it could've had an effect. But either way, the question remains. It's all about wondering. I'm sure there will be a study done to tell us one way or another at some point. One would expect to find Gore hurt by Nader, but we're just guessing until we take a long look at it.
It's not a lie. Just because one academic comes out with a paper that says that Perot helped the incumbent doesn't make it so. When Perot voters were surveyed on who they'd vote for if they only had a choice between Bush 41 and Clinton, they overwhelmingly voted for Bush and Republicans in House races. Just as Nader took away the far-left voting bloc which would have increased Al Gore's popular vote advantage in 2000, Perot changed the race. http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/monos/bushdef/nichols.html Just like you, I can find information that proves my point. According to this piece, Perot attracted 17 percent of the Republican vote and only 13 percent of the Democrats while taking 30 percent of the independent vote. I think that if Bush had won that 17 percent of his base back to his tent and got at least a third of the independent vote, he would've won reelection. So read that and weep.
Although one could argue that some of the Perot voters leaned Democrat, there is no argument that would allow that Nader took any votes from the Republican column. I think the argument for Nader taking away votes from Al Gore is much stronger because of the limited amount of diversity of opinion among Nader voters. Most of them were left-wing (I'm not trying to call people names for the sake of calling names) folks who'd never even think to vote for Bush.
bamaslammer, your mischaracterization of the far right Cato Institute paper is laughable. They most certainly went into the study thinking that they would prove the conventional Republican wisdom: Perot spoiled the race for Bush. Despite their prejudices and biases, they concluded just the opposite. If you had read the paper, you would have seen that their analysis is very detailed.
That's the whole point though. I read their paper and I conclude that they have made a mistake. When 17 percent of your core voters (your base) defect to the third candidate, you are in deep trouble. If that third candidate is only taking away 13 percent from your opponent, the hole deepens. And if what they assume, that most of the independent voters seek change, you are screwed if you're Bush 41. I think the Cato institute overcomplicated what is a KISS (keep it simple stupid) issue. In any campaign, you have to secure your base then go after the undecided voters. Bush never secured his base as shown in his relatively close race with Pat Buchanan in the New Hampshire primary, as Buchanan got 65,000 votes against the incumbent president. Clinton had no third party challenger (like Gore had in Nader) nibbling away at the votes you can count on, your base. Thus by trianglulation you can plainly see without resorting to Rube Goldberg-type equations that Perot took more from Bush (17 percent of Republicans) versus from Clinton (only 13 percent of those identifying themselves as Democrats). I didn't mischaracterize the Cato Institute's findings, I just think that they are incorrect.
Wow I always assumed it was the opposite. Good article NW. FWIW, I don't know much about right wing think tanks but I do believe the Cato is slightly more well respected than that Ashbrook place that did that other paper.
glynch: How much have you had to drink today, glynch? I'm really trying to make sense of this one... Nope, no sense. Yes, it is believable. Perhaps that's why I believe it? Now, now. As a member you should know that you guys don't work in conjunction with Islamic extremists. You want state-imposed secularism, they want to kill you. It would never work. Look at its ownership (I mean, Jane Fonda?). Then turn on the TV and look at its programming. It's America's Al Jazeera. There you go with the 'Q' word again. You just can't pass up an opportunity to use it, can you? No matter how inappropriate and misleading it is, you just can't help it... Do you work for the New York Times? The Boston Globe? You know, they're quite fond of that word too. Maybe if you went to work for them you'd get to use it all the time? I know it gives you a stiffy. Now, I know you'd rather they appointed a Supreme Soviet, but I've already explained to you that we're going to try democracy there first. I know you're not real big on that whole idea, but you'll just have to get used to it. No more dictators, no more socialist paradises - Iraq is getting a democracy this time. I know you miss Saddam's loving and protective rule, but... Deal with it. And BTW, the Iraqis on the council were selected by Iraqis, not Bremer.
