Comments on: A History Professor Rewrites History

By: DiamondJay

DiamondJay — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:46:35 +0000

I am surprised how big the myth of Ross Perot being a spoiler is in terms of spread. I’m surprised especially on a blog which doesn’t claim to be conservative either. I would not only link to the NY Times article Smith linked to, but remind you that Ross Perot was pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, and against NAFTA, which both Clinton and Bush were for. Thus, Perot is pretty liberal on those issues. Libertarians and liberal-moderate Republicans, after the RNC with the far religious right like Buchanan, Falwell, Robertson, and all the rest of those nuts speaking were NOT going back to Bush. Remember the Murphy Brown flap and “family values” as a campaign theme?
Second, Bush had approvals in the 40’s and 30’s thruout the whole year. Presidents and parties do not win re-election with those numbers. To compare it to 1988 is ridiculous, because by that logic, Carter should have won 1980, and FDR should have lost 1932 in a landslide, just because Hoover won the previous election 1928 by a landslide. That being said, not only did exit polls show that Perot did not change the outcome, but if you look at the polls before Perot came back, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DE143CF931A1575AC0A964958260 Bush was polling the exact SAME 37 percent he got in November to Clinton who was polling in the upper 50’s, landslide proportions. The poll I showed was after labor day, and to show this was a pattern, look a week before http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DC1F3EF936A2575AC0A964958260 . If you look at all the polls from after the Dem Convention, when Perot dropped out until Perot came back, they all looked like this. Bill Clinton was headed to a landslide win. All Perot was did plunder Bill’s political capital. If Perot helped anyone, it was Bush, by getting him back in the game. Their guys even knew it http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2D71030F933A0575AC0A964958260 as a Bush pollster says it best about Perot: “He’ll be important if we accomplish our goal, which is to draw even with Clinton”

If you want to go by state by state, don’t forget Ohio wasn’t the only state, and for bush to have gotten to 270, He’d need 112 electoral votes more, as he only got 168. There were 11 states Bill Clinton carried by less than 5. Bush would need to win EVERY ONE OF THEM, and assuming Bill lost all except Wisconsin, which even Dukakis carried, he STILL WINS!!!! And Bush is not going to win ALL the swing states, because he was not only unpopular, you don’t win all the close states in elections anyway. Not to mention, for Clinton to have reached 50 percent, he’d only need 7 more points, and 7 out of Perot’s 19 is 37% of Perot’s vote. For Bush to get to 50 percent, he’d need 12.6 points of Perot’s 19, or 2/3. Now given the exit polls and Perot’s liberal social stances, that is NOT HAPPENING. Those numbers assume all of Perot’s voters still vote, which would not have happened. Tas, it seems you are the one rewriting history, not Professor Wilentz.

By: tas

tas — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:59:36 +0000

Tony, I noted this in my first comment but to mention it again, this post couldn’t be as comprehensive as I wanted it to be because I had around 45 minutes to gather sources and write it. Writing wasn’t much of a crap shoot because I had done research into this before, back when I was a full time blogger. And I’d like to do more research, but there’s the whole time thing… I just moved and now I have to find a job. So I want too get back to this issue, and although this may seem like a cop out, but it’s probably going to take me a couple of weeks.

By: Bostondreamer

Bostondreamer — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:22:46 +0000

Well considering that he did not win even 50% of the popular vote in 1992 or 1996, one could extrapolate from Ohio. Or maybe not.
Yes, Mr. ‘Last Successful Democratic President’ never won 50% of the vote and then coopted Republican policies. Yay.

By: Tony Smith

Tony Smith — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:12:24 +0000

I am not sure what happened to this post - but here goes again. Your analysis rests on the unproven assumption that all — or even a meaningful amount — of Perot voters would have voted for Bush. But that’s not supported by exit polls. Most polls show that Perot voters would have either voted for Clinton or Bush or stayed home without Perot on the ticket. Essentially, that means his presence was without effect. Now, the state-to-state races show that he likely had an impact in Ohio - the data that you focus upon. But this is an anamoly, and Clinton would have won without Ohio anyway!

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2519/is_n5_v13/ai_13975246/pg_2
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DB1F3FF936A35752C1A964958260

By: Tony Smith

Tony Smith — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:06:29 +0000

Tas- interesting that you base your analysis of Clinton’s working class support on ONE state. How does this prove your conclusion that he did not win the working class?

By: Tony Smith

Tony Smith — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:03:38 +0000

The problem with your analysis is that you fail to prove that all — or even a majority — of Perot votes would have gone to Bush (same thing with Nader and Gore). This is just an assumption in your argument. But it’s a mighty important one…Many studies of exit polls from ‘92 have concluded that Clinton would have won even without Perot, because his voters were basically split over what they would have done with him on the ticket. They would have voted for Bush, Clinton or stayed home. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2519/is_n5_v13/ai_13975246/pg_1
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DB1F3FF936A35752C1A964958260

By: tas

tas — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:28:47 +0000

Michael: GReat point on Nader’s vote total in 2000 not even being near Perot’s in 1996, nevermind 1992. I would have liked to include that and made a more comprehensive post, but I had about 45 minutes during breakfast to write this, including gathering sources. So I kept it minimal.

Bostondreamer: Thanks. And to answer your question with a question, if Perot ran in 1988, would Dukakis have been our president? The answer is probably yes. And among other things tthat Clinton supporters choose to ignore is that George Bush was a weak candidate in 1992, being viewed as a president who didn’t finish the job in Iraq and parts of the country were in a recession. The way I look at these vote totals, though, is that the conservative vote split — most of them stayed with the party, but 15-20% of them gave their votes to Perot. That was more than enough to enable Clinton to win the election. But if you look at those Ohio county-by-county numbers, Clinton actually got less votes among the working class than did Dukakis! None of Hillary’s supporters, like Princeton history professors (who should know better) mention that, though.

Essentially, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry did not capture the working class vote. But only one had Perot to split the conservative vote — hence win the election. But all this rhetoric about Hillary winning over the working class because Bill did is bunk, simply bunk. Bill never won over the working class. So Hillary supporters claiming that she might repeat her husband’s success could, ironically and unfortunately enough, be right.

By: Bostondreamer

Bostondreamer — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:49:47 +0000

Great post. What these folks who hold up Bill as a success story for the party forget is that he could not even pull in 50% of the vote in 92 or 96, and lucked out because he ran against two rather dreary candidates. And if Ross is not running in ‘92, does he even win, despite GHWB’s flaws?

By: Michael Tedesco

Michael Tedesco — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:02:22 +0000

There is no question that Ross Perot was the reason Bill Clinton won in both 1992 and 1996. In 1992 Perot received 18.9% of the popular vote nationally and ,while not nearly as impressive, he received 8% of the national vote in 1996. To put this into context, Ralph Nader pulled a whopping 2.74% of the popular vote in 2000 when he was deemed a “spoiler” on the left.

This entire exercise of looking under ever rock for a potential excuse to keep Hillary in the race is ridiculous. Unfortunately, even Princeton history professors are not free from self censorship when it comes to presenting an thorough argument. Thanks for reminding everyone of the truth surrounding the Big Dog’s rise to power TAS.