Need help combatting wingnut co-worker

[stanwyck]

OK. All you smart people. Co-worker insists Perot put Clinton in office by taking 20% of the vote away from Bush I. Correct? Please help. Thanks!

[GOPisEvil]

1. Perot got 19% of the popular vote.

How many of those would have normally voted for Bush I vs. Clinton is up for debate.

[TXlib]

2. Perot WAS a republican spoiler

just as Nader was for Dems in 2000.

Question is, by what margin did Clinton take the election? If it's greater than 20%, then it's clearly not true.

[Code_Name_D]

3. True, actualy.

Not sure of the figures, and 20% seems a little high. But Perot did take votes away from Bush in key states.

[bleedingheart]

4. Actually Buchanan helped scare rational people away from

the repukes with his goofy speech at the RNC convention.

Perot took both Dem and Repuke votes...he was against NAFTA which is still a touchy issue among the working class folks of both stripes.

[eileen_d]

5. Perhaps it's Bush's fault

for being such a crappy president that *Perot* took away some of his votes? And as a previous poster said, there's no knowing whether Perot voters would have swung for Clinton or Bush if Perot didn't exist.

If Perot didn't exist... { daydreaming }

[felonious thunk]

6. OK

Even if Perot did score a lot of Bush I voters (which is questionable itself) then it points to the fact that people were seriously unhappy with Bush I. If they were Republicans angry enough at Bush to vote for Perot, then they were unlikely to vote for Bush anyway. If it hadn't been Perot, there would have been someone else that got those votes, or, many of them would have gone to Clinton anyway. Fact is, Bush lost those votes, that they went to Perot instead is irrelevant.

[Richardo]

7. 1st question: So what? 2nd question: What's the excuse for 1996?

Without Clinton these idiots would have nothing to say.

[caledesi]

11. Richardo - I am SO glad you brought that up bec I use it over

and over when I hear the lame Perot story etc. So, how do you twist 1996 because the Big Dog was relected. That's when you get the blank stare.

[Wickerman]

8. Search the archives

This was discussed in the last month here at DU. Someone posted that when Perot came in he took large numbers in pollings from Clinton. His common sense approach origianlly appealed to many moderate Dems. It is misnomer to state that all the votes that Perot siphoned were from 41.

[slappypan]

9. As I recall ...

During the period when Perot dropped out for a while in mid-race, Bush was trailing Clinton in the polls. Then Perot jumped back in. Bush was wildly unpopular; just look up his approval ratings at the time. They were in the 40's.

[stanwyck]

10. You're all wonderful, intelligent people

to respond so well so quickly. Bet you're also uncommonly attractive, too.
Many thanks.

[radwriter0555]

12. really rile him up with the fact that bush #41 would be IN JAIL had he not

tossed the election to clinton.

He was under investigation for the iran contra affair, and had he not been ousted from office by tossing the election to clinton, he wouldn't have really had the ability to pardon the casper weinberger bunch 10 days before the hearlings.

Had he not pardoned them, the entire iran contra affais would have indeed taken center stage for the american public, and clinton's penis would have been the slimmest footnote in the history books, compared to the realities of the felons involved IN iran contra.... and don't forget to mention that 7 of the felons from iran contra were hired by the current bush regime.

[bigwoody]

13. ALL exit polling showed Perot voters very evenly split for bush and

Cilnton had wingnut not been on the ballot. Even El Lardbo conceded this fact after the election, which stunned me.

[never cry wolf]

14. The results...

Governor William Jefferson "Bill" Clintion
U.S. Senator Albert A. Gore Jr.
(D, Lib)
44,908,233 votes for 42.98%

George Herbert Walker Bush
J. Danforth "Dan" Quayle
(R, Cns, RtL)
39,102,282 votes for 37.37%

businessman H. Ross Perot
retired Rear Admiral James "Jim" Stockdale
(Pat Choate in Alabama & South Carolina)
(I, Ind)
19,721,433 votes for 18.88%

Your reply may properly be that barely over 1/3 of the voters wanted shrub the elder.

[geniph]

15. While it's true Perot got nearly 20%

the vast majority of Perot voters were not registered Republicans OR Democrats - the majority of them were generally non-voters. Perot got the non-voters excited enough to go vote (it'd be damn nice if we could get those people interested in voting again, too). It's always instructive to ask people who say that how Clinton got re-elected in 1996, too - if they say, well, he had the incumbent's advantage, then point out that so did Bush the Elder.