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Originally Posted by Snowball7
No, this is not right. It is the informed consensus of experts that George Bush would
have won the 1992 election easily if Ross Perot was not in the race.
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No.
No one who has a clue thinks that a President with an approval rating of 38% and who trailed Bill Clinton in every last head-to-head poll when Perot was not in the race (from July to October 1992) thinks Bush would have won the race.
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It is also the informed consensus of experts that Bob Dole would have won or
came very close to winning in 1996 if Perot was not in the race.
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Can you read?
Bill Clinton got more votes in 1996 than Bob Dole and Ross Perot
combined.
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Two basic reasons. The Democratic Party had a ceiling of support in 1992 of
around 45% of the voting population.
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Wrong. Again.
Democratic candidates got 50.1% of votes in House races in 1992 (Republicans got only 45.1%) and Democrats got 49.2% of votes in Senate races in 1992 (Republicans got only 44.4%).
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When Clinton stood for re-election, that
number increased to 50%. The larger reason, however, is the Electoral College.
You can look at state results and easily infer that Bush would have won the
more conservative-minded states which he only lost due to Perot syphoning.
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What 'conservative-minded states'? OK, Clinton won AZ, LA, AR, MO, TN, KY, WV - but that's only 58 Electoral votes in those states. And since Clinton-Gore won 379 votes in the Electoral College in 1996, that still leaves them with 321 votes - far more than the 270 needed to win. Furthermore, in AR, LA and WV (20 total EC votes) Clinton got more than 50% of the vote, meaning that even if you cluelessly think that Dole would have gotten every single Perot would, Clinton still would have won those states.
Even if you toss FL, OH, NV and IA into the red column, Clinton-Gore still easily wins the Electoral College. And the rest of the states are ones that Democrats have won in every single Presidential election since 1992. The situation is the same in 1992, when Clinton-Gore won 370 Electoral College votes.
You know, you should have actually looked at the 1996 election before you made these absurd and easily-refuted claims.
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The Democrats of those states voted for Clinton. Perot voters were not open
to voting for Clinton in these states.
Look at the numbers. Just some examples
include Pennsylvania, Colorado, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin,
etc.. the list goes on and on. A re-distribution of Perot votes to Bush or Clinton
would have resulted in a Bush Electoral College victory.
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Washington? Wisconsin? Those states even voted for Dukakis in the 1988 Bush landslide, yet you expect us to think they wouldn't vote for Clinton? They voted for Kerry. They voted for Gore.
You have no idea what you're talking about. You just can't handle the reality that Bill Clinton beat two different Republicans.
Let me repeat - Ross Perot was pro-choice, pro-gun control, anti-free trade, pro-tax increases, anti-school prayer, and pro-national healthcare. And yet your only answer to that is
"Nuh uh!".
Go ahead, post a single exit poll showing that Perot voters preferred Bush to Clinton? You can't. They don't exist. The only way your idea works is that if you can prove that almost all Perot voters preferred Bush to Clinton. But you have no evidence for that, and Perot's positions are more left than right, so it doesn't make a lick of sense.
Go ahead, explain to us your delusional idea that Clinton couldn't win states that Dukakis won (WA, WI)? You can't.
Go ahead, explain to us the math by which Perot cost Clinton states like AR, LA and WV when Clinton was winning 50%+ of the votes in those states (do you understand math? do you realize that when you have 50+% of the vote, that means that you have more than every single other candidate in the race combined?)
You've got nothing. You haven't a shred of evidence. Your entire argument consists of ignoring the mounds of evidence that refutes what you really, really, really wish was true, and expecting us to believe absurd assertions that I've shown to be wrong, not by my opinion but factually incorrect.
The only people desperately clinging to the 'Perot cost Bush the election!' fantasy are propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and gullible people who prefer believing things that make them happy to things that are supported by the evidence.
You can't handle reality.
The myths that just won’t die