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Read other letters about this article
I'm a bit late coming back to this:
Anonymous posted:
A detailed analysis of the voting demographics revealed that Perot's support drew heavily from across the political spectrum, with 20% of his votes coming from self-described liberals, 27% from self-described conservatives, and 53% coming from self-described moderates.
This matches fairly closely to what I was putting across: you can't really blame/credit Clinton's 1992 victory on Perot; this is a common lie perpetrated by the GOP and it disappoints me to see left-leaners repeat it. I would agree with the data cited above, including that Perot's voters probably skewed somewhat rightward; however I remember very well from that period that the remarkable thing about Perot's candidacy was that it drew roughly equally from across the board.
To say that Bush lost because of Perot, you'd have to assume that Perot effectively split the GOP vote, and you really can't say that at all with any credibility, given the numbers above.
For a sitting incumbent to only pull 34%, that's a pretty strong indictment of his lack of popularity. I have no problem asserting that Bill Clinton would have won in 1992, with or without Perot, in a mini-landslide.
