Ross Perot, the founder of EDS and one-time presidential candidate who pretty much put Bill Clinton into the White House, is known (and parodied) for his love of charts. To that end he has an interesting website full of various charts — Perotcharts.com.
Two particularly outline the out-of-control budget deficit, and the GOP’s complicity in the situation.
Here’s one on surpluses and deficits over the last 40 years:
This next chart and analysis covers the national debt for the same time period. Notice how the debt fell only during Clinton’s time in office. It’s distressing to me how fiscally irresponsible the GOP has become. There’s absolutely nothing conservative about the fiscal policy this nation has operated under the last seven-plus years.
But wait a minute! All of the so-called “debt clocks” show that the national debt is now in excess of $9 trillion. Where is the $4 trillion discrepancy? Answer: See the next two charts (Growing National Debt: Intragovernmental Holdings and The Growing National Debt: Combined).
This is the cumulative amount of money that the government has borrowed from outside sources to meet its obligations during the years that it runs deficits. Debt Held by the Public includes domestic buyers, such as mutual funds, state and local governments, Federal Reserve banks, commercial banks, insurance companies, and individuals, as well as private foreign entities and central banks of foreign countries. Of the $5.1 trillion in outstanding public debt at the end of 2007, domestic investors owned 55 percent ($2.8 trillion) and foreign investors held 45 percent ($2.2 trillion). When the government runs surpluses, the debt gets paid down as can be seen from the trough in the late 1990s.
(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)
I agree with most of your points, but Ross Perot did not put Bill Clinton in the White House. The GOP would have you believe this only to assuage their LOSS. Exit polls showed Perot taking equally, 38% of his voters would have gone to Clinton, 38% to Bush, and the rest would not have voted. moreover, when Perot was gone from the race from july-october 1992, Clinton led Bush in the polls by double digits consistently. Bush had approvals of 30 and 40 percent. He was clearly not wanted back in the White House, and going to lose either way. Perot was also pretty liberal on gay issues, abortion, and trade.
Comment by jay — June 16, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Thanks for the comment and you make a valid point on Perot’s role in ‘92. It’s certainly not as cut-and-dried as I made it seem in the post.
Ross did pull votes from both parties, but I think he made concrete some concerns of would-be GOP voters.
Voters who probably would have pulled the lever for Bush 41, but started thinking about actual policy and governance because of Ross and ended up peeling away from the GOP message. These voters went for Perot, along with a lot of independants of all idealogical stripes.
I don’t have any data in front of me, but I’m going to stick with my original thesis that Perot stole more significant votes from Bush than from Clinton.
It was a close election and Ross threw a very wild card on the table giving Clinton enough room to win the electoral college.
Comment by davidkirkpatrick — June 16, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
It wasn’t a very close election. It was a 5.6 point spread, 43 to 37.4 with a 6 million vote difference. Thats wider than the last 2 elections by far and out of the margin of error. Considering that George Bush had lost so much of his credibility on those issues that Perot voters were abandoning Bush in the first place, why would they have gone back en masse to him? For Bush to have gotten 50 percent of the vote, he’d have needed 66 percent of Perot’s vote assuming they all still vote in his absence. Clinton only 37 percent of Perot’s vote. Not happening especially when only 39 percent of all voters approve of your Presidency, as they did Bush thru that year. Perot voters wanted change. Bush was not change. Bush’s term had been there during the rising deficits and debt which Perot and his voters decried. Perot was polar opposite of Bush on social issues, and the religious right loomed very large in 1992. Remember the RNC, with the culture war speech, and Robertson and Falwell speaking? Remember Murphy Brown and “family values?” Perot was pro-choice, eventually became for gay rights too. Perot was against the religious right. Bush negotiated NAFTA, and Perot and his voters were against it.
Notice when Perot was gone,which was from July to October, Clinton was winning in a landslide in the polls. Take a snapshot of late September http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DE143CF931A1575AC0A964958260 and Bush was polling the exact same 37 percent he got in the end. This was the story from the Dem Convention until Perot’s return.
In terms of electoral college for Bush to get to 270 electoral votes, he would need 102 more electoral votes from the 168 he already got. All the states Clinton won by less than five points added up to only 107 electoral votes. Those states were Nevada(4), Montana(3), Colorado(8), Louisiana(9), Georgia(13), Tennessee(11), Kentucky(8), Wisconsin(11), New Jersey(15), Ohio(21), and New Hampshire(4) and remember those are 1992 electoral numbers. For Bush to have won, he’d have needed nearly all of those states to win. Bill Clinton already has 263 electoral votes without any of those states. All he needs to win is to give him just one of those states that are worth more 7 or more electoral votes, all of which except NV and MT are. Wisconsin even went for Dukakis, and has went for every Dem since him albeit closely, so him winning Wisconsin was pretty likely even in Perot’s absense, especially with Bush’s unpopularity. New Jersey, while it was highly Republican before Bill Clinton, some say that state was “spoiled” by Perot, but not only was Clinton leading Bush there before Perot returned, but this state has gone Dem everytime since 1992, getting over 50% in 1996 and beyond, showing that in 1992, New Jersey very likely had some Democratic leanings. The economy was the huge issue in 1992, working against the incumbent especially in the industrial areas. Lousiana, Clinton was a southern from an adjacent state, and even got a majority there in 1996 and in 1992, Clinton was already up 45.6-41-11.8. Clinton is really close to 50 percent in that state, and only needs 4.4 more points to get there, and 4.4 out of Perot’s 11.8 is Clinton only needing 37 percent of Perot’s vote if all of his voters still vote, and they not all of them would likely have without Perot, thus lowering the denominator and the amount Clinton needs, so its very likely Perot didn’t change the outcome, but it still could have been close without him. Tennessee was Gore’s home state, and yes while he lost it in 2000, 1992 was before Monica and Bush I didn’t spend the money there Bush II did. C/G won TN 47.1-42.4-10.1. Clinton again is already far closer to 50 percent than Bush, thus needing a much smaller percentage of Perot’s vote to get there than Bush would need. Colorado, while close has been close every election since 1992, so that state is a toss up without Perot, and 8 EVs alone does not get Bush to 270. Nevada has also been very close since 1992, despite a Republican past, but this closeness has shown that there is openness to Democrats who are not Mondale, Dukakis, and McGovern. It very well could have still gone Clinton, and its 4 EVs again alone don’t get Bush to 270. Montana was actually very close in 1988, 52.1-46.2. Perhaps a stronger candidate in 1988 could have won Montana, and Bush was actually very beatable in 1988, except that Dukakis never attacked back. He was ahead in the polls until Sept when it got close, and he proceeded to lose every debate afterwords. But the being ahead shows that people were open to perhaps voting for him. But this means that Montana still would have been close in 1992, being that not only was it close in 1988, but given Bush’s unpopularity in 1992, Montana still would have been toss up without Perot. Georgia was close but also close again in 1996, thus again likely a tossup without Perot, but its 13 EVS alone don’t give Bush a victory. Ohio has been close since 1992, and in 1992, there were heavy job losses in that area, so its very likely Clinton still would have narrowly won it without Perot, or still would have been a close contest. New Hampshire, a tossup, but it did got Dem in 1996 by a large margin, and may have gone for Gore in 2000 if not for Nader, and Kerry got a majority there in 2004. Again another state that without Perot would have still been a tossup but Clinton winning is still very likely. But none of these states were shoo-ins for Bush without Perot or Clinton without Perot, thus making it highly unlikely Bush wins almost all of them which is what he would have needed to get to 270.
I know that this spin of Perot costing Bush the election is so ingrained its easy to believe it. But claiming this ignores the sentiment of 1992, which was strongly against Bush, who had abysmal approvals even before Perot’s entry http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidential/webroot/presidential_rating_detail.cfm?allRate=True&presidentName=Bush%20(G.H.W.) just look at the numbers from the beginning of 1992 until the election. No party has ever been re-elected with such numbers. Not all Perot voters followed his core issues too carefully. Many of them liked him because he was an outsider campaigning as one. Another candidate was doing that too, and his name was not George Bush. It was Bill Clinton who was an outsider campaigning as one. So its very likely many Perot voters who liked that in Ross would have gone to Clinton. Remember, this was all before “whitewater” travel”gate”, file”gate” etc. Hell, I’ll show you two studys of Perot taking more from Clinton: here is one from a few years back http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=192 and here is one from Pew during the campaign http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/19921026.pdf . All in all, Clinton winning without Perot is much more likely than Bush winning. It was clearly an anti-incumbent year. HHH couldn’t survive such a low approval rating for his party in the WH, Ford couldn’t, Carter couldn’t and Bush couldn’t.
Comment by jay — June 16, 2008 @ 9:31 pm