https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-29zVKhj4eo
Rachel Maddow debunks the myth that Ross Perot drew most of his votes away from George H.W. Bush in 1992 and changed the outcome.
Harry Enten at fivethirtyeight.com makes the same point in a print format. H/T Ballot Access News for the print link.
Arithmetic and logic are not their strong suits.
I had Republicans angrily accusing me of being a spoiler in my race last year. The incumbent Democrat got over 50% of the vote.
The bogus “he didn’t really win” excuse didn’t start, or end, in 1992. Ever since I’ve been voting conservatives have always had some “he wouldn’t have won otherwise” excuse for the Democrats victory. In 1976 Carter “only won because of Nixon” In 1996 Clinton only won because Dole ran a lousy campaign. And then there are a few bogus excuses for Obama’s two wins, white guilt, people wanting free stuff, blacks just voted for the black guy (as if they would have voted Republican otherwise) Every time a Republican wins we’re told that “the people have spoken!” but every time the Democrat wins they trot out the excuse.
God bless Dr. Maddow, and God bless the United States of America
LOL, I wish that was true. You must be facetious, but just in case anyone thinks this is plausible: I think Browne would have won, or at least been in the running, if it had been.
However, the LP got between 0.3 and 0.5% in the presidential election every time from 1984 to 2008 (seven cycles). In some of those we came in 3rd, in some a relatviely close 4th or 5th (to 3rd), in some a more distant 4th or 5th. It seems highly unlikely that the LP achieved it’s usual result on the third of those seven, but would have done two orders of magnitude better if Perot hadn’t been in the race, and at the same time failed to even register in polls during the months Perot dropped out – sandwiched in between two other tries where the LP achieved nearly identical percentages while coming in third or very close to the third place finisher (I’ll have to double check).
Neither did Nader cost Gore the election in 2000. Is this addressed in the video as well? I cannot stomach Maddow enough to watch the video and find out.
I always believed Ross Perot cost Andre Marrou the election.
I love Rachel, but until I see a similar segment on Ralph Nader and 2000 (that it is stubborn urban legend he gave us W) I’m going to call bul-, err, bias.
And the issues will be: “If you don’t like Hillary well then you must hate Mexicans!!”
Oh goodness, her comments around 19:40 frightened me. That would be a landslide victory for Clinton.