From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.perot
Subject: Re: Presidents Debate II Poll Results
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:32:44 GMT
Organization: Austerlitz, Gershovitz, and Carmichael

Bradley K. Sherman writes:
>Two polling results from Debate II, and one from same sample for Debate I
>for comparison.
>
>Poll                Debate   Clinton  Bush  Perot     Sample   EMargin
>CBS                   II        54      25    20      1,394 rv    3
>Dallas Morning News   II        49      21    17        212 rv    7
>---ditto---            I        18      18    55        ---ditto---
>
>
>Warning to Clinton Boosters: Tracking polls show Clinton losing ground
>between Debate I and Debate II, mostly to Perot.
>
The effects of the debates on the polls is transient. There's about a
5 day "wave" which a good showing in the polls produces. That and the
"October Surprise" malarkey was why the Bush camp wanted a debate on
the Sunday before the election. So? Perot's good showing in the first 
debate is rippling through the electorate. Hold your breath until next
week-end and you'll see a more realistic set of numbers.

Numbers to grow on: The Democratic Party has about a 43% bedrock of
loyalists. For Bush to win he has to break that number. Both of
these polls show Bush far under that figure. There's another poll
by ABC which has Bush doing better than either of these, but a lot
of that is the flux which surrounds the debates. Opinion swings
subside after the "drama" [sic] surrounding the debates. 

The 43% is an interesting figure. Both Nixon and Humprhey hit about
that number in '68 with George Wallace raking in most of the
rest. That 14% constitutes what has been called Reagan Democrats:
people who vote other issues than their pocketbooks...usually race.
This is the first national election in memory which has not had race
as a subtext. An interesting phenomenon. Add to that the fact
that Perot's group are focusing exclusively on economic issues
and you find an unusual shift in what voters find important. Every
voter seems to have become an amateur economist, demanding to
know more "specifics" of plans which usually differ marginally
and then only in ways comprehendable by experts. A big difference
here would be health care: Clinton's plan will bring about major
reforms and ease that concern for practically everyone. His
other programs dovetail so closely with those of Bush that it
is amusing to see the religious wars breaking out: enterprise
zones, cuts in capital gains, investment credits. This is not
a normal Democratic Party shopping list. If the defining hallmark
of liberalism is its willingness to use government to tackle
problems, then as Kenneth Galbraith has pointed out, the war is
over and liberals have won. If the hallmark of conservatism is
that the business of America is business, then the same can be
said for conservatives: this is the most pro-business set of
candidates since prior to Roosevelt.
-- 
Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu>
Nobody knows, from sea to shining sea, why we are having all this trouble
with our republic.
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:49927 talk.religion.misc:17795 talk.abortion:41033