From: lbaum@atc.boeing.com (Larry Baum)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: On the first debate among the presidential candidates
Date: 14 Oct 92 16:08:52 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services

In article <1992Oct13.014518.17511@oakhill.sps.mot.com> pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com
(Patrick J. McGuinness) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.010800.4709@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu
(Stupendous Man) writes:
>>In article <29153@life.ai.mit.edu>, Clinton for President
<75300.3115@compuserve.com> writes:
>>...
>>>                    Statement of SEN. AL GORE
>>>         On the first debate among the presidential candidates
>>
>>>  With the attention of the nation focused on him, George Bush failed
>>>  to provide the American people with a single reason to re- elect him
>>>  or a single idea to get our economy moving again and create jobs.
>>
>>	Capital gains tax cuts, indexing them for inflation, reducing spending,
>>NAFTA, ... He has offered ideas.  I'm sure you reject all of them, but that
>>doesn't make it so.
>
>Clinton is practicing the big lie technique. Keep repeating an untruth 
>over and over again, and enough suckers will believe it. 
>Now why is he so interested in saying this lie that "Bush has no plan,
>no ideas " etc.?
> 
>CNN ran an interesting poll/study. They asked people whether they
>thought Clinton's economic plans or Bush's economic plans were the
>best. Clinton was favored on the economy (gee, no kidding).
>*Then* they asked people to sit down and compare (sort of as a "blind
>taste test") the actual content of the economic plans.
>
>Lo and behold, Americans, in blind tests, chose Bush's Agenda for
>American Renewal over Clinton's Put Government, er, People First plan.
>They went for Bush's plan by a wide margin.
>
>Clinton knows that if Americans compare the plans, he loses.
>If he continues to convince Americans that he has the only plan
>(an untruth(*)), and runs against the economic conditions (by
>making things out to be worse than they are), he's in.

Of course the results in such blind tests are quite sensitive to details of how
they are done, but let's suppose all this is true.  It does not then follow
that those people no longer think Clinton will do better on the economy.  Why? 
Consider this:

Even if I like Bush's plan, I have absolutely no confidence that he will put
the necessary effort into selling it, or more importantly, doing the hard work
of sitting down with Congressional leaders to work out whatever compromises are
necessary to get the bulk of his plan enacted.  Look what happened with his
January plan (the one introduced in the State of the Union message.)  Congress
crafted a bill that enacted almost every one of his proposals, but also
included a relatively small tax increase on the wealthy.  Bush vetoed it of
course.  Or consider family leave: the House and Senate passed different
versions months ago and held off its conference until the fall.  Finally they
passed the legislation and only then did Bush come up with his alternative. 
Where was his alternative all the time the bill was waiting for the conference
committee.  If he were truly committed to his alternative, he would have worked
with Congress long before the bill was passed.  Similar analyses apply to a
whole range of issues: health care, enterprise zones...  He makes half-hearted
attempts to gets his proposals adopted and when Congress sends him something
different, he vetoes it.  But he is unwilling, or more likely, incapable of
sitting down and working out those differences.

Clinton, on hte other hand, has a proven record of understanding how to work
with a legislature to get things done.  Undoubtedly, a lot of the laws passed
in Ark. in the past 12 years have been compromises.  The art of compromise is
extremely important in American democracy.  Bush has no such talent, which is a
principal reason that he is considered a failure.
So it is somewhat irrelevant who has the better plan (and I do not concede that
point, anyway); Clinton definitely has a much better chance of getting what he
wants adopted.