Election time, who did you vote for?

[TheShape31]

Kasz216 said:

TheShape31 said:

gergroy said:

TheShape31 said:

Kasz216 said:

TheShape31 said:
@gergroy

I agree, this year none of the 3rd party candidates have a chance to win. But why do you think that is? A defeatist attitude has a little to do with it, but it's much more problematic than that. Think about the one and only time that a 3rd party candidate was allowed into the presidential debate. It was Ross Perot, the billionaire. If you can BUY yourself into the election then you have a chance. What does that say about the top two, who will only allow you to compete on the main stage if you're one of the richest 1%? What does that say about most of the country that votes for one of those two people? It shows a lack of credibility, honesty, and wisdom. I'll let you think about who owns each of those attributes.

To be fair.. Ross Perot was alowed into the debate because at one point he was actually freaking leading the national polls.

That's why he was allowed into the debates.

Yes, he was doing that well in the polls.  And what set him apart from any other 3rd party candidate since then?  Maybe it was the fact that he was a billionaire and was able to use that money to become publicly visible.  Money buys advertising, TV, and radio time.  Name one poor person (not raised poor, but poor during election time) that was in the running for president in U.S. history.  Elections = money.

that would make sense if that is what Perot did.  At the end of the day, perot only used about 12 million of his own money.  Perot was a popular candidate who aquired the support based on his own ideas and platform.  

Uh huh... so he just had good ideas and word got around?  Oh wait, it must have been the internet.  Oh wait, when you're a billionaire you can spend millions, and better yet have political connections.  Whether or not you know this, rich people have rich friends, and most people in politics are rich.  You can buy connections.  And I like how you said he "only" spent $12M of his own money.  That's $12M more than everyone else.  Anyway, when you have big money connections you don't have to spend all the money yourself.

More or less... his campaign was actually pretty cheap and he polled really high before he ever even entered the race.

Ross Perot was popular because he more or less played to the middle and the "common man."

Essentially he targeted Libretarians, balancing the budget, Union Democrats and the anti-free trade vote in general.

Clinton and Bush both being Free Trade at a time when everyone was afraid Japan was going to buy the country... part of stealing Perot's momentum was Clinton making some anti free trade promises he later disregarded.

 

He didn't really start spending his own money until after he reentered the race after he left because "Republicans had compromising pictures of his daughter and threatened to release them if he didn't drop out."

He actually thought spending money on advertising was a huge waste of time when he could just give interviews to tv shows.

 

"Evening up" foreign trade, balancing the budget, simplifying taxes.  These are all themes that both parties still pay lip service too because of how powerul those positions resonate.

 

Strengthening the war on drugs and electronic town hall voting on all issues i'm guessing haven't held up as well.

 

You obviously haven't been paying attention.  I like how you're just making stuff up.

 

GameOver22 said:

gergroy said:

TheShape31 said:

Kasz216 said:

TheShape31 said:

Seems that Perot ended up spending $26 of his own money in the first two weeks of October alone ($46 million as of Oct. 14). He also said he expected to spend $60 millions. Its also important to remember that election were much different back then (much less money). Just for reference, Clinton and Bush each accepted public funding and were limited to $55 million. Granted, they also had the parties raising money for them as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/24/us/1992-campaign-campaign-finances-despite-economy-clinton-sets-record-for-funds.html

I think this shows that Perot's viability was largely a product of his ability to spend money. I mean he single-handedly was able to outspend the public funding Clinton and Bush received. Finally, I want to emphasize that campaign spending has only increased since then. If Perot tried to run a campaign by spending $60 million today, he would likely be overshadowed by the big guns. Also, even with all that spending, Perot wasn't able to win any electoral votes even with 19% of the vote (kind of shows the importance of campaign strategy).

KInd of gives an idea of the increase campaign spending http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/totals.php?cycle=2008