Word: perotism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...understable that the American people are wary of political consultants, who sometimes seem to be masters of the obvious. Bill Clinton had a gaggle of strategists he really didn't need. He won the 1992 elections because his idealism inspired voters and because H. Ross Perot stole votes and momentum from George Bush. He beat Bob Dole principally because the economy was strong and Dole was weak. None of these require a Harvard education--or a campaign consultant--to figure...
...consider this: consultants are used to managing candidates in the United State's two-party political system. Ross Perot was unexecpted in 1992 and helped Clinton to win. In 1996, Perot was a victim of his own hype...
...Commander James Stockdale (who would retire as an admiral and run for Vice President in 1992 with Ross Perot) driven to such despondency in prison that he attempts suicide. Here is the Navy's Richard Stratton "playing the Manchurian candidate," he says, pretending to be brainwashed when paraded before propaganda cameras. Forced into the same mock show, Commander Jeremiah Denton blinks out T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse code with his eyelids. Lieut. Paul Galanti casually displays both middle fingers before the cameras (only to have the obscene gesture airbrushed out by LIFE magazine...
...speaks loud, from a lush rented banquet hall, or wide, from the face in a slick campaign ad on national television. It is a megaphone for ideas, and also a corruptor of democracy, because when money it is given in large enough quantities ? and yes, Messrs. Forbes and Perot and Huffington, it must be given to be truly effective ? it wins elections. It buys votes, because it is votes. It signals support, so it attracts support, and thus it is self-fulfilling. And because no candidate can win without it, nearly every candidate promises nearly anything to get more...
...rent asunder. By definition, the Healer eschews traditional political debate, instead probing the seams of religious and patriotic sentiment for a message that will deliver the electoral mother lode. Throw a stick in New Hampshire in February and you?ll hit at least five would-be Healers. Ross Perot is a failed Healer. As Bill Clinton proved, the true art of playing the Healer is convincing voters that you feel their pain...