Word: perots
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Negative ads still abound, but they are generally straightforward and issue- oriented. One purpose of these attack ads, campaign insiders say, is to lay the groundwork for points the candidates can expound on later in the debates. Statistics (however dubious) are everywhere. Fittingly, Ross Perot's first half-hour ad, which aired twice last week, was a no-nonsense lecture on the sorry state of the U.S. economy, filled to the brim with charts and graphs -- not the kind of fare prime-time viewers would be expected to sit through. Yet it drew an impressive 12.2 rating (representing 11.36 million...
...RETURN OF ROSS PEROT HAS BROUGHT THE FEDERAL budget deficit, like an unwelcome guest, back to the center of national debate. Perot, whatever his defects, has offered a credible plan for balancing the budget over five years. The general reaction from the economic graybeards has been: fine idea, but now's not the time. To slam on the fiscal brakes in the midst of a recession, or a shaky recovery, or whatever the heck we're in, would be suicidal. Partisans of the other two candidates have grasped this argument as a defense of their considerably more modest deficit-reduction...
...real deficit-elimination plan could hardly be enacted overnight. Perot himself says it would take at least a year. And a five-year plan would suffer inevitable slippage. Look at past fiscal diets, like Gramm-Rudman. If the goal of a balanced budget actually produced, say, an annual deficit under $100 billion by the year 2000, that would be widely regarded as a spectacular success...
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES TEND TO BE PIVOTAL MOMENTS in most campaigns, and that fact generates a dramatic atmosphere. But on the eve of their first high- stakes face-off, George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot weren't the only ones under extraordinary pressure. Since the debate was scheduled to begin a full day after the magazine's usual closing time, managing editor Henry Muller made the rare decision to hold presses until Sunday night to accommodate this week's cover story. We are used to stretching our deadlines occasionally in order to include late-breaking major news, but covering Sunday...
...impact on the campaign, the first debate will probably reinforce rather than alter voters' impressions. Ross Perot's strong performance will change some minds. All but the most partisan were surely left to wonder what might have been had Perot stayed the course. Bush's continuing attack on Bill Clinton's character and patriotism may eventually drive up negative ratings for the Democrat, but a betting person would have to say that the leader going into the debates will be the leader coming out -- and that he will still lead...