Word: perots
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Just how much of Perot's support might come from new voters? Not even Bush's top advisers know for sure. For now, they say, Perot is drawing votes almost exclusively from the ranks of disaffected, but largely registered, Democrats and Republicans -- not the disenfranchised. But that could change, and if it does, the White House isn't keen to make registration simpler...
...PEROT LEADS IN NEW POLL" has become so frequent a bulletin that the Texas billionaire's image has changed from interesting maverick to serious presidential contender. If Ross Perot does endure as a major force into autumn, one large reason will be the opinion surveys of spring, despite their notorious fragility during this period. Says pollster Peter Hart: "More than any other person I can think of in American politics, Perot has been aided and abetted by the polls...
Headlines trumpeting Perot's apparent popularity offset what is normally a huge liability for a little-known independent -- skepticism that he has any chance to win. In Perot's case, poll results feed on themselves. High ratings help beget higher ratings even while he remains an elusive figure who declines to state his views...
...mood, the center matched Operation Desert Storm hero Norman Schwarzkopf against George Bush and Bill Clinton. The retired Army general placed second, with 29%, vs. 35% for Bush and 27% for Clinton. Andrew Kohut, who ran the poll, thinks that result "underscores the difficulty of judging how much of Perot's standing is really support for Perot rather than a yearning for a nonpolitical alternative." In another experiment, Kohut found that Perot fell from first place to second in a three-way test when the questionnaire omitted a preliminary item comparing only Bush and Clinton. When confronted solely with choosing...
Such nuances are familiar to pollsters and political reporters but meaningless to the public. Also opaque are differences between types of surveys. Perot got a large boost earlier this month when, in the final round of primaries, the networks included his name in exit polls -- interviews with those who have just cast ballots. Such samplings usually provide reliable demographic data and allow speedy projection of the winners. But those who come out for primary elections are not representative of the larger electorate...