Reply #140: I'll take your word on the exit polls

[fishwax]

although analysts have debated for years which candidate perot helped and I have read analysis that disputes that.

But exit polls were shown this year not to be reliable, and earlier polls in the '92 campaign season (particularly before Perot's disappearing/reappearing act) showed that his supporters would have otherwised voted for bush. Exit polls from '96 (again, take with salt) show that by a 2-1 margin, '92 perot voters who abandoned him in '96 voted for dole.

Finally, the polls alone can't show the effect of perot, since he had an effect on the arc of the entire race, changing the structure of the debates and the dialogue. Even if you could determine (through exit polls) exactly what the result would be if Perot's name magically weren't on any ballots on election day, that still wouldn't demonstrate the effect of not having Perot in the campaign at all.