Reply #15: Cash, Advertising and Debates...

[slenderfungus]

In 1992, Perot had the advantage of his own deep pockets, ability to effectively advertise his candidacy and received mass exposure by being allowed to participate in the debates. Those factors count considerably in a candidates ability to draw votes from those who would otherwise might have stayed home instead of going to the polls. For the most part, Nader lacked those resources during his 2000 campaign when compared to Perot.

Given the limitations of Nader's campaign. It would have been interesting to have seen how Nader's participation in the debates might have impacted voter turnout, but obviously there's not much of a means of measuring that outcome. But just looking at the rather significant bump in the 1992 voter turnout (55%) when a third party candidate was allowed to participate in the debates compared to the lowest voter turnout in 1996 (49%) when the third party candidate was excluded might suggest that up to 6% of that difference might have been pulled from the otherwise apolitical crowd.

Ideally, John Kerry will begin to strongly appeal to the typical 50% crowd that does participate in our democracy to the point that he will effectively pull off a landslide victory against Bush regardless of whether Nader actually remained in the race or not. If Clinton could pull it off in 1992 and 1996, I think Kerry should be able to do the same, providing of course that he defines himself as a confident, charasmatic leader who offers a clear vision and strong solutions for the direction of our country. The lack of these qualities, I feel, is what ultimately prevented Al Gore from a successful landslide victory in 2000.

It's embarassing that the 2000 election was as close as it was given that Bush should have been very easy to defeat, one on one or otherwise. It's also worth remembering that Al Gore did actually win the 2000 election (not just the popular vote, but the Florida electoral vote as well) but conceeded and allowed the Supreme Court to select the President. It bothers me that the public actually allowed this to happen and that Gore didn't continue the push for the full recount.

Unfortunately, everyone seems very concerned that Kerry is not going to have greater public appeal than Al Gore did. Given Bush's continually dropping in the polls and the opporutnities ahead for Kerry to come out swingin' I would be really disturbed and disappointed with our voting population if we end up with another 50-50 draw this time around.