Why did perot lose

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Dow Jones. To Read the Full Story. Subscribe Sign In. But the margin between major-party candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore was razor thin. It went to the Supreme Court, and Bush emerged as the winner. There are people who blame Nader for Gore's narrow defeat to this day. Going further back in history, the Southern segregationist George Wallace ran as an independent candidate for president in There's intensifying conflict over civil rights issues like urban policy and crime and Wallace tries to capitalize on this and he plays to the white backlash — not just in the South but in the North — and in some ways he set a template that other candidates have followed in terms of backlash politics," Zelizer says.

But overall, it remains a tall task for a third party or independent candidate to make a dent in a presidential election and actually win electoral votes, Zelizer says. He got out in July, you remember? And we called him from one of these military units from the stream where we were catching fish. He wanted to go to Vietnam, because he felt sure there were some live Americans there.

He came in and made the request to the Reagan administration. He said, You guys are from Texas. You know him. He said, I know him. I never had talked to him in my life. He held a big grudge about that. That was part of it. I think he may even have done something against George W.

He did something against Jeb in Florida. Personality thing. Despite the fact that he was an odd bird, he was onto something.

He was concerned about the deficit. He had some of the same feelings. He had a fair amount of gubernatorial contempt for Washington. There were advocates of what we called the 34 percent solution. I think that influenced his views on who would be the right vice presidential pick. There was no way of knowing whether Perot was going to go the distance and whether we could win the reform votes back from him.

Thankfully, Clinton dismissed the 34 percent solution out of hand. He felt that that was a false choice. There was nothing about what he was saying to the swing voters that was going to alienate the 34 percent. He had a book.

He was talking about a couple of real problems, mostly the deficit, but he was a big advocate of campaign and lobby reform, changing the culture of Washington. He had charts. So he was—like Tsongas, like Clinton—preaching specifics. As it turned out, of the three of them, Clinton was the only gifted communicator.

But Perot definitely both reinforced the importance of dealing with real issues and reinforced the desire to change Washington, which ultimately worked entirely to our favor. We tried to talk him out of it. I called him and said, Why are you doing this, Ross? I then know he did. That embarrassed George. I had said to George, Do you want me to call Perot? I think Bob [Dole] may have done it too. I did.

I spent about 20 or 30 minutes. Nobody is going to lift the old hood. They were Texans. Damned if I know what it was. But he surely defeated Bush—27 percent of the people in Maine voted for Perot and Wyoming was second, with 25 percent voting for Perot, and he got 20 percent across the nation. Those are big numbers. He educated the American public on the budget…In Ross Perot put information out there that made it comfortable for people. He just went right up the Mississippi.

I was born 20 miles west of the Mississippi. I looked at these dots all up and down the country, right up through the middle of the country. There were pockets in the Northeast, and pockets around where he had these big votes.

It was very interesting to look at. Then I realized why I had thought he was so important, because he was really affecting voters that way. I think he tapped into a voter frustration. What happened was that they learned enough; they really learned a lot from him. His stuff was good. It was correct. He used data. They got evidence.