President Clinton’s “bridge to the 21st century” sold pretty well to the uncritical bunch in Big Media, but now he’s touring the South with it, hoping to keep the Republican presidential ticket from turning the region’s traditional conservatism into a threat to his re-election.
At the same time he was telling people in Alabama that it looked like they’d like to “cross that bridge” with him, Reuters was reporting that a poll shows Bob Dole and Jack Kemp slightly ahead in Texas (though within the margin of error). I’ve been wondering lately about the other polls, the ones purporting to show Clinton maintaining a steady double-digit lead nationally among “likely” voters—wondering just what Clinton’s actual numbers are in those polls. That part hasn’t been quite as prominently discussed…
With Ross Perot running about five percent nationally, and the minor-party tickets threatening to stay in their usual three-points-or-less-combined ghetto, if Clinton is doing no better than—oh, let’s say 43%, just at random—then this race is nowhere near as cut-and-dried as many are making it appear.
Bear in mind that in the final results in 1992 Perot had about 18 percent, and the popular-vote difference between Clinton and Bush was only six points. If Perot has slipped as much as the polls now say—thirteen points!—Clinton is toast if he can’t do better than he did back then.
So can he? And can he do enough better, in a good enough distribution among high-electoral-vote states, to actually win?
These questions don’t seem to be getting much attention right now. But as I read about Slick Willie traveling the South talking about a bridge, I can’t help but think that there are a great many people out there who are in for a real surprise. Especially when you consider that Clinton’s biggest and most persistent scandal involves the sale of swamp land…
Can it be that Dick Morris’ departure has left the Clinton/Gore campaign with no more savvy than to go to Dixie to sell a bridge?
