Election watch
Faculty observations on the campaign and the candidates
Archived article from Oct 6, 2000
Presidential campaigns, complete with bombastic rhetoric and often-empty promises, are always good for controversy, conflict and commentary. Focus asked some of the faculty members who watch such matters to discuss what they believe to be the salient issues arising from the Bush/Gore 2000 presidential contest.
Ross K. Baker
Professor of political science, New Brunswick
I think Al Gore will become president in 2001. I always have thought so. I am a believer in the referendum model of presidential elections that tells you to consult the trends in gross national product, unemployment, disposable income and inflation. If all or most of those indicators are favorable, the incumbent party will win. Only an unresolved and costly conflict such as Korea or Vietnam will trump a good economy.
Americans are remarkably pragmatic people. They don't need to love a candidate to elect him president. Senator George McGovern was a far more likable person than Richard Nixon in 1972, but people feared that he would give away the country. They held their noses and voted for Nixon.
Al Gore would probably not be the first choice of most voters, but what living politician would? In bleaker times, they might opt for a more scintillating candidate, but examining their own lives and where they stand now as opposed to eight years ago will probably prompt them to make the safe choice and give their vote to Bill Clinton's designated successor.
As for Governor Bush, I think he lost the race the day he designated Richard Cheney as his running mate. Not since Barry Goldwater picked Representative Bill Miller from well-earned obscurity in 1964 has there been a less prepossessing running mate for a major party candidate. Fearing to be outshone by a more luminous ticket mate, Bush chose the earnest but plodding Cheney. The selection of Cheney told us that this was a presidential candidate who probably feared the competition from the number two person. It marked Bush as a light-as-air candidate -- an impression that has hardened as the campaign has unfolded.
Janice Ballou
Director, Center for Public Interest Polling, Eagleton Institute of Politics
All polls are not created equally. This election year there will be more polls than ever before and more variety of methods used to conduct these polls. The classic scientific poll, which is based on a solid foundation of tested methods, is now just one approach used to collect voters' opinions about elections. There are now overnight polls, 800 call-in polls, Internet polls, telephone electronic response polls and other creative techniques being used. Often the media reports all of these as "polls," even though the methods and the level of confidence we can have in the results may be very different.
Professional polling organizations are monitoring these polls. Poll watchers who are interested in learning more about what polls are or are not scientific can go to www.aapor.org or www.ncpp.org. Polls are an excellent way to monitor interest and engagement in elections. But it's important to know just what "type" of poll it is.
Frank Fischer
Professor of political science and public policy, Newark
There are real policy differences between Vice President Gore and Governor Bush. Unfortunately, the practice of campaign fund raising is not one of them. Since the 1996 presidential election, no other policy issue has raised deeper concern among the electorate than the relation of money to politics.
Recognizing the degree to which American politics has become hostage to monied interests, voters have regularly registered their disgust with campaign finance abuses. In response, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, both masters of the money game, promised to make campaign finance reform a top priority in their second term in office. But soon thereafter the issue was again dropped from the agenda, and both parties went on collecting campaign donations. Indeed they have done it even more fervently. Bush and Gore have reached new heights in fund raising.
continued...
Page 1 of 3
Next >
|
