[EM] Strategy in the 1992 POTUS election (Clinton/Bush/Perot)

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 01/09/2022 7:05 PM Rob Lanphier <roblan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> They seem startlingly uninterested in hearing my Ross Perot
> impersonation, but I guess to each their own.  :-)
> 

i'd like to hear it!

> Here on the EM-list, we've been trotting out the Clinton/Bush/Perot
> example for a LONG time on this mailing list.  It's arguably a case of
> "center squeeze", if one considers Perot to be in the "center" of the
> 1992 election.

No, the Center Squeeze does not squeeze out a candidate that was not really a viable winner.  Perot has the role of spoiler (if we knew for sure that the Perot voters in the critical states preferred H.W. over Clinton, this is why we need ranked ballots) and if Perot were farther right than H.W. you could argue that it was center squeeze.  But since the election was not Hare RCV, I am not sure how center squeeze gets factored in here.  It could be simply the classic spoiled election that this Perot candidate took a lot more votes away from the election loser (H.W.) than who became the winner and possibly changed who the winner is.

H.W. and Clinton did not spoil the election for Perot, it was Perot who spoiled it for H.W.

>  I've personally thought a lot about that election,

About all the debate stuff, I dunno.  I do remember that Perot was oft credited for getting Clinton elected (and, after 12 years of GOP rule, I was grateful).

But the Center Squeeze effect is something that I attach only to Hare RCV and since all of the RCV elections other than Burlington 2009 had elected the Condorcet Winner, I dunno that the Center Squeeze had manifested itself at any other election than the Burlington 2009 IRV election.

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r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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