Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Winner faces low plurality, maybe lowest Date: Mon, 2 Nov 92 15:45:13 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;NEWS ANALYSIS \HD Winner faces low plurality, maybe lowest \BY Donald Lambro \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES If the polls are an accurate reading of the voters' deep divison in the presidential campaign, whoever wins tomorrow will end up being elected by a narrow, perhaps historically low plurality of the American people. That means that the man who will sit in the Oval Office for the next four years would rule without a clear mandate for change from a majority of the voters. The latest polls show Bill Clinton and President Bush in a virtual dead heat, with independent candidate Ross Perot trailing far behind at 14 percent. If the election results are anywhere near those percentages, and if the voter turnout remains near the 50 percent range, whoever wins would become president with one of the lowest pluralities in 80 years. "We could be talking about a historically low plurality, but the [Clinton] numbers are still not down in the key electoral states," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. For Mr. Bush, who is already weakened by a sluggish economy and a low job approval rating, a victory with a slim plurality would put him in the position of having to work with a Democratic Congress that would view him as a lame duck president without any real political power. For Mr. Clinton, who has never been able to fully recover from his deep character wounds, a narrow plurality victory would hardly be a compelling endorsement of his calls for substantive changes in the nation's domestic policies. But some analysts believe that as the incoming president, Mr. Clinton would have a longer honeymoon period in which to build a mandate to get his program through Congress. "With Bush it's much more serious because the media and the Democrats in Congress will be arguing that he has no mandate to do anything," Republican political consultant David Keene said. "But with Clinton, the media and the people on Capitol Hill would be saying that his election represents a new chance for change," Mr. Keene said. "And because of that he would get a longer honeymoon than normal." The last president to win the White House with less than a majority of the vote was Richard Nixon, who was elected with only 43.4 percent of the vote in a three-way race in 1968. Yet Mr. Nixon not only got many of his programs through Congress as he prosecuted the Vietnam War while seeking a negotiated settlement, but he went on to win re-election in 1972 in a landslide over Sen. George McGovern. On the other hand, presidents who have won with narrow majorities, such as John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, did not get many of their domestic programs through Congress, even with considerable majorities in both houses. Still, historians have to go back to the presidential election of 1912 to find pluralities as low as the latest polls suggest that either Mr. Bush or Mr. Clinton might receive. In that election, Woodrow Wilson won the presidency with 41.8 percent of the vote in a three-way race, defeating President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, who was running as a third-party candidate. Whoever wins will be facing a substantially changed Congress, with as many as 100 to 150 new faces in the House and perhaps a dozen new faces in the Senate. Congress is expected to be made up of a possibly stronger Democratic majority in the Senate, and a slightly reduced Democratic majority in the House. That would give Mr. Clinton the opportunity to get much of his domestic program passed in his first year as president. "They [the new Democratic members of Congress] would want to burnish their reputation too," said Mr. Gans, who foresees the Democrats teaming up with Mr. Clinton to pass "four to five to six major pieces of his economic plan very early in his first year." "That would include national community service, a voter registration program, mandated family leave, spending for public service employment and infrastructure and his education proposals," he said. "If Clinton wins, you are going to see the Democrats enacting D.C. statehood, taxpayer funding of congressional campaigns, repeal of the Hatch Act to get federal employees involved in elections, all calculated to perpetuate themselves in power," said Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM