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Subject: Anger at the Economy Was the Glue Binding Supporters to Perot<By E. J. Dionne
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 04:42:06 EST
Message-ID: <13.1992Nov12.044207@AmeriCast.com>

Anger at the Economy Was the Glue Binding Supporters to Perot<By
E. J. Dionne Jr.=Washington Post Staff Writer=

The constituency that gathered around independent Ross Perot may
be a pivotal force in American politics in the months ahead, but
an analysis of Perot's vote suggests his supporters were bound
together only by anger over the nation's economy and a rejection
of the two major party nominees.

Although Perot's constituency has been widely described as "cen-
trist," his supporters are actually scattered across the politi-
cal spectrum. Roughly a third of them seem favorably disposed to-
ward President-elect Clinton, while another third seem unlikely
ever to support the new president or the Democratic Party.

In between are voters likely to judge Clinton not on the basis
any of his specific policies or ideological positions, but by one
criterion alone: Whether they sense improvement in the nation's
economy.

The battle for Perot's constituency - at 19 percent, he won the
largest third-party vote since 1912 - already has influenced pol-
itics in the week since Clinton's election.

Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) laid claim to the
right to speak for Perot's backers, partly because he shares
their concern about the budget deficit. And Clinton has sent word
that he intends to propose very tough ethics rules for his ap-
pointees. His aides say frankly that one of their goals is to
convince Perot voters that Clinton shares their desire to reform
Washington's ways.

But a nationwide exit poll of more than 15,000 voters conducted
by Voter Research & Surveys for the major news organizations sug-
gests that the battle for the Perot vote will not be a simple af-
fair, because his constituency - in conventional terms, at least
- lacks ideological and partisan coherence. To the extent that
the Perot movement has a future, it will depend almost entirely
on the decisions made by the one man who brought this disparate
constituency together.

"It's unlikely that this voter bloc will coalesce behind another
candidate or will move en masse toward one party or another,"
said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster.  "These voters have
found their messiah, and if he's no longer in front of the masses
leading them, these supporters will dwindle down to single di-
gits." The Perot constituency, said Geoff Garin, a Democratic
pollster, "has neither a coherent ideology nor an institutional
framework in which to operate. . . .  On Nov. 3, Perot was a
resting place for a lot of unhappy voters of very different
types."

In contrast to Perot's disparate coalition, supporters of George
C. Wallace's third-party candidacy in 1968 were largely united in
their conservative views on fundamental issues: race, crime and
social policy. Four years later, when he ran for reelection,
Richard M. Nixon tilted rightward on these questions, won the
bulk of Wallace's supporters and helped build a Republican
presidential majority that largely dominated politics for two de-
cades.

In the case of Perot's supporters, there is no such unity of view
or purpose, except in their rejection of the status quo
represented by President Bush. The exit polling found that 81
percent of Perot's backers disapproved of Bush's handling of the
economy, as did 92 percent of Clinton's.  Eighty-nine percent of
Perot's voters rated the economy as "not good" or "poor," as did
94 percent of Clinton's supporters.

But in other respects, Perot supporters defied easy ideological
classification.

His voters - on the whole younger than either Bush's or Clinton's
- generally stood to the "left" of Bush's in being much more sup-
portive of abortion rights. But they stood to Clinton's "right"
on the issues of taxing and spending, and in expressing support
for "traditional values."

The polling lent some backing to the view that Perot voters are
fundamentally centrist: 53 percent of his voters defined them-
selves as "moderates." But so did 54 percent of Clinton's voters
and 41 percent of Bush's.

Perot's constituency differed from those of the two major party
candidates in that he attracted almost as many votes from self-
described liberals as from conservatives. The Clinton constituen-
cy, on the other hand, tilted slightly toward liberals, while the
Bush constituency tilted strongly toward conservatives.

Among Perot's voters, 20 percent called themselves "liberal," as
did 33 percent of Clinton's voters but only 8 percent of Bush's.
At the other end of the spectrum, 27 percent of Perot voters
called themselves "conservative," as did 51 percent of Bush's but
only 13 percent of Clinton's.  The notion of a constituency torn
asunder was reinforced when Perot backers were asked how they
voted in elections for the House and who would have been their
second choice for president.

In House races, Perot voters split down the middle: 51 percent
said they backed Republicans, 49 percent backed Democrats. In the
presidential contest, 38 percent of Perot supporters said they
would have supported Clinton if Perot had not been on the ballot
and 37 percent said they would have supported Bush.

An additional 6 percent of Perot voters said they would have
sought another third-party candidate, while 14 percent said they
would not have voted if Perot had not run.

In his pursuit of a majority coalition for 1996, Clinton will
look first to Perot supporters who already lean his way, and the
numbers suggest some promise for the president-elect.

Perot supporters who picked Clinton as a second choice are much
more Democratic and somewhat more liberal than the rest of the
Perot constituency. These Clinton-leaning Perot supporters are
also much more strongly in favor of abortion rights than other
Perot voters and more concerned about the overall performance of
the economy than about the budget deficit.

Bush-leaning Perot voters, on the other hand, are heavily Repub-
lican, moderately conservative and especially worried about the
budget deficit. This piece of the Perot consti-tuency may indeed
find Sen. Dole a congenial spokesman and seems highly unlikely
ever to embrace Clinton or the Democrats.

The remaining portion of the Perot vote - the "irreconcilables"
who declined to pick between Bush and Clinton - are more Demo-
cratic but not more liberal than the Perot constituency as a
whole. The irrec-oncilables are more likely to be from families
that include a union member, more worried about the economy's
overall performance than about the deficit and slightly less edu-
cated than the rest of the Perot constituency.

These characteristics, more associated with Democratic voters
than Republicans, suggest that Clinton could have an opening. But
his hopes depend almost entirely on how well he handles the econ-
omy.

What is most striking about the Perot constituency as a whole is
that it was animated almost entirely by two issues: The perfor-
mance of the economy, listed by 52 percent of Perot's supporters
as a voting issue, and the deficit, listed by 42 percent of
Perot's backers.

No other issue came close; health care ranked third in the Perot
group, named by just 14 percent of his backers.<02:14 11-
12C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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