Talk:United States presidential election, 1996/Archive 1

Archive 1

Red/Blue map

Should the map showing which states went to who be changed to the current red=Republican blue=Democratic color scheme?

Yes, because that's the c o m m o n color scheme in US.--198 23:27, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It was not necessarily the color scheme in 96. All elections up through 96 use red for the Dems and blue for the GOP. john k 01:22, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Really that's odd, why did they change the sceme?--198 03:03, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)'

Just something the media cooked up, nothing significant about it. You're welcome for the answer 3 years later.

Kemp

Should be noted that while Kemp was originally from New York, he was living in Maryland in 1996, and ran from Maryland. That is, the ballots said "Jack Kemp of Maryland" not "Jack Kemp of New York." john k 16:32, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed I changed it. Also is it necessary to add that he was an ex-cabinet member, in the opening paragraph? We aren't listing Dole as an ex-VP nominee or Clinton as an ex-state attorney general and governor, or Al Gore as an ex-Senator in the opening paragraph.PonileExpress (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Never mind what I said earlier, Kemp served as a congressman from NY, so rightly his home state is NY, however I stand by my point of including him as a cabinet secretary.PonileExpress (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you prove the ballots said Jack Kemp of Maryland?PonileExpress (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The Library of Congress suggests they did:

Pursuant to the provisions of S. Con. Res. 1, the House and Senate met in joint session and counted the votes cast by the electors for President and Vice-President of the United States of America. The count disclosed the following votes cast for President: Bill Clinton of Arkansas, 379; and Bob Dole of Kansas, 159. The count disclosed the following votes for Vice President: Al Gore of Tennessee, 379; and Jack Kemp of Maryland, 159. Representatives Thomas of California and Gejdenson, on the part of the House, and Senators Warner and Ford, on the part of the Senate, served as tellers.

I am going to change it back. john k (talk) 00:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Southern States and "close states"

Apparently one of the authors decided that Florida wasn't a southern state...

There has indeed been a lot of imigration there from other states and countries in recent decades, but it's still considered to be very much a southern state.

At any rate, Clinton won the same number of southern states in 96 as he did in 92. All that changed there was that he won Georgia the first time and Florida the second time.

I also noticed that the colors for the "close states" are opposite those on the map, which could be confusing....

Blackcats 06:07, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Don't include NY State Nomminations

Someone should remove "Liberal" and "Conservative" because both of them were, for the most part moderates. NY State party nominations aren't mentioned unless I didn't spot it

The labels "Liberal" and "Conservative" are listed in the column "Parties" and are wikilinks to the Liberal and Conservative Parties of New York. I don't see the confusion.

— DLJessup (talk) 03:52, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Comment. This raises the issue of whether to include DFL, the official name of the Democratic Party in Minnesota. Also the official name of the Republican Party in Minnesota was the "Independent Republican Party" from 1974 until 1994. These state parties received a lot more votes than the Conservative, Liberal, or Right to Life parties in New York State. Chronicler3 20:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I am disinclined to add the DFL on the basis that, unlike the Liberal or Conservative Parties of New York, it is actually affiliated with one of the national parties (in this case, the Democratic Party). As you can see, however, I have moved the Liberal and Conservative mentions to footnotes: I had found that Dole was also the Freedom candidate in New York, and I didn't want to overload the Party column. I also added Perot's SC vote, which was split between the Reform and Patriot tickets.

— DLJessup (talk) 01:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Color

Can anyone explain to me why the colors changed between 1996 and 2000? On this map, the democratic voting states are represented as being red, with republican voting states in blue. However, for maps after 1996, the colors are reversed, with red for republicand and blue for democrat? Why the switch and how did it happen? 134.250.72.141

All of the election maps for 1789–1996 were pulled from the National Atlas of the United States, which is in the public domain as a government publication. That source used blue for Republican and red for Democrat. The map for 2000 also used to be pulled from the same site; however, because the terms "red state" and "blue state" were coined as labels for the Republican- and Democratic-leaning areas of the country in that election, the talk page was periodically pelted with complaints about the color scheme on the map until finally an editor came along and replaced it.

— DLJessup (talk) 06:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Close states numbering

I just corrected the figures in the 'Close states' section of the 1992 election article, and ended up with over 30 "close" states. I chose to restrict the definition of "close" to a 5% span, rather than have over half the states be considered close. This article has nearly half of the states in the 'Close states' column. I personally think that it should be changed from a 10% to a 5% span, as anything over 5% isn't particularly close in American politics. Thoughts? -Subsurd 00:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.

— DLJessup (talk) 04:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Nader's running mates

"As for his 'five or six' vice presidents, further research has turned up no fewer than eight! By Election Day these had been reduced not to two, but four (Annie Goeke, Muriel Tillinghast, Winona LaDuke, Madelyn Hoffman)."[1] Others mentioned are Deborah Howes, Bill Boteler and Richard Walton[2] Which ones actually appeared on the ballot and in which states, and were they the only Nader ticket on the ballot in those states or were there multiple Nader lines (there were two different ones in NY in 2004). I think: Anne Goeke in Iowa[3] (PDF) and Pennsylvania; Madelyn Hoffman in New Jersey;[4] Krista Paradise in Colorado; Muriel Tillinghast in New York.[5] Esquizombi 04:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I've incorporated the above post into the article. Esquizombi, could you please check it and make sure that I'm not missing anything?

— DLJessup (talk) 16:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

LaRouche Delegates

Does someone have a source for the LaRouche delegate story? I recall that he did win a few delegates because he passed the minimum threshhold in places. However, the entire Arkansas delegation would have been about 35 - and LaRouche only received 6.8% of the vote in the primary there (http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=36287). I find it statistically unlikely that LaRouche would have won more than 2-5 delegates in Arkansas. Chronicler3 22:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Winner/Runner-Up

I have to voice my concern that this format is hurting the article. I will post this on a few notable election pages and hope that it's noticed. I have to admire the determination of whoever came up with this idea (it's apparently on every page) but ultimately, I think it should go. I think that having "winner/runner-up" displayed so prominently in the infobox overshadows the importance of the election. Some of these elections were not mere contests, but were epic events in American history where a variety of important viewpoints were symbolically represented and voted upon. Just in the last 50 years, the notable political climates of 1968 and 2004 came to a boiling point around election time. We should not be placing so much emphasis on the "winner" and the "runner-up" -- this is not a spelling bee. If we condense this into who "won" we are doing a disservice to the issues that drove these elections. SpiderMMB 23:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Perot should be next to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole on the candidate count

He is on the '92 one... I mean, he may have only got half the vote he did then, but he still got more than Nader, and Nader is included on the '08 one, along with Barr. J'onn J'onzz (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Nader is in the '08 one because nobody knows what percent and how many votes any of the candidates in the end got, or what effect they had on the campaign. Theoretically, nader could electoral votes and many popular votes as could Barr, as the election hasn't happened yet. But when the election does, if they don't get any, or don't effect the campaign in anyway, their faces will not be included. The reason Perot is up in the 1992 one is that he got double digits in that race, 18.9 percent to be exact. That explains why the winner and running up had 43 percent and 37.4 percent, respectively, as the effect Perot had is debated. Some say he changed the outcome of the race, while many others point to the exit polls which indicate Perot likely did not affect the outcome of the race. The reason Perot is not up in the 1996 race is because he almost indisputably had little to no affect on the race, and was essentially a gadfly. He didn't even enter the race until August. He got less than half of the votes he got in 1992, and again no electoral votes. Exit polls again showed Perot taking equally from both candidates. His votes were protest votes, as a plurality of his voters wouldn't have voted in his absence in that election.Tallicfan20 (talk) 03:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, that's POV. What is undisputable is that Perot still got excellent result for a third party candidate, by US standards. If many of his voters wouldn't have voted if he hadn't been a candidate, well that makes his candidacy all the more interesting. Wedineinheck (talk) 10:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It was patently obvious to anyone paying attention that there was no possible chance that Nader in 2008 would do anywhere near as well as Perot did in 1996. john k (talk) 00:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Perot's inclusion in the header is likely necessary for accuracy. He had over eight percent of the vote: Strom Thurmond is in the candidate count for the 1948 election, and he only had 2.4 percent of the vote. It could easily be argued that Strom's case was different, as he won four states and thirty-nine electoral votes - but are electoral votes the only criterium for encyclopedic inclusion? In that case, we might add John Ewards [sic] to the 2004 presidential article. The argument that Perot was not relevant to the outcome of the election is ridiculous - Why was he not relevant? Because only one out of every thirteen United States voters supported him? Because he had less votes than the other candidates? Because he didn't win? Why, then, it could be argued that Dole himself had "no effect on the race" - after all, he wasn't able to prevent Clinton from winning. Yes, Dole had massive support - but so did Perot. He received more than 7,000,000 votes. Penthamontar (talk) 07:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Dan Quayle

I thought Quayle didn't run for President in 1996? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.151.149 (talk) 01:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Pro Republican Bias

This article seems to have something of a pro-republican bias. If I remember my high school civics lessons correctly, the party that i snot in the White House usually does pretty well in the mid term elections. But, the article make it sound like the Republicans pulled off something of a miracle and took control of Congress in 1994. (I haven't looked at that article, yet.) Also, the photographs and text that refer to the Republicans that could have run but didn't seems a bit much. I mean, yes, Oliver North could have run, but I don't remember at the time anybody giving him a serious shot at winning.

A better format for the article would be a time-line story that detailed the attitude of the country going into the election and the growing economy led by the highly speculative dot-com boom. The campaign between Clinton and Dole was a wonderful campaign, with two masterful politicians go at each other. It would be a big job rewriting this page, but the end result would be much better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freeman615 (talk • contribs) 02:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The Republican victory in the House was huge because it was the first time dems had lost control of it in more than 40 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PonileExpress (talk • contribs) 05:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Superfluous Information

Why is there a category for "Candidates Who Did Not Run?" This is a problem I have with other election articles as well, but it is completely pointless non-information. In the grand scheme of things there could be thousands of politicians who could have ran but didn't. They wouldn't necessarily be good candidates but every member of the house, every senator, every governor, every mayor, every long term state legislator could all reasonably run. That doesn't even include generals, business executives, popular actors or news anchors, or cultural figures (akin to an Al Sharpton) that could reasonably run for president. I mean it's not even information of any kind. It's a list of things that didn't happen. In any given situation you could give, quite literally, an infinite list of things that didn't happen. Unless it is particularly news worthy or of some interest that an individual, whom everyone thought would run, didn't run it's absolutely worthless bits of conjecture. What is the educational or informative value of a random, arbitrary list of things that didn't become relevant to the topic at hand? Who cares if it's information that could have become relevant, it wasn't. Was anyone really talking about George W. or Donald Rumsfeld running? I mean while you are at it why not include every republican figure who was even slightly well known or had some level of importance but decided not to run for president? As it is the list is incredibly arbitrary. Anyway, I'll stop ranting now, the point is there's no reason for the information and it should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdlund (talk • contribs) 04:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

That Mario Cuomo did not run in 1988 or 1992 is an important fact about those elections in a way that the fact that, say, Daniel Inouye did not run is not. How exactly to determine which people who did not run are significant enough to mention is tricky, of course. john k (talk) 00:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Ross Perot

How come Perot isn't listed at the top of the page? He is on the 1992 page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.64.213 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 1 February 2009

He isn't here because he was not a serious contender for the office of President. He received less than 10% of the votes cast, carried no states and received no electoral college votes. The same situation applies to 1992 and he has been removed there also. All of his information is in the tables farther down with the other candidates. A new name 2008 (talk) 13:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I have restored Perot to the 1992 article. Penthamontar (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Why? A new name 2008 (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Ross Perot, for all intents and puposes, belongs at the top pf the 1992 page, but I don't see why he would be on the 1996 page.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Why? I can imagine some reason but you should be clear about yours. Please clarify: Why in 1992 and not 1996?--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore: Generally speaking, only the two main contestants should be at the top. Only in rare circumstances like in the 1976 election when Reagan did get a (rare) one electoral vote and became President at some point I see some weight to possibly include him at the top of the 1976 article).--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well....., I didn't know that this was going to be a big issue. My reason is that he received over 18 percent of the vote. That is nearly 1 in 5 Americans who voted for him. Yes he didn't take a state, but that is just numbers really. George wallace took 5 states in 1968 with just 13 percent of the popular vote, and Strom Thurmand took 4 states in 1948 with just under 3 percent of the popular vote. Perot also took part in the presidential debates. That in itself is telling enough.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• (outdent) The "whole thing" started with IP user:82.4.220.242 who was edit warring rather than to engage in talk as he was ask for on his talk page even with some helpful advise.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

New name, almost 1 in 5 United States citizens voted for him. This result was significant enough to allow Perot to get federal matching funds for his 1996 campaign. And why not?

Magnificent, I don't pretend to know Jojhutton's reasons, but a reason many others have used - although I disagree with this - is that Perot's vote total in 1996, being much lower, does not merit his inclusion at the top of the page.

I also see no basis for your claim that only the two main contestants should be included at the top of the article. Many other U.S. presidential election articles feature 3 candidates at the top of the page. If we were only to include 2 as a general rule, we would perhaps have to de-feature President Taft from the 1912 election article, and Strom Thurmond from the 1948 article. Thurmond, in fact, only won 2.4 percent of the vote, although he did carry 4 states. I feel that as long as Thurmond is featured, Perot, who received over 7 times as many votes in 1992, should be featured.

Relevant to Reagan, I don't think a candidate's future office should influence their inclusion in an article. Reagan had dropped out of the running during that election, anyway. Perhaps it shouldn't matter whether a candidate is running or not. But that's a subject for another talk page.

Magnificent, the "whole thing" started when User:A new name 2008 deleted Perot from the 1992 infobox without discussing it in talk. The user of whom you type, while edit warring, did not cause this specific problem.

I propose that we move this discussion to the 1992 talk page. Penthamontar (talk) 01:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the criteria should be based on the one parameter that makes a difference in the US Presidential election, electoral college votes. I realize that my initial statement above was incorrect on the % of popular votes that Perot got in 1992, but he still did not get any electoral college votes and does not belong. And as a side note, you say I started this, when I made an edit without discussing it on the talk page, there is no requirement to discuss anything on the talk page before making edits. A new name 2008 (talk) 13:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not there is a requirement is not relevant.

Popular votes generally lead to electoral votes. The reason that Perot had no electoral votes was that his support was widespread. Even though, say, Strom Thurmond in 1948 had 39 electoral votes, he was still in a much worse position nationally than was Perot in 1992. Perot was in a much better position to gain a majority of electoral votes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penthamontar (talk • contribs) 20:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

You make it sound like he almost made it to the presidency. With respect to Ross, this is really far fetched even so he gained quite some popularity at the time and is not forgotten to date but to include him at the "top two" would need a better reason and the only one I can see is his percentage in the popular vote although I don't see enough weight in there other than to mention it in the article.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 21:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I do think that Perot needs to be mentioned at the top, maybe not in the infobox, but just so that people understand why there a 8% of the votes missing and Clinton getting less than half of the total votes. - Nite Owl II 17:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The general consensus is that Perot had no effect on the race, and if people want to see why Clinton didn't get over 50%, they can look at the grand total.Tallicfan20 (talk) 21:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

• (outdent) It seems the majority of this conversation is related to 1992 and not 1996. It doesn't seem there is much support let alone any consensus for Perot being in the info box. Electiontechnology (talk) 05:58, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

While Perot's percentage of overall votes is somewhat significant, his lack of overall impact on the race, lack of influence in any particular state and lack of electoral votes needs to be considered. This is in contrast to a potentially significant role played in 1992 as discussed in that article. Electiontechnology (talk) 18:07, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

You are missing the point Electiontechnology. Perot's finish was the fifth best for any third party candidate in the 20th century (trailing Theodore Roosevelt's 27.4% in 1912, his own 18.9% in 1992, Robert LaFollette's 16.6% in 1924, and George Wallace's 13.5% in 1968. Electoral vote doesn't matter in this case because he did amazingly well for a third party candidate. He kept Clinton from obtaining 50% (thus he remained a minority president). On election night, all the news agencies were wondering if Clinton would pull off 50%. He did not and they mentioned the significance of this. So there is your significant impact. In addition, Perot didn't get any electoral votes in 1992 yet we still have his picture because once again he did amazingly well for a third party candidate. You can't expect these third party candidates to win elections in America. But they can have an impact and in Perot's case he did. We should set the popular vote cut off at 6.5%.--Tilden76 (talk) 20:12, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

References needed

The first paragraph under General Election -> Campaign has a lot of figures and quotes with virtually no references at all. Could really use some clean up if someone's got time to do more than just point out the problem (like me).LarryJeff (talk) 19:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Change the color scheme back

I understand why someone decided to show the election results with the current color scheme of blue=democrat and red=republican. However, that is not the color association at the time of this election, and not what was used in most media outlets at the time of this election. In the interest of presenting historically accurate information, I think the color scheme should be switched back to the correct scheme of the time of this election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.74.48.243 (talk) 23:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Delete Lyndon LaRouche?

Should Lyndon LaRouche be deleted from the candidates gallery in the 1996 Democratic primary category? The article doesn't even mention his name except for one sentence and he did nothing to damage Clinton's re-election. In fact, LaRouche supported Clinton unofficially in the general election. The picture gives the implication his candidacy was divisive and widely reported which it wasn't. Est300 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC).

Picture

Surely there is a better-quality picture to be found? There was color back in 1992, why is this one in black and white? If it is from before color photos, then it is even further away from the election than the old one (and much worse quality) Thunderstone99 (talk) 17:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC) In fact, from looking at the Ross Perot page, I've discovered that the current picture isn't even from the election times, its from the eighties, even more reason to change it back to the old one. Thunderstone99 (talk) 13:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:United States presidential election, 1996/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Perot being a "spoiler" is just sour grapes. Every poll in the nation at the time had Clinton ahead of Dole for over a year, and the exit polls from that election http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll/index1.html shows Perot stole votes from both EXACTLY equally. This is much stronger proof than Republican anecdotes which are indicative of their sour grapes.

Last edited at 02:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 16:02, 1 May 2016 (UTC)