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美国留学生作业
“绝对没有要求第三方的候选人,”哈利·巴布尔说,他是共和党全国委员会的主席。“如果我们在国会保持我们的承诺,佩罗不必多加考虑。“然而,最新民意调查显示,多达三分之二的选民希望第三方党派。这分热情不仅源于无党派人士,也包括大量的共和党和民主党。
而共和党淡化了去年11月份佩罗改革党的潜在影响,民主党人几乎都笑了。“共和党人说，他们为佩罗说话,”康涅狄格州参议员克里斯托弗·多德说,他是民主党全国委员会的主席。
IF YOU LISTEN TO THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, THEY would have you believe that the 1996 Presidential race has already settled into a simple contest between Dole and Clinton. They ignore Ross Perot and his quest for a third party. Few Democrats and Republicans understand what his undertaking means for November. If they did, they would be worried.
"There is absolutely no demand for a third-party candidate," says Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "If we keep our promises in Congress, Perot won't be a factor." Yet the latest polls show as many as two-thirds of voters want a third party. The enthusiasm is not just from independents, but also from large numbers of Republicans and Democrats.
While the Republicans play down the potential impact of Perot's Reform Party in November, many Democrats barely contain their glee. "The Republicans themselves say they speak for Perot," says the Connecticut Senator Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "
They share many of the same issues, and the Republican Congress failed to deliver on some key ones. It may not always be this way, but we are the short-term beneficiary of a Perot-third-party effort." Democratic strategists consider Perot voters as anti-incumbent and think that their votes for a third-party candidate would otherwise go to a challenger like Dole.
Both parties have failed to learn their 1992 lesson. Then, when Perot re-entered the race only one month before the election, he languished at 7 percent in the polls. Republicans used that fact to bolster their claim that there was no demand for a third-party candidate. Yet consider what he accomplished 34 days later. By concentrating his spending on television infomercials and by performing well in the debates, Perot earned 19 percent of the vote. Now polls suggest he starts with that kind of support; he's attracting between 14 percent and 19 percent of the people polled.
As Senator Dodd's judgment demonstrates, the 1992 mistake the Democrats are repeating is to keep thinking that Perot took more votes away from Bush and thus helped elect Clinton. In fact, exit polling showed that Perot hurt both parties almost equally, taking roughly the same number of votes from Clinton as he did from Bush. Exit polls also show that more people would have voted for Perot if they thought he had a chance to win -- his vote total could have approached 40 percent. (Clinton won with only 43 percent.)
The Democrats and Republicans have failed to win back the Perot vote because they do not understand what drives it. Described often as radical centrists, these voters are fiscally conservative but socially moderate. They tend to be white, young to middle-aged and suburban or rural. They are disappointed in Clinton's performance, especially his failure to take a strong lead on the budget deficit. While the Republicans originally got high marks for the Contract With America, they failed to overhaul welfare or pass effective campaign finance reform.
The voter desire for a third party appeared to peak in 1992 at 60 percent. "After Clinton's election, it dropped by 15 percent," says Gordon S. Black, a Rochester-based national pollster who has advised Perot. "But by May 1993, it was back to where it had been." After the 1994 Republican sweep of the House and Senate, the numbers dropped again. "People thought this meant real change, and some of the pressure was relieved," Black says. However, today, the numbers are again high.
"There is as much unhappiness out there as I have seen since I started polling," says Black. The Louis Harris & Associates "alienation index," which measures voter dissatisfaction and loss of empowerment, is at a record 67 percent.
HOW DOES PEROT INTEND TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS discontent? Last fall, he announced (on "Larry King Live," of course) his intention to create a new national party. Since then he has been preoccupied with the enormous task of qualifying the party on all 50 state ballots. Each state has its own Byzantine rules and deadlines, and many state political organizations, controlled by Democrats or Republicans, have fought the effort. But in some early battles, Perot has prevailed. In California, the secretary of state eliminated the easier option for the Reform Party's certification, and forced it through a much more arduous process. Perot spent nearly $1 million and crisscrossed the state rallying volunteers. The Reform Party got on the ballot in less than 30 days. And in Maine, which disqualified so many signatures on Reform petitions that the party fell 515 votes short of qualifying for the ballot, Perot is taking the state to Federal court.
The Reform Party is on schedule to qualify for a host of state deadlines this spring and summer. Although it may cost Perot as much as $20 million to succeed (there are no election laws prohibiting how much a person can spend on creating a new party), Reform Party leaders are confident they will qualify their party, or candidate, in every state.
Although Perot is being listed as a Presidential candidate on petitions circulating in Texas and Florida, the Reform Party claims he is merely acting as a stand-in until a permanent candidate is selected. The Reform Party can wait until late August -- same as the Republicans and Democrats -- before finally revealing whether Perot or somebody else is actually running. Then the campaign becomes a two-month sprint.
That timing is partly driven by the lessons Perot says he learned from his 1992 campaign. He now says he believes that running early, as an independent, as he did in 1992, starts a long process of attrition. Negative attacks from the other parties build, so that by the summer, a candidate is seriously damaged. Moreover, the Perot camp is convinced that most voters do not make up their minds until fall, so any momentum a candidate gains in the spring is wasted.
The key question is, Who will the party select as its candidate? It is likely to be Perot for several reasons.
Perot has said the Reform Party could endorse the Republicans or Democrats if one of those parties nominates "George Washington the Second," but that is unlikely. Russ Verney, a former Democrat who is now national coordinator of the Reform Party, says the only way that any of the current candidates could meet Perot's high standards is if "they run down to the courthouse and change their names."
The Reform Party will choose someone as its candidate at a convention in late summer. To be considered, a potential nominee must obtain signatures of 10 percent of those who already signed petitions to place the Reform Party on the ballot in the 50 states. For the final ballot, all Reform Party members will cast an electronic vote. No serious contenders are chasing the nomination and, according to Verney, no candidates will be placed on the final convention ballot unless they take two affirmative steps -- agreeing to support the party's principles and to refrain from negative campaigning. This eliminates a pure draft, probably knocking out Colin Powell. While Powell has expressed no interest in a third-party candidacy, Perot has said he would accept his party's nomination.
Pat Buchanan to some seems the logical choice since he actively courts the Perot voters and received nearly a third of the independent vote in some primaries -- but Perot disagrees. He says he believes that Buchanan, who he fears would scare moderates from the Reform Party, is likely to endorse the Republican nominee anyway. More important, he says, "the 'sore loser' rule would block him." Several states, including large electoral powers like Texas, prohibit an unsuccessful candidate who ran in a party primary from appearing on the November ballot under the banner of another party.
What about current or former politicians -- Sam Nunn, David Boren, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, Lowell Weicker? They generate little enthusiasm among voters. Also, the two major parties have been spending several years raising war chests of more than $100 million. The Reform Party has started so late in the process, that when it has chosen its nominee by summer's end, it will not have the money to wage an effective campaign. If any of these possible candidates had the charisma to raise tens of millions of dollars within a couple of weeks, they would probably be running for the nomination of their respective parties.
The financing to run a good campaign is critical because once a third party is qualified, the way to stay on the ballot in the future is to perform well in a Presidential or statewide election. (The standard varies state by state, ranging from less than 1 percent of the votes cast in Michigan to 20 percent in Alabama.) Essentially, if the Reform Party garners less than 10 percent in 1996, it can automatically be struck from many state ballots in future elections. Once the party is tagged a loser, or minor player, its days on the national scene are numbered. Success for the Reform Party means matching Perot's 1992 performance -- 19 percent of the vote. It is hard to imagine that Perot, who is putting so much of his own energy into creating the party, would allow it to die a public death just after its birth. "He's not spending all this money just to let it go to waste," says James Carville, Clinton's 1992 campaign strategist.#p#分页标题#e#
Given the campaign finance laws, coupled with Perot's desire to see the Reform Party as a major party within a generation, how can he afford not to be the candidate? If he is on the ticket, either as the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate, and accepts no Federal financing, there is no limit on his spending. If he does not run, he is subject to the same restrictions as every American, a maximum contribution to a political party of $20,000, and to each candidate of $1,000. With Perot running, the Reform Party could be a major factor in 1996. Guaranteed a spot in the Presidential debates, spending a potential $100 million for his campaign compressed into 60 days and all but assured of a ballot line in the 50 states, a revived Perot candidacy could rebalance the race in unpredictable ways. And that's probable, perhaps even likely. |
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