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Article: The Reasoning Voter.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 25, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A YEAR from now, America will be wringing its hands at the travesty of democracy it has just endured. A president will have been elected or re-elected. The cause of his triumph will be seen as a single incident, along the lines of Willie Horton, "Where's the Beef?" and Roosevelt's dog Fala. And the issue-lessness of the campaign will be declared "unprecedented".
Gil Troy contests that. Issues, he says, have never loomed large in presidential campaigns. Indeed, at the time, the outcome of an election is almost always put down to tactical politics, rather than policies. With hindsight, it seems inevitable that McKinley beat Bryan in a boom, and that Roosevelt beat ...