Two for the Show
Jerry Brown and Ross Perot were still upholding their truce, although it wasn’t as strong as it once was. While they held no personal animosity towards each other, there was a level of distrust that complicated things. While Perot had apologized to Brown for Stockdale’s actions, the Governor couldn’t help but wonder if the slip had been planned all along. Any lingering issues the two may have had appeared to clean up after the election.
The final two Presidential Debates were decisive in determining the outcome of the ’92 election. In the first debate, the President had believed his opponents to be lightweights. He thought Brown would be another Dukakis and that Perot was more of a fad than an actual candidate. The licking he got from both of them was a wake-up call, and Bush’s campaign buckled down in response.
As he himself had said before, Brown was fighting with one hand behind his back in terms of fundraising, and (unbeknownst to him) Perot’s campaign was severely disorganized with no substance on the issues. Both of these facts gave Bush the upper hand, and he used his money to purchase time on television. He used it to flood the airwaves with attack ads against Brown and Perot. He raised questions about Brown’s character, and appeared to question his patriotism when he asked why Brown had not served during Vietnam. Perot was framed as nothing more than a celebrity.
The second debate featured a different format than the first. Instead of sitting behind a podium taking questions from a moderator, there would be a brand-new method where they would be seated in chairs, able to get up and walk around the stage. They would take questions from the audience, and would be free to interact with them.
Each candidate held their own and they were able to talk to the audience relatively easily. The debate was not as notable as the two previous ones, and there isn’t really much to say about them. Both of Bush’s opponents got their say in, but it did hardly anything to shift around the national poll numbers. This is mostly attributed to the fact that neither Perot or Brown were able to challenge Bush directly.
With Election Day growing nearer and nearer, there was only one more debate left to go. That meant that Brown and Perot (who both relied on free media to supplement their frugal campaigns) had one last shot to take down Bush.