Could this have made a difference in the 1992 election results?
"Independent counsel Walsh had indicted former secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, but the judge in the case ruled that the indictment was technically flawed and demanded a proper re-indictment within the next month.
"Walsh decided to include specific quotes from Weinberger's notes that had recently been discovered. One note recounted a January 7, 1986, meeting when President Reagan approved a large sale of arms to Iran "in return" for hostages. Weinberger's notes stated that he and Secretary of State Shultz 'opposed,' and then the notes said of Bush, 'VP favored.'
"For five years Bush had denied that he was fully aware of the intensity and extent of the Weinberger-Shultz opposition, and had made general claims that he was 'out of the loop.'
"On Friday morning, October 30, the Bush campaign daily tracking poll had the race a dead heat at 39 percent for Clinton, 39 percent for Bush and 12 percent for independent candidate Ross Perot. That afternoon, Walsh's grand jury voted the new indictment of Weinberger. The first wire story came out about 1 p.m.
"Most news organizations have a strong policy against publishing or airing new issues or charges in the final days of a campaign. But the Weinberger re-indictment was an official grand jury action, and the 'VP favored' was technically new. It was the first documented evidence that Bush had known the arms were a direct exchange for hostages and that Bush had been privy to the strong opposition of Weinberger and Shultz.
"Clinton's running mate, Al Gore, jumped on the issue and used a Watergate analogy, calling it 'a true smoking gun.'
"Bush was on a campaign train in Wisconsin the next day. His daily tracking poll was a shock. Clinton was still at 39 percent, but Bush had dropped 7 percentage points to 32 percent with those 7 points going straight to Perot, putting the Texas billionaire at 19..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/june99/shadow20full.htm
For a contemporary account (from the *Los Angles Times* of Novemeber 4, 1992, the day after the election), see
http://www.mit.edu/afs/net.mit.edu/user/tytso/usenet/americast/latimes/news/47
which states:
"The charge came only days after some polls showed Bush surging. By Sunday, the same polls had Clinton with a comfortable lead again. Some Bush backers blame the apparent turnaround on release of the Iran-Contra notes.
"An exit poll conducted Tuesday by The Times, however, found that, although voters considered the Iran-Contra affair an important issue in their decision, the late revelations did not substantially increase the damage to Bush."
Walsh's defenders have pointed out that the timing of the indictment was the result of a promise by the prosecutor to U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan to return the new charge by the end of October so that the January 5 trial date would not be postponed. Walsh's critics have claimed that Walsh could have asked for an extension of a few days without risking a delay of the trial. There is also a dispute as to how necessary it was to include those particular notes. (The original obstruction-of-Congress charge, which Judge Hogan had dismisssed, was being replaced with a "false statements" charge, based on Weinberger's claim before the House committee that he had not regularly taken daily notes of his meetings. These particular notes were doubtless relelvant to that--but critics argue that there were other portions of the notes, not referring to Bush, that Walsh could have used instead to make the point.)
But in any event let's say that Judge Hogan had given a post-Election Day deadline and that Walsh had delayed releasing the re-indictement--with or without the notes contradicting Bush's account--until then. Would Bush have won? I doubt it. See
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...rat-bill-clinton-bush-campaign-president-bush published one day before Walsh's "bombshell." Yes, Gallup's poll for CNN and USA Today showed a virtual tie.
But...
***
three other surveys, comparable in sample size, timeliness and reputation to the Gallup study, had different results:
- The latest ABC News tracking poll gave Clinton 42 percent to 35 percent for Bush and 20 percent for Perot.
- A Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey, which had a smaller sample than the others, showed Clinton leading Bush by 43 percent to 36 percent, with 15 percent for Perot, among registered voters sampled, but by a larger 44-33-17 margin among ``likely`` voters.
- A Los Angeles Times Poll gave Clinton a 43-32 lead among registered voters and a 44-34 lead among ``likely`` voters.
One reason the Gallup survey for USA Today and CNN received so much attention was that its results were different, not only from the other surveys but from its own percentages in recent days, when it sampled all registered voters without trying to screen out those unlikely to vote.
This screening is an even less exact science than other aspects of public-opinion polling, and some independent polling experts, none of whom wanted to be identified, wondered whether that poll had somehow screened out too many likely Clinton supporters.
***
All in all I think a 5.6 point lead (which is what Clinton ended up with) is too great to be explained by the Weinberger re-indictment. That is not to deny , however, that without the re-indictment the race might have been closer (which in turn could have changed the results of some close down-ballot races).
Of course if the re-indictment had been delayed and Bush
did win, we would be hearing plenty of theories about how Walsh was part of a GOP conspiracy to defeat Clinton. (Remember, Walsh
was a Republican...)