Word: andersons
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Might it have been different? Probably not. Until nearly the very end of the campaign, Anderson was too preachy, humorless and high-flown on the stump. For all his intelligence, he did not wear well. His personality was not bright enough to overcome his lack of a theme...
...Anderson had a real prospect with such looseness in the electorate," says John Sears, Reagan's former campaign manager. "But he wasn't able to elevate himself from the posture of being the lesser of three evils. Had Anderson been able to articulate some truly new ideas, I think he would have done very well." Looking further for an explanation of just what went wrong, Edward Coyle, Anderson's former deputy campaign manager, says, "There was no burning issue that people were outraged about, no issues on which he was right and Reagan and Carter were wrong...
...apogee in early summer, Anderson was favored by nearly 25% of the voters, according to the surveys, but he was caught in a vicious circle: he could rise no further in the polls if he did not seem to have a chance of winning, and he could not appear to have a chance of winning unless he rose higher in the polls. Trying to break out of his dilemma, Anderson moved left, at least in the perception of many voters, to mobilize his mostly youthful supporters and liberal money givers. As a result, he began losing the backing...
Another basic problem, compounded by the fact that he started in April, far too late, was that Anderson necessarily had to run as an independent because he had no time to organize a third party, which would have given him a supporting framework. Says California Pollster Mervin Field: "Anderson was suddenly thrust into the arena and asked to play major league ball without a team and without preseason conditioning." Altering the metaphor, Campaign Director David Garth says, "It was like they gave us a moped and told us to race against two Maseratis. But I still think it wasn...
...Anderson takes much of the blame for not making more of his opportunity, which he knew was there. But he also believes that the obstacles were too great. Says he: "The mystique of the two-party system has been crafted in the minds of many people as somehow an institutional prop that we shouldn't throw out in an age of instability and rapid change. May be it is just one more thing that it is a little too much for people to be willing to comprehend and absorb in a relatively short period of time...