n this chair?" Another ad pictured a buzzard perched on a treetop looking over a wasteland. The narrator says "And now Bill Clinton wants to do for America what he has done for Arkansas. America can't take that risk."(Arterton 1993, 98). These ads were considered misleading and were eventually pulled. Clinton wasted no time in releasing an ad in his defense that at the same time slammed Bush. Clinton used factual information and quoted the press in his ad. His ad bragged on the fact that under Clinton Arkansas lead the country in job growth. Then the ad quoted the Washington Post and the Oregonian both organizations claiming they no longer trusted George Bush (Arterton 1993, 99). Clearly Clinton displayed his wisdom and caused Bush's idea of trust to backfire on him. Televised debates have become a very important part of influencing voters in modern politics. Bush didn't want to debate and prolonged the inevitable until the public claimed he was avoiding them (debates). Clinton was anxious and wanted to debate each candidate. In fact on September 21, 1992 in East Lansing, Clinton turned up the heat with a simple statement that Bush made in 1980 about Carter. "I believe he wants to avoid debate because he wants to avoid talking about his economic record. I mean, how do you debate the merits of an economic policy that put 1.9 million people out of workThis is 1992. The figure is not 1.9 million. There are 3 million more Americans out of work than when he (Bush) took office." (Arterton 1993, 94). Bush agreed to debate and both Bush and Clinton agreed to include Perot, in hopes of using him to their advantage. The fact is Perot helped Clinton by keeping the economic debate going. Bush could not escape the economic crisis. Public opinion polls indicated that Bush lost all three debates (Frankovic 1993, 120). Media influence also helped to shape the overall outcome of the 1992 election. When Bush made his claims against a 'do nothing' congres...
