October 16, 1996

The Mother Jones Poll

There were 587 respondents to last week’s poll. Here’s what they had to say. Be sure to participate in our latest poll. Also, check out the <a href="poll_archive.html">results</a> of our previous polls.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


1. Who would you most like to see lose in the November elections?

32% Jesse Helms

27% Newt Gingrich

9% Richard Gephardt

4% Tom DeLay

4% David Bonior

7% None

17% (Write-in)

…And our number one write-in was…Bill Clinton, with 30 votes.

2. Who said these famous debate soundbites?

a. Bob Dole called WWII “a Democrat war” during the 1976 vice-presidential debate with Walter Modale.

b. John F. Kennedy said “I think it’s time America started moving again” during the 1960 presidential debate with Richard Nixon.

c. James Stockdale said “Who am I? What am I doing here?” during the 1992 vice-presidential debate with Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

d. Ronald Reagan asked “Are you and your family better off than you were four years ago?” during the 1980 presidential debate with Jimmy Carter.

e. Damon Stoudamire, of the Toronto Raptors basketball team said “I think I’m a born leader. I’ve been preparing for things like this all my life” in respose to being named team captain on October 7, 1996.

f. Gerald Ford said “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” during the 1976 presidential debate with Jimmy Carter.

3. Who would you want to be president in 2000?

24% Al Gore

19% Ralph Nader

8% Colin Powell

8% Bill Bradley

7% Dianne Feinstein

5% Jack Kemp

5% Christine Todd Whitman

3% Governor George W. Bush

21% None of the above

4. How many times will the following words be said at next Wednesday’s debate? [Choose a number between 0 and 10, or “more than 10” times.]
The person with the closest answer wins a Hellraiser t-shirt. (To be based on a word count from AllPolitics transcript of debate.)

a. “Tobacco” — 6 times

b. “Campaign finance reform” — Once

c. Bob Dole says “liberal” — 3 times

d. Bob Dole refers to himself as “Bob Dole” — 3 times

e. Clinton says “That dog won’t hunt” — 0 times

f. Dole says, “I’m not going to make this an issue, but…” — 0 times

g. Dole mentions “Whitewater” — 0 times

And the winner is Carrie Stewart! Congratulations, Carrie!

5. If the elections were held today, and all these candidates had an equal chance of winning, who would you vote for?

32% Bill Clinton (Democrat)

29% Harry Browne (Libertarian)

26% Ralph Nader (Green Party)

7% Bob Dole (Republican)

3% Ross Perot (Reform Party)

1.2% John Hagelin (Natural Law Party)

.5% Howard Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers Party)

.3% Lyndon Larouche (Democrat)

1% None

6. If the elections were held today, and you were restricted to just these two candidates, which one would you vote for?

63% Bill Clinton

17% Bob Dole

20% None

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate