[The 90’s Election Specials: sample edit of Chicago poll questions]

Footage for The 90's election specials. Sample edit of Chicago poll questions where people are asked for their opinions on who should win the election and what topics are important to them in the 1992 presidential election.

00:00Copy video clip URL Black screen.

00:14Copy video clip URL Audio and video test.

00:47Copy video clip URL “I don’t believe in ‘buy American,'” says a voter pointing out that Japanese companies employ Americans.

01:19Copy video clip URL Voter laughs that President George H.W. Bush’s vomiting incident in Japan was most likely due to some bad fish rather than his age.

01:41Copy video clip URL Voter says that Bush’s priorities differ from his own concerning homelessness and military spending. He feels the administration has done very little to counter AIDS.

02:25Copy video clip URL Young voter: “I’m going to vote for Bush again. Why? I don’t know. I don’t like any of the Democratic candidates.” She says that abortion and sexual harassment will be big issues and those are the only one that she, as a woman, is interested in.

03:54Copy video clip URL Voter says he’s dissatisfied with all the candidates. He likes Senator Paul Tsongas but doubts that he can get elected. He expresses great concern for the “Conservative bent” of the Supreme Court saying that on issues like abortion, there is “nothing good to look forward to.”

04:34Copy video clip URL Elderly Republican: “You get a new guy, the first year he has to find out where the front and back door, where the washrooms are. He’s in two years. The fourth year he has to campaign again. So Bush got that all out of the way, so reelect Bush.”

04:48Copy video clip URL Young student says that she doesn’t know any solutions to the trade situation with Japan, but she’s “sure the Japanese are pretty bummed, you know, that Bush puked in their laps.”

05:11Copy video clip URL Voter says that she would definitely vote for Governor Mario Cuomo if he were running. She says that jobs and economy are the most important issues in the election and that Bush failed to address them adequately in his State of the Union address. Abortion is the most important issue facing the Supreme Court, she says, and she thinks the overturning of Roe v. Wade is both likely and upsetting. She supports “buying American” but feels that American manufacturers need to increase quality and competitiveness. She predicts a Governor Bill Clinton win in the primaries but says that if the economy improves at all, Bush will win. She cites Republicans’ talent in campaigns.

08:13Copy video clip URL Voter says taxes, the economy, and women’s issues are the most important topics.

08:32Copy video clip URL Voter: “I was rather impressed with those two. I still think they’re dreamers but I’d like to have someone doing something. And most emphatically, I want to get rid of Bush and everything that Bush and the Republicans stand for.”

09:00Copy video clip URL Voter says that Bush should be reelected because he already won an election. He’s pro-choice and says he hopes the judges vote with their minds rather than their politics. Regarding trade deficits he says, “I just wouldn’t pay it back. Whatever we owe I’d say ‘Okay. I just cleared the books. It’s even now. If anybody’s got a problem with that then we won’t trade with them anymore, since we made their economies.'”

09:53Copy video clip URL Voter asks why Jesse Jackson is not running. Points to housing, homelessness, and bringing foreign aid home as the real issues. He says who sleeps with whom is not important because everybody in Washington “sleeps with everybody. It’s a known fact.”

10:51Copy video clip URL Footage of Bush fainting.

13:01Copy video clip URL Bush recovers.

13:37Copy video clip URL Barbara and George Bush get off a plane.

13:59Copy video clip URL Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks to the appointing committee (which includes Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy) denying Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment and saying that there is nothing the committee or the country can do to give him his good name back.

14:58Copy video clip URL Brief clip of Anita Hill speaking before the committee.

15:19Copy video clip URL Thomas calls the investigation a circus, a national disgrace, and a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas. And it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you.” Includes more shots of Biden.

16:22Copy video clip URL Bush gives an address about progress and the end of “imperial Communism.” He says it is necessary to encourage investments. He says that those who are worried that the comfortable may benefit remind him of “the Puritan who couldn’t sleep at night worrying that someone, somewhere was out having a good time.” He says the government is too big and spends too much, advocating welfare reform.

21:00Copy video clip URL “The aging process itself could be delayed if it had to make its way through Congress.” Bush responds to a claim he heard that American workers are lazy and uninspired: “We are still and ever the freest nation on Earth, the kindest nation on Earth, the strongest nation on Earth, and we have always risen to the occasion.”

23:08Copy video clip URL A young woman says that “white supremacy is the only political issue that merits discussion.” She is upset that candidates are talking about what they can do within the system instead of changing the system. She sees capitalism as inherently dependent on either slavery or warfare.

24:00Copy video clip URL A handicapped woman says that access to healthcare for poor people and single mothers is most important to her.

24:31Copy video clip URL A man says the economy is the main issue because there is not enough money.

24:54Copy video clip URL A woman says that national healthcare is the most important issue: “It’s time that the U.S. was in the line of the other modern technological countries.” She also brings mentions unemployment.

25:21Copy video clip URL Man says that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer… He’s an Ivy League man.” He calls the political elite condescending and disinterested with anyone outside of that elite.

26:10Copy video clip URL Young man says his main interest is everything that will affect Africans in the United States. He feels that these considerations will only come after all others.

26:25Copy video clip URL Man says that the economy is the most important issue, as is abortion even though people are quiet about it.

26:43Copy video clip URL Man says that long-term issues need to replace the short-term focus.

27:08Copy video clip URL Man says that he tries to “buy American” as everyone should.

27:21Copy video clip URL Young woman says that everybody knows what the issues are but “our ability to do something about them… I think everyone feels uncertain about. We don’t have a national plan or a national commitment to an agenda.”

27:41Copy video clip URL Man says that the economy is a major issue even though he hasn’t seen or felt much of an effect.

28:23Copy video clip URL A family says that healthcare, the economy, and the homeless are the big issues.

28:57Copy video clip URL Tsongas supporter in a billiards hall says his candidate is the only one with integrity, character, and vision for where the country should go into the ’90s. He says that the country needs someone with personal strength and convictions, not someone who wants to advance their personal career.

29:36Copy video clip URL A woman says she would write-in Hillary Clinton because she feels none of the other candidates really grasp the women’s agenda.

29:56Copy video clip URL Footage ends.

30:12Copy video clip URL Tape ends.