
When I think about Francois Bayrou, I can't help thinking about Ross Perot as well. Let's be frank: if it wasn't for Ross Perot, Bill Clinton would have never been president.
If Wikipedia serves, in the 1992 election (my first as a voter!), batty billionaire Perot got about 19 percent of the popular vote and the largest chunk of that historically swung Republican. Clinton became president with about 43 percent of the vote (less than Bush's 49.9 in 2000).
As a master spoiler like Perot, what damage can Bayrou inflict? If he doesn't fizzle, where do his votes come from, and who, if he himself doesn't become president, will he help become president, like Perot enabled Clinton?
All the world is talking about Sego's votes being lost. But is this really true?
In Paris, where the taste-makers live, it's obvious that Blairist Socialists are defecting to Bayrou, but as the referedum vote of 2005 proved, this educated Parisian population (the ones who just love London and the IHT) hardly match in vote count what they do in self-perceived influence.
So beyond the taste-makers, then, where would Bayrou get his votes? In towns like St. Etienne, Marseille, Correze, Bayonne, etc., where does the centrist find his current 18-19 percent in the polls?
Moderate Chirac voters, no? The very electorate that Sarkozy was initially trying to woo when he announced his candidacy in June with the leftist images of Mitterand, Jaures and Blum.
But switching strategies (or adding a strategy?), Sarko has now veered to the right to poach in Le Pen grounds; cover your base, pass the first round, and then enlarge for the second seems to be the new order of the day.
So much with Sarko having softened, apparently. So much with the lefty make-over.
Meanwhile, sullied Segolene continues to float along with her 26 percent in the first round.
That number hasn't changed much since January. She protects it as if its her own little baby, nurturing it along, convinced that like a thankful child, it will drop her into the promised ground of the second round. And with the loony leftists yet to show the merest polling pulse, she's accomplished more than Jospin ever could.
And any person who dares to disturb her serenity -that quiet and soulful understanding with her 26 percent base- is evicted vociferously and firmly to the door ("who is Eric Besson?", "good riddance Claude Allegre!").
Her little 26 percent will take her all the way, she seems to be thinking. And who knows, with Bayrou confusing the compass much like Perot did, it very well could.