Tell me about Ross Perot..

[Dehumanizer]

I was only six years old in 1992, so while I remember how creepy he was, I don't really know the context of it all.

His name has rarely come up in my past four years of following politics closely, so all of what I know of the campaign is from memory. And what I remember is this: he had a very popular campaign, then there was some such scandal with his daughter, he dropped out, then he came back in and he was never the same. Keep in mind this is what I remember as a six-year-old so who knows if any of it is true.

Some possible questions: what were his policies and who is he comparable to today? If that scandal did not occur, what percentage of the vote would he have gotten and/or what were the polls saying prior to that? What were the respective reactions to Perot from the Clinton and Bush camps? Would Clinton have won (let's be objective here) if Perot did not run? Is his campaign an indication that a third party could work, or was it more right place, right time? What were your personal feelings on Ross Perot? And anything else that is interesting.

I can easily google this but I was wondering the DU perspective.

[cheshire]

1. He's on C-Span right now. Rich little business man who was a bit odd.

You know how far he got, further than Nadar ever did.

[fearnobush]

2. Yeah I have cspan on as well. Wow, sure do miss the Big Dog.

Hope he gets on the trail very soon.

As for Ross, I remember the 92 campaign very well. Ross like Gen. Clark, led in all the polls early in the race. Ross was Quarky but talked in simple phrases. His support was bi-partisan. My wife, a life long Dem voted for him. Ross's campaign died when he dropped out during Clinton's convention. Ross claimed that he received death threats toward his family, that they were serious death threats and that his family was more important that politics. as a result, the impression was that the threats came from Bush world, but the media spun it as if Ross was some mad, and crazy wack who caved too easily. After the DNC, Clinton's poll numbers catapulted through the roof. he went from some 12 pnts behind Perot and Bush to + 15 over Bush and never lost ground, even after Perot re-entered the race early Oct that year. As I see it, I suspect Ross took some 9 to 11 points away from Bush 41. However, he also took some 8 to 10 pnts away from Clinton. If he were out of the race, Clinton still would have won, but with perhaps 2 points less from the points that he won by. Electorically speaking, the race still would have been a near landslide for Clinton.

[dennis4868]

16. Gen. Clark, led in all the polls early in the race?

dont you mean howard dean?

[951]

3. He was a great man with great ideas IMO

[murielm99]

4. Perot was very popular.

I remember the Newsweek cover with his pic and the caption "Quitter" when he dropped out. I thought he was smeared by the media in much the same way that they smear Democrats, and it hurt him. Not that he did not deserve the criticism! But the media had an interest in keeping the race confined to the two major parties.

I think he would have gotten a higher percentage of the vote if he had not dropped out. The Bush campaign dismissed him. They did not think he was much of a threat. Of course, they dismissed Clinton, too because he was not the right "sort," in their view, to be President. The Bushes are just entitled to everything, you know.

I can't recall the reaction of the Clinton campaign.

Anyway, Clinton got 43 percent of the vote, Bush got 38, and Perot got 19 percent. Bush received the lowest popular vote for a sitting President since Taft. Of course Bush was unpopular. But I always thought that Perot hurt Bush, not Clinton in that election.

They underestimated Perot. They are underestimating Kerry, who is much more qualified than Perot.

[LostInAnomie]

5. For a period in time Perot was actually leading...

... both Bush and Clinton. He dropped out for mysterious reasons that were never fully explained. I think he said that the Bush campaign was about to release something embarrassing about his daughter so he dropped out to spare her. Of course the Bush campaign denied this, but given their family history of extremely dirty campaigning who are you going to believe? He returned to the race shortly after dropping out but by then he had been marginalized as flaky and was never really much of a threat.

[Barney Rocks]

6. Ross Perot is quite a bit more than creepy.

I have met the man personally, and I am very proud to have done so. People in my family have worked and collaborated with him for many years and they know him quite well. He is an extremely wealthy business man (self made billionaire--although his business seems to be faltering a bit now). Perot was always considered a little bit crazy, but many of the things that he did through out the years were highly admirable. I have done some charity work, and I can tell you for a fact that Perot does many many things that have never been publicized at all. At the end of every year, he is the man who calls up the headquarter of the Salvation Army (and other charities as well) and he asks them--"how much did you come short of what you need this year?" And then he writes them a check! I have always hoped that if I were rich, I would put my money to as good as use as he does. I have a neighbor who was disabled in Vietnam, Ross Perot has a special affinity for Vietnam veterans--this man needed his home redone to be accessible for his disabilities--and Ross Perot paid out of his own pocket. He also is quite famous for using his own money to pay for experiemtal procedures that the military will not cover--he does this for people who are active troops and don't have the money. A fascinating book and movie about him is "On the Wings of Eagles" it is the true story about how some of his employees were taken hostage in Iran--and he went and got them out!

I remember as a child reading about how he kept pressure on the American government to help the men who were being held captive in Vietnam. At one point, he spent his own money to provide a holiday meal to the POWs in Vietnam. Ross Perot was also one of the grand old men in the Republican party and until 1988 he was one of the largest doners to the Republican party. In 1988, he was quite unenthusiastic about George HW Bush running for office--and he made his displeasure known at the meeting they have for 100,000 dollar donors. George HW promised him that if he was elected that he would look into one of Perot's pet issues--the Vietnam vets that were still unaccounted for. Well, Perot supported Bush 1 and gave him quite a bit of money. However, once Bush 1 was in the office, he forgot his promises and did nothing on the issue. Perot was determined to bring him down--so he ran in 1992. The initial point was not to gain the oval office--it was just to spoil the race for Bush 1. Perot had really good issues and explained them in detail to people. This was his major strength--no one told him to dumb it down--because he was paying out of his own pocket. At that time, neither Bush 1 nor Clinton wanted to talk about the issues that were important to Perot. According to Perot, Bush 1 threatened to publish degrading photos of Perot's daughter and ruin her wedding--so he dropped out of the race. (At that point a lot of people called Perot crazy--but I personally would not have put this past Lee Atwater who was running Bush 1's campaign). Clinton went to Texas and talked to Perot (Clinton knew that most of the people supported Perot were conservative--and that he could win if he could split the conservative vote.) Dick Morris acted on behalf of Clinton to convince Perot that Clinton would look in the POW issue (the very one that Bush 1 had ignored--if Perot would step back into the race and spoil it for Bush). According to family friends, there was also a deal that Perot would also run in 1996 to spoil the election for the republicans--but I have never seen this confirmed in print.

Perot got back in the race, Clinton was elected--and he kept the promise to look into the POW issue (I believe that Kerry was involved in this).

There is more--but I am getting tired. I know quite a bit about Perot--and I know it personally and as fact. He did many land development deals with my father (they both knew each other back in the IBM days--and both moved on to other things)! He is a great guy and a warm kind person. But he is not very patient, has a bad temper--and definitely does not belong in public office.

Edited to add: Exit polling confirmed that nearly 2/3 of Perot's support came from people who identified themselves as "conservative". He did take support from both sides, but in the final analysis he brought Bush 1 down--which was really all he ever wanted--it was his reason for running in the first place.

[monarch]

12. Great post!

I love it when people here can share personal knowledge and insight. It is one of the real strengths of this board that so many people have had interesting experiences and are able to express themselves so well.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Perot ...

Simply put, Perot is an idiot. Not "idiot" in the strictest sense of the term. He is a successful businessman after all, but an "idiot" in the sense that he really showed little evidence that he had a clue what was going on in the world outside his own, warped vision of it. In that sense, he was a little like the Shrub, but not really like Shrub because he has a conscience.

Politically, he was a folksy populist with a conservative bent. He appealed to those who don't like politics because they see it as the arena of those who don't understand common experience. It was a bit absurd to think Perot, who could buy and sell most of us, actually understands anything about what common people experience, but he got that idea across well. I knew people who had never had what they considered a political thought in their lives who supported Perot. These were largely populist leaning Democrats who think the national Democratic party are all liberals and that Republicans only care about rich folk. In short, he spoke to a section of the population who has grown fed up with politics as usual, thus the initial thrust behind his "Reform" Party.

Would he have won had he not dropped out and then come back in? I doubt it. There is speculation that the real reason he left the race is that it had become apparent he was drawing a lot of his support from those who had formerly supported Bush, which would of course split the vote between them, leaving Clinton with the clear victory. When Perot isn't pretending to be a Reformist, he is a hardcore Republican. Check his donations. He got back in for reasons no one person may fully know. Perhaps he had deluded himself into thinking he had a real chance. I can't say.

What were his policies? See George W. Bush.

Would Clinton have won if not for Perot? Hard to say. It is clear in the final vote that Perot drew support away from Bush more than he did from Clinton, but those numbers don't naturally translate into the majority of his voters going to Bush had he not been in the race at all. There are too many variables to consider for that to be a clearly answerable question. The nation was at a crossroads in '92, and it was not at all impressed with the direction Bush was leading it. But in a three way race, it is never clear who those supporting the third party would support had that third party candidate never been in the race at all. Those who were fed up with the current direction of the country were looking for an alternative, and while the majority of them inclined toward the conservatism of the Republicans, Clinton was enough of a conservative that they could easily have supported him had Perot never been an influence.

What does this say about a third party? Nothing good. I won't go into detail. I've said this before a million times. Third parties do not establish themselves by competing in Presidential races. The '92 election cycle provided the thrust for a third party candidacy, but the direction that party took killed it. By focusing on the Presidency, the party sapped its strength, and by competing in a national race and losing, it eliminated its legitimacy. No one voted for the party. They voted for Perot and his personality and his populist message. After he was defeated, the party itself, while still existing in theory, had no base. A successful third party must start at the bottom, change the mechanisms that control US elections at the local level, and work their way up. They cannot start at the top in the current social and political environment and have any hope of success.

That's my quarter.

[Barney Rocks]

8. Respectfully, I think his policies are

quite a bit different from those of George W. Bush. Perot is a true fiscal conservative--he was the only candidate who was against NAFTA, and he is also fairly liberal on social issues. Does anyone remember him saying "a woman's body is her business"? Anyway--he definitely is a Republican--but I don't think he is of the most conservative stripe. He is more of a maverick (like a Pat Buchanan) who has his own ideas --most of them out of the mainstream.

to me, a third party person could never govern under the current system-because they would have no congress. If for example the Green or Socialist candidate woke up in the white house on Nov 3, who would help get their policies through? We could never elect one until they have proportionate support in the legislative bodies. It would be impossible to be president otherwise.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Sorry ...

I was summarizing too broadly.

You're correct in a sense. He is a true conservative whereas Shrub most certainly is not. Broadly, though, I don't see a marked difference between Perot's stated positions and what the Republican party generally supports, which is what I should have written originally.

I do find his opposition to NAFTA refreshing. This was the first problem I had with Clinton.

As for how liberal he was on social issues, I don't know that this can be positively determined. He's never held office. All we have is his rhetoric, and his rhetoric is vague.

In reference to your second paragraph, this is another part of why I say a third party must start from the ground up. You are exactly right. A successful third party, under our system as it currently exists, cannot govern at the highest levels without lower level support. So, that third party must make in-roads by establishing itself at those lower levels.

Perot specifically would have been able to govern, I think. I don't truly see a great deal of difference between him and Republicans generally. He's not a neo-con, which is a good thing, and this may have been part of the impetus behind his campaign in the first place. But, once in office, he could have coordinated his efforts with the traditional conservatives in both parties.

I'm still glad he was never elected. In private life, he has a lot of virtues. I don't think they would have translated well to public office.

[Barney Rocks]

14. Once again---I agree with everything you

said here. I just felt the need to clarify about W. because I feel that Perot is a better man than W. in so many ways. (And he represents the politics of the Republicans--the politics that they have unfortunately abandoned in recent years and that they need to get back to--if they ever want to be known as a party of moderation and conservative values again).

But with that clarified I agree with everything you said--right down to the part about his personality not being suited for public office.

Thanks for clarifying some of these things.

[Leilani]

9. Ross Perot was a rich eccentric

but he gave voice to people who were fed up with politics as usual.

He made a big issue of lobbyists influence on politicians, wasted money in gov., the budget deficit was his main issue.

But he was a populist; he talked about the people taking their government back.

[izzie]

11. I changed my party so he could get on the list.

I thought it only fair he should be voted for if people wanted him. He was far off the two parties so guess that means he was odd. Frankly I did not vote for him but thought he hit some of the things right on the head. NAFTA for one.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. Well, DU didn't exist back then. DU began when

Bush Jr. stole the election in 2000. I liked Ross Perot, or, rather, his people, since they were so very nice. I had to schedule his TV appearances, back then, for my job in TV listings, and the "United We Stand" people were more cooperative and forthcoming than the major candidates. As for the reactions of the major candidates? You can see him debating them right now on C-Span. They took him totally seriously and treated him with respect. He had a good economic plan, since he was a brilliant businessman, but could you imagine him dealing with Yassar Arafat? I voted for Bill Clinton, instead, and was never sorry.:-)

[patricia92243]

15. Perot would have probably won if he had stayed in the race. That is why

quit - he was afraid of actually winning - he liked to campaign but did not really want to be president.

Running after he had already quit was just plain silly.