Why He Wasn't a Contender

Perot squandered an opportunity but left his mark on the agenda

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum

(TIME, November 21) -- Over a six-month period beginning in September 1995, Ross Perot held a series of private meetings with fellow supporters of the third-party movement, ostensibly seeking their advice on whether and how to run again for President. Consistently, the group, which included former Connecticut Governor and Senator Lowell Weicker and New York businessman Thomas Galisano, warned Perot that if he ran again, he could no longer be a one-man band. This time, the advisers said, he had to bring national-level politicians into the fold. He had to listen to their policy prescriptions and incorporate their ideas into his Reform Party's platform. He had to plan ahead, they said, to know in advance how he would position himself and his people in ways that would win--and not just annoy.

Perot chose to ignore the advice, and in doing so he squandered what might have been one of the most powerful opportunities in modern political history. The majority of Americans have consistently said they would welcome a President who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Distrust of government, while down from peak levels, is still staggeringly high. Perot, the consummate gadfly, could have been a contender.

Instead he proved anew that he was, as elections expert James Thurber of American University in Washington put it, just plain "weird." For most of 1996 he gave lip service to his advisers' words that the election "is not about me." But a day after former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm announced that he would seek the Reform Party's nomination, Perot entered the race and proved that it really was about him. And by accepting $29 million in taxpayer money to fund his general-election campaign--just like any other pol--he undermined his credibility both as an outsider and as a deficit hawk.

It wasn't all his fault. Any challenger to Bill Clinton would have had an uphill climb. When the economy is growing and the country is not at war, the incumbent always benefits. But some of Perot's most publicized post-'92 positions--in particular his campaigns to defeat NAFTA and GATT--had fizzled badly.

Nor was Perot helped by Colin Powell's flirtation with an independent run for the White House last year. The retired general's prospective candidacy raised the hopes of millions of voters. And when he decided to remain a private citizen and join the Republican Party, the legions of disenfranchised supporters took their disappointment out on protest candidates in general. Few of those still open to the concept saw Perot as an adequate substitute for the charismatic Gulf War hero.

Were it not for the missteps of his main-party opponents, Perot wouldn't have been much of a factor in the race at all. He was languishing at 5% or 6% in the polls until the Democrats blundered into a series of campaign-finance flaps--prime Perot territory--and Bob Dole made his ill-advised request that Perot leave the race. The attention he had been deprived of because of his exclusion from the debates suddenly rained down upon what had become a nearly irrelevant sideshow. As a result, his support nearly doubled, though by Election Day it had slipped back to under 9%--a long step down from the 19% he garnered in 1992. By making his campaign a vanity production, he succeeded only in muddying his party's future. Says Republican pollster Frank Luntz: "The desire for a third party will not come back until Perot leaves the political scene."

With or without Perot, a third party will never have it easy. The Republicans and Democrats are well entrenched, and only an overpowering reason would cause voters to reject them. So far they haven't found one, and G.O.P. pollster Ed Goeas doubts they will. "Independent voters are disaffected, and they don't pay enough attention," he says. "It always ends up back in a two-party system."

The prospects for long-term disaffection, however, are higher now than in years. By remaining as polarized as they have been, the two dominant parties continue to fan the flames of interest in an alternative. According to Gordon Black, a pollster who specializes in third-party movements, "Voters' fundamental problem with the Democratic and Republican parties is still unresolved. They want a centrist voice. So it isn't as bleak for a third party as it looks."

Yet for all his fumbles and foibles, Perot has made a mark on the political landscape. Against steep odds he created a bona fide third party whose presidential candidate in the year 2000 will qualify for taxpayer funding. Lamm and his supporters are already vying for the money, which will amount to several million dollars. More immediately, Perot has helped put two issues squarely at the center of the nation's agenda: campaign-finance reform and the need to overhaul Medicare and Social Security. "If Ross Perot had only known what to do with the remnants of a losing presidential campaign," says Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, "he would be one of the most powerful men of this time." Because he did not, the future of a third party remains as murky as the man himself.

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