Perot Dodges The Question In King Interview

WASHINGTON (CNN, Mar. 22) -- Viewers hoping to see H. Ross Perot promise to run for president on "Larry King Live" Friday night, as he did on the show four years ago, were headed for disappointment.

The former independent candidate successfully drew 19 percent of the vote in his run for president in 1992. But his platform Friday was simply to push his new Reform Party.

Pressed to say what it would take for him to run, Perot put King off. "We don't in any way want this to be focused on any one individual and in particular not on me," Perot said. Rather, he said, his party wants "the most qualified individual."

He said the Reform Party was formed because in 1992, his supporters lacked a coherent platform and strategy. For this presidential election, he said, his independent movement would be stronger because it was organized.

Say no to mud

Rather than putting forth its own candidates for each House and Senate race, he said, the party would endorse those Republicans and Democrats who pledged in writing to follow through on "the necessary reforms." While Perot did not endorse candidates in this manner in 1992, he did so in 1994. "In 1994, we were the swing vote, but disorganized," he said.

Perot said candidates would also be required to pledge to refrain from negative campaigning to win the party's endorsement. If they break that pledge, he said, "they will be dropped off the ballot the next day."

Asked by a call-in viewer who would call the shots if the Reform Party won the election, Perot said that would be the party, not Perot. "Now, candidates are bought and paid for by the special interests ... our candidate won't belong to anybody but the fine people of the United States," he said.

Perot's dialogue was mainly against the show business -- and, he said, propaganda -- involved in politics.

Over and over, he repeated, "This is not show business. This is not theater. This is reality." He called for voters to "get into Joe Friday mode -- just the facts," and said that if they would only ask for the facts with any issue, their educated votes would get the country back on solid ground.

'Like a whale on the beach'

As expected, he repeatedly steered the discussion toward the economy, which he referred to on alternate occasions as "a serious heart condition" being ignored and "arterial bleeding."

"We want results. To say 'we've had a vote on it,' to leave the balanced-budget amendment laying in the Senate like a whale on the beach," he said, was irresponsible. "The people want their government run in an orderly, rational way."

However, he said, it wasn't possible to correct a little bit of the country's problems at a time without a general idea of how all the programs would work together in the end. He suggested that welfare reform, Social Security, and Medicare might be near the top of his reforms list. But, he said, "All these things are like pieces of a puzzle, you've got to make all of them interrelate or you don't get things done."

Perot said the party plans to begin fundraising shortly, before a candidate is named.

Perot Dodges The Question In King Interview

Say no to mud

'Like a whale on the beach'

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