So the question remains: did Ross Perot enrich the political process in 1992 or debase it?
Give him his due. His 19 percent of the popular vote makes him the most successful independent presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Every independent for a generation will be measured against him. His legacy is a new kind of contract between voter and office-seeker, one that speaks to the hunger for unburnished substance over the slick, placating seamlessness of conventional polities-the “Lawrence Welk music,” to use his dated but dead-on description. Perot forged the tactical building blocks of the postmodern campaign. They’ve already been institutionalized by the opposition. The base-building talk shows, chart-laden infomercials, the 60-second spots with their stodgy, crawling text blocks were new political roughage: bulky, high-fiber and healthy. People loved his money, too. They were exhilarated by this banty know-it-all who didn’t need to take a dime from anyone. Most important, they felt as if someone was talking to them, not at them. “In his bizarre way Perot contributed more to preserving faith in the electoral process than Clinton or Bush,” says Paul Erickson, former political director for Pat Buchanan.
But Perot also leaves behind a heavy residue of cynicism. The candidate who urged voters to face hard truths about the economy turned his own reasons for exiting and then re-entering the race into a thicket of lies and misdirection. The promise of “world class” appointees was difficult to square with his running mate, a brave man ill-suited for the job. His call for focus on “the issues” rang hollow after he accused the GOP of plotting to sabotage his daughter’s wedding. When Perot’s rhetoric moved away from deficit reduction and government reform, his message wobbled into CEO simplicities and vague hints of bleaker agendas-low-wage shoe factories in the cities and “blunt talks” about the drug war.
His future in presidential politics is far from over. He hinted as much on election night: “We’ll keep on going as long as you want to keep on going.” With his money and attention, United We Stand, America could become an influential confederation of state-level, grass-roots organizations devoted to his message. Without Perot, it will likely fragment into fiefdoms or provide a base for another 1996 candidate. “If he steps out, it will collapse in a matter of months,” says Frank Luntz, his former polltaker. Would Perot III play? Economic recovery and progress on the deficit could diminish his appeal. But if Clinton flops and there is civil war between the GOP’s moderate and right wings, watch out. John Connally, Republican elder and Perot adviser, suspects Perot is in the game for the long haul. “He’s not going to leave his kids enormously wealthy,” says Connally.“He’s going to spend it in the political arena.”
But Perot himself is only a part of the picture for many Perotians. “Being president was never what the Perot movement was all about,” former press secretary James Squires said in a recent speech. “Most Americans still don’t know that it’s about sending a message.” That message: anger about the dysfunction in Washington and despair that no one was willing to talk about it honestly. The message still resonates, even with its most imperfect messenger. There are threads of wish fulfillment running through both sides of the Perot movement. Just as Perot conjured idealized images from his past and demonized real and imagined enemies from the present, his supporters poured their own fantasies into a flawed vessel. “We read onto him what we wanted in an ideal candidate,” says Dick Fisher, a Sandwich, Mass., businessman who discovered Perot on C-Span one night last March and has remained a supporter. “In a sense, we made him up. We made up Ross Perot.” In time, Fisher and others may conjure another Perot. Now, for good or ill, their message rests with Bill Clinton.
