Billionaire Perot Pushes to Name Running Mate

Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, aiming at running for President as an independent if he can get on the ballot in all 50 states, plans to name a vice presidential running mate within a week and vows to spend $50 million to $100 million “or whatever it takes” to finance a campaign.

Perot said in an interview Thursday that he plans to make his running mate selection quickly because ballot laws in some states require early listing of the vice presidential candidate.

Volunteers in all states already have launched petition drives, according to Perot, but getting on the November ballot in all of them--a prerequisite he set for his candidacy--would require a Herculean effort, since each state has different requirements, some much more stringent than others.

In New York, Perot backers need the signatures of 20,000 registered voters. In California, the figure is 134,781, or 1% of the state’s registered voters.

Most analysts doubt that it could be done with volunteers alone, but Perot indicated he may also finance the ballot drive.

“The volunteers are doing so well now I wouldn’t want to foul them up,” he said. “But if we try to support the petition signing, I promise you we will go public and go ahead and do it.”

In Texas, where Perot needs 54,275 voters to sign petitions by May 11, President Bush’s campaign officials said the massive effort under way on behalf of Perot already has the earmarks of an organized campaign. Jim Oberwetter, Bush’s Texas campaign manager, said: “We are taking it very seriously,” adding that it is less a grass-roots movement than an organized effort that “is really being fanned.”

The 61-year-old industrialist, saying he is “excited” about thousands of telephone calls urging him to run, declared his running mate will be someone “who the American people will feel is better qualified than I am to be President.”

“Whoever he or she is, could do the job of President,” he said. “My own personal test is: Could this person be the White House chief of staff who knows about what’s going on and how to run the country. I wouldn’t bring in an empty suit, only somebody fully qualified to be President.”

Emphasizing that money is no factor and already talking like a candidate, Perot said it could cost $50 million or $100 million, but that “we will spend whatever it takes to run a good first-class campaign.

A Perot candidacy could dramatically alter the dynamics of the general election campaign. A consistent and outspoken critic of the Bush Administration, Perot likely would find his greatest appeal among Republicans disillusioned with Bush and looking for a conservative alternative.

Perot, a self-made billionaire, heads a computer-services company, Perot Systems. He became a folk hero to many when he went to bat for U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam and later organized a private force to rescue two employees from an Iranian jail in 1979.

In a speech Wednesday to the National Press Club, he called for drastic action to reduce the federal budget deficit, re-establish America’s international competitiveness, overhaul the nation’s educational system and reform the country’s political process. He also staked out controversial positions--favoring abortion rights, gun control and reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits for the affluent.

Most critical, he said, is the budget deficit, which ballooned from $1 trillion when Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 to $4 trillion today. “Maybe it was voodoo economics,” Perot said. “Whatever it was, we are now in deep voodoo.”

Fred Meyer, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, said Perot is expressing the concerns of many Americans who are “extremely unhappy with government.”

Bush campaign strategists don’t think Perot would be a serious threat to win the presidency. Previous independent campaigns have not fared well. Former Illinois Rep. John B. Anderson won only 6.6% of the vote as an independent in 1980; former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace gained 13.6% in 1968.

But Perot could drain votes from Bush in California, Texas and other key states.

At least one Bush adviser, longtime confidant Pete Teeley, a Washington consultant, said a Perot candidacy could also hurt the Democratic nominee because “voters disaffected from the President will split between Perot and the Democrat.”

But Democrats could hardly conceal their glee at the thought of Perot running. “It’s got to have the White House shaking in their boots,” said Democratic Chairman Ronald H. Brown. Former Democratic Chairman John C. White, a Washington consultant and former Texas official, said that if Perot is willing to spend his money “he sure as hell is going to be a factor and probably determine who’s going to be President.”

After an interview on the Larry King radio program, Perot said, the switchboard of his Dallas computer firm was so swamped with telephone calls--10,000 in two hours--that it caused a gridlock and he had to set up a separate phone bank in Dallas. He insisted, however, that except for that expense, he has provided no financing for the movement to draft him as an independent candidate.

Times staff writers J. Michael Kennedy in Houston and Alan Miller in Washington contributed to this story.