Perot’s Their Man : Grass-Roots Enthusiasm Blooms in County

Like any good citizen, Tom Lanphier has dutifully trundled to the polls each presidential election. But in recent years, what with the swelling federal deficit and the like, the Tustin insurance salesman’s enthusiasm for the whole electoral process has ebbed.

Not anymore. Today, Lanphier has embraced a presidential candidate he’s willing to campaign for, walk precincts for, go to the mat for--Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot.

“I haven’t been really involved in politics in a long, long time,” said Lanphier, 42. “But now is the time. I even told the woman I’m seeing: ‘I love you very much, but I have to do this, so you won’t be seeing as much of me.’ I’m a man on a mission.”

Lanphier is not alone. In the past few weeks, more than 4,000 residents from all over Orange County have phoned the toll-free number at Perot’s corporate headquarters in Dallas. They have joined more than 1 million others from across the country who boosters say have called to lend their support for the grass-roots drive to put Perot on the 1992 presidential ballot as a third-party candidate.

On Saturday, local backers of the outspoken industrialist will open their Orange County campaign headquarters in an Irvine office suite, complete with a phone bank to be manned 12 hours a day by volunteers.

In the coming weeks, Perot supporters in California hope to collect the 135,000 signatures needed to put him on the state’s November ballot. Organizers are confident they can gather upward of 25,000 signatures in Orange County alone.

“It’s just mushrooming,” said Porter Barton of San Juan Capistrano, who is serving as Perot’s Southern California campaign co-chairman. “We kind of feel like a kid who’s out surfing only to find himself on top of a tidal wave. It feels like that. It’s a very interesting phenomenon, this Perot mania.”

Barton and other organizers say the Perot campaign has already attracted a broad slice of volunteers from Orange County, people from both parties, of all races, sexes and beliefs--college students to retirees.

“I’ve called a variety of friends--conservative and liberal and all in between,” Barton said. “I just found this unbelievable cross-section of people who said it’s time for this guy.”

The doors swing open at the Orange County campaign headquarters, 2626 Dupont Drive, Suite 40, in Irvine, at 2 p.m. Saturday. The office space was offered free to the cause, Barton said. The carpet was laid by a Perot supporter. Even the chairs were donated.

Organizers of Saturday’s event don’t know how many people to expect. In San Francisco last week, about 70 people were anticipated at a similar gathering, but nearly 10 times as many showed up. The same thing happened a few days ago in San Diego, Barton said.

It’s little wonder. Perot, a gritty, 61-year-old former salesman who took $1,000 and founded a computer services company that eventually grew into a $2.5-billion behemoth, has scored big with Americans dissatisfied with the status quo in Washington, his supporters say.

Boosters give him high marks for his business acumen, vision and honesty. Moreover, he represents to many a self-made man free of the tentacles of the political establishment, a man ready to take charge and solve problems that have confounded the nation’s elected leaders.

“He just strikes a chord with me in terms of plain old common sense,” said Craig Kettelhut, a Mission Viejo resident who operates a service station in that city and plans to volunteer his time for the Perot campaign. “It’s been 20-odd years that I’ve been voting, and this is the first guy since way back in college that I’ve been willing to go to work for.”

Jack Brodbeck of Laguna Hills, a project manager for international resort developments serving as state media director for Perot, can measure support in Orange County just by listening to his answering machine.

If he leaves the house for five minutes, there are five calls on the machine when he returns, Brodbeck said. In the past few days, he’s gotten more than 600 telephone calls from people inquiring about a Perot candidacy and wanting to pitch in.

“This is way past groundswell,” Brodbeck said. “My telephone is testimony. Yesterday is the first day I could hang up the phone and it didn’t immediately ring again.”

Brodbeck and others find a parallel between the disenchanted American electorate and the historic events that swept communism from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

“People are dissatisfied with what is occurring in our country,” he said. “Just as the Russians grew dissatisfied with Gorbachev, I think there’s a lot of folks who feel there’s a pretty tired system inside the Washington beltway.”

Few local party politicians, meanwhile, buy into the potency of the draft Perot movement. Tom Fuentes, Orange County Republican Party chairman, suggests that all the buzz about the Perot campaign is the result of “a media field day.” It has provided novelty to the presidential race, but ultimately represents “a very dangerous kind of political experimentation,” Fuentes said.

“While I think we have some folks in all the communities who are tired of the status quo and want a change, I haven’t seen any genuinely active political folks moving toward this new animal that Perot’s campaign is attempting to put forward,” he said. “I don’t see Orange County going in that direction. . . . We delivered a margin of votes that helped deliver the state of California for Bush-Quayle in ‘88, and I expect Orange County to come forward in the next few months to do just that again.”

But hard-core Perot fans remain undeterred by such talk. A few weeks ago, when the toll-free number (800-685-7777) was established, they would have been happy to just get their man on the ballot. Now some are even beginning to think he can win.