Carter Stands by Clinton, Lashes Out at Bush, Perot

The last Democratic Southern governor who rocketed from obscurity to the White House said Wednesday that he didn’t think the man seeking to follow in his footsteps this year needed any of his advice.

But, after a 40-minute meeting with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, former President Jimmy Carter did have a few well-chosen words for the opponents Clinton is likely to face in the general election: President Bush and Texas businessman Ross Perot.

Carter, who has spent the last decade trying to foster international comity, sounded less like a peacemaker than a pit bull. He accused President Bush of preferring confrontation to cooperation with Congress, and of accepting a political strategy that divided the nation by race. “I think the Republican Party . . . has used division . . . to capitalize politically, particularly in an election year,” Carter said. “It was a main factor in 1988.”

But Carter, who reiterated the support for Clinton he first announced several weeks ago, reserved his sharpest words for Perot. Never lifting his voice above a whispery monotone, the former President calmly lacerated the Texas billionaire who has surged to the top of national polls.

“Right now Perot is at a pinnacle, perhaps,” Carter said, standing in a quiet glade with Clinton at the Carter Center here. “But he is going to have to show some substance, other than being a non-politician who happens to have made a lot of money in health care and other things using a lot of government funds to do so.”

Carter was apparently referring to the contracts for managing federal health care programs that played a key role in the growth of EDS, the computer services firm that Perot founded 30 years ago.

Carter said Perot had been “deliberately” avoiding press questions about the specifics of his policy agenda. “He brags on the fact that he doesn’t get specific about what he is going to do about anything,” Carter complained. “He either doesn’t have ideas clearly in mind now, or he’s just ashamed or doesn’t want to share his ideas with the public because they might be unpopular.”

Carter’s harsh tone clashed with Clinton’s conciliatory posture toward Perot in recent days. When asked about Perot’s surge in the polls, the presumptive Democratic nominee has typically praised him--while insisting that voters eventually will conclude that he himself has a more cohesive and detailed agenda.

Clinton stuck to that posture Wednesday, saying that he would have no problem including Perot in debates this fall with Bush.