Colorado Over the Top in Push for Perot : Politics: With 30 times the number of signatures needed, prospective candidate praises the work to get him on November presidential ballot.

Prospective presidential candidate Ross Perot praised Colorado supporters Friday who turned in almost 30 times as many signatures as needed to qualify him for the state’s November ballot, saying that they had “blown away the political Establishment.”

Continuing a campaign-type cross-country jaunt that began in California on Thursday and ends today in Massachusetts, Perot jokingly told his Colorado crowd: “You kind of overdid here.”

John Schenk, chairman of the Perot campaign in the state, told a rally in downtown Denver that volunteers had collected 139,000 petition signatures on behalf of the Texas billionaire, even though Colorado law requires only 5,000 valid signatures to win a candidate a presidential ballot slot.

The petitions were submitted to state election officials Friday, Schenk said. Similar petitions are pending in several other states, including California.

Perot, who has yet to officially announce his candidacy, already has won a place on the presidential ballots of 15 states. Campaign chairman Tom Luce has estimated Perot will be on the ballot in about 30 states by the end of this month.

The Denver rally, which drew an estimated 3,000 people, was a virtual replay of Perot’s appearances in Sacramento and Irvine on Thursday.

Like the California gatherings, it was heavily spiced with patriotic and military themes. A self-proclaimed “cowboy band” from Missouri played “God Bless America” and the anthems of the nation’s four military services as prelude music to Perot’s appearance. Speakers preceding him offered paeans to war veterans and pleas not to forget troops missing in action from the Vietnam War.

Perot’s speech also was virtually identical to his California remarks. He talked about improving education, aiding the cities, cutting the federal budget deficit and combatting the drug epidemic, but he offered no specific proposals.

He blasted Washington as “an artificial city created with what used to be our money. We have got to send a laser-like message to Congress so they know what you want.”

He exhorted his listeners to continue their efforts to reclaim government from the bureaucrats even if he loses in November. And he told them that because of their commitment, “things are not going to be the same again.”

Perot was introduced by retired Army Lt. Gen. Calvin A.H. Waller, who was deputy commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf War and who created a stir two weeks before the conflict started when he told reporters that his troops were not yet ready to fight.

Waller, who is black, was asked after the rally whether Perot had approached him about the vice presidential spot on his ticket. Waller said he has not discussed the matter with Perot.

With Waller’s presence and with his words, Perot continued his efforts to draw more minorities into the fold. His Colorado crowd, like the ones in California, was overwhelmingly white and middle class.

“We’re a divided country now. We’re divided along ethnic lines, along racial lines,” he said. “We are not going to say one word in this campaign that divides the melting pot, because if you watch the other parties try to divide it, pander to all the special interests and then try to put it back together again after they’ve broken it during the campaign and wonder why it doesn’t work after November, you see that’s wrong, and that’s rotten.”