Volunteers for Perot Stunned by Pullout : Politics: Some workers say they feel betrayed. Others express sadness and a determination to keep the Texan’s ideas alive.

One volunteer worker called Ross Perot “a jerk” Thursday and an Oxnard artist dumped a recently sculpted statue of the Texas billionaire in a dumpster.

Others, after their initial shock, vowed to keep alive Perot’s ideas with or without their candidate.

The reactions typified those of Perot’s Ventura County followers in the wake of his stunning announcement Thursday that he would not be a presidential candidate.

At Perot’s county headquarters on East Main Street in Ventura, the ever-faithful mixed with the newly disenchanted in an atmosphere of stunned disbelief, confusion and tears.

“He’s still the best choice,” said Jim Ritchey of Ventura, county co-chairman of Perot’s petition committee, disheartened by the news.

“It’s a sad day for all people,” said volunteer Bob Reid of Camarillo.

Other Perot volunteers reacted with shock and bitterness. One woman, who asked that her name not be used, was visibly upset as she stood in the storefront campaign headquarters.

“I was flabbergasted,” she said. “I really felt he was going to do a good job. I am so mad at him. I feel he let us all down. What a jerk.”

Oxnard artist Michael Racine shared the anger and took it out on a recently fashioned 350-pound sculpture of the Texan that stood outside his art gallery. Now, he said, he doesn’t want to look at it again.

The 8-foot plaster-of-Paris bust came to an undignified end: It was fork-lifted into a dumpster.

“Perot hung us out to dry,” Racine said. What really hurt, he said, was that Perot did not thank the volunteers--including the 2,000 in Ventura County--in his Thursday announcement.

“He didn’t say ‘thank you’ for all the people, all the sweat, all the hours they poured out,” Racine lamented.

At Perot headquarters Thursday morning, Ritchey and other officials decided to lock the doors shortly after Perot’s television appearance. “The doors are locked and nobody’s coming in,” Ritchey told his staff and visitors.

Out went the lights. Off went a big television screen showing Perot videos. Volunteer staffers left telephones where, they said, they had fielded mean-spirited calls from individuals who laughed, “Ha, ha, we knew it would happen.”

Tables filled with Perot T-shirts and buttons were abandoned. In a few seconds, the staff had disappeared into back rooms to sort out the impact of Perot’s decision.

But moments later, they returned. Suddenly, the campaign headquarters was back in business.

Volunteers said that in a private meeting with the Perot staff, they had prevailed--at least for the moment.

“Everybody wants it to stay open,” said April Benton of Ventura.

“The volunteers said, ‘No, wait a minute,’ ” added Becca Whitnall of Port Hueneme. “We have a right to still talk with the people. I said we should go out there and keep it open.”

By midafternoon, morale had perceptively improved at the Perot shop on Main Street.

Whitnall said a Perot rally was planned for 10 a.m. Saturday in Plaza Park in downtown Ventura in a show of devotion that volunteers hope will encourage Perot to reconsider.

“We’re hoping he’ll change his mind and run,” Whitnall said. “We want to show that the volunteers are still a viable force and that his ideas won’t die even if he’s not running.”

On that note, John Gelles, Perot’s Ventura County treasurer, suggested that the Texan had left a political legacy that could be kept alive.

“The issues, the agenda make sense,” he said. “There could be an ongoing political activism” in an organization to advance his ideas about straight talk and shaking up the government.

Bill Ransbottom, Perot’s coordinator for Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, said, “We have to decide where the Perot petition committee in California is going to go. The fact that Ross Perot is no longer a candidate does not change the fact that this country needs change.”

Perot’s Ventura County volunteers collected petitions with more than one-third of the required 134,781 names of registered California voters to qualify the Texan for the November ballot.

So successful was the statewide petition drive that Perot ended up with far more names than he needed. But a spokeswoman in the secretary of state’s office said it was not certain that the Texan’s name would appear on the November ballot.

“It’s not automatic, he has not qualified for the ballot yet,” said spokeswoman Shirley Washington. She said Perot’s 54 electors who would cast their ballots for him in the electoral college must file their papers with the secretary of state by Aug. 7.

Ventura County political analysts scrambled Thursday to sort out the fallout, with Democratic and Republicans alike claiming it will help their party’s nominee in November.

Political affairs consultant Jim Dantona of Simi Valley predicted that swing Democrats, who had been supporting Perot, now will cast their votes for Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton.

Dantona, a member of Clinton’s executive committee in California, said he did not think that the decision would have a big impact on Clinton’s chances. “I think we’re in as good a shape now as we would have been with Perot in the race,” he said.

“Personally, I’m pleased because I know Clinton will win,” said Pam Weidman, executive director of Democrats United of Ventura County, a grass-roots political action committee. “I can’t see how it would affect local races.”

Richard Ferrier, chairman of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, said the Perot decision “will make an enormous difference, I’m sure. His supporters are mostly conservative people who will come back to the Republican Party.”

Nels Henderson, chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee, said he sees a positive impact now on the Clinton candidacy. “It forces Perot backers to look at Clinton and see he’s the real candidate for change,” he said.

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