PEROT BOWS OUT : Perot Backers’ Reactions Mixed : Independents: His supporters feel betrayed, bothered and bewildered over withdrawal. Some seek to change his mind, others say they won’t vote.

Whipsawed by feelings of disappointment and betrayal, Ross Perot loyalists across the country wept and ranted Thursday as they learned that the quirky Texas billionaire had abandoned his run for the presidency.

Shocked supporters, many crying at the surprise announcement from Dallas, swamped Perot phone banks with calls. Numb volunteers staffing the lines dispensed advice and commiserated while trying to deal with their own ragged emotions.

“I heard him say on the Larry King show that he would run if we got him on the ballot in all 50 states,” said Alex Nitkiewicz, a geologist from Alexandria, Va., “and I think he weaseled out of his commitment.”

Many supporters hoped to change Perot’s mind with a groundswell of new support for his third-party quest. Some headquarters reported dozens of calls from would-be Perot backers who found his decision the spur they needed to finally commit to his cause.

At a Perot office in Richfield, Minn., for example, callers were told not to give up hope. “Tell people it’s not over,” instructed Diane Goldman, the volunteer office’s public affairs director.

Goldman said Perot’s decision only makes his supporters more determined. “People will do anything to keep him in the race,” she said.

But others simply felt double-crossed.

Matthew Lifflander, chairman of the Perot campaign in New York state, accused the Texas billionaire of “breaking the hearts of some of the best people in America. You have betrayed our trust. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Michael Bacal, a 26-year-old unemployed lawyer who worked for Perot for six weeks, said, “I guess it’s better to find out now that he doesn’t live up to his word than in November.”

While Perot’s highly individual style and reluctance to heed orthodox political advice endeared him to millions, those same traits seem to have brought down his presidential bid--and his explanation left some supporters mystified.

“He knew all along that this might go into Congress,” said Pam Morano, a volunteer at the Perot headquarters on Long Island, N.Y. “I also can’t believe his drop in the polls affected him that much. To make this decision now, well, it’s really surprising.”

“That’s terrible,” said Gonzalo Acevedo, a Puerto Rican-born stockbroker in Miami. “I can’t believe he copped out like that.”

But to Dennis Shrauger, a health consultant in Trumbull, Conn., and coordinator of the Perot organization there, the reason was clear. His candidate withdrew because he knew he couldn’t win.

“He’s a smart businessman--you cut your losses and run,” Shrauger said.

Other supporters were more sympathetic, seeing Perot as simply unable to compete with the entrenched power of the country’s two mainstream political parties.

“Sure I was disappointed,” said Cindy Schultz, 39, of Mequon, Wis., “but I understand where he’s coming from. He’s frustrated over the political process--hey, I’m frustrated too. Right after I came out for Perot, some kook started making personal attacks on me. “

Schultz, a political consultant, blamed the press for paying too much attention to defectors from the Perot campaign.

“The press gravitated to these clowns. (In Perot) they didn’t have a candidate they could control, and they wanted to canonize their own . . . ,” said Schultz.

Most volunteers had little or no warning about the announcement. Some heard the news while driving to work, while others got the word from local TV crews who suddenly set up cameras in local headquarters.

Others had detected ominous signals.

Shrauger recalled that in recent weeks Perot’s Dallas organization was gridlocked.

“Our communications with Dallas have been kind of a black hole,” Shrauger said from his Connecticut office. “Requests kept going in and nothing came back out. We kept asking, ‘Where’s the form, the substance, the structure, the plan?’ They threw it back at us saying, ‘Develop your own plan.’ If that’s true then that’s foolish. You don’t hire people like (campaign co-manager Edward J.) Rollins . . . to sit at a desk and answer phones.”

Rollins and a number of his key aides left the organization Wednesday, citing Perot’s refusal to accept their advice about reviving the slumping campaign.

Several days before, Perot, in an address to the NAACP, offended many blacks by referring to the delegates as “you people” and “your people.”

Lovie Elam, 33, a portfolio analyst in Boston who worked on the Perot campaign since its early stages, found the remark “disappointing” but she is not angry.

“I’m black, and I felt kind of bad for him because he was not aware,” Elam said. “I wish someone would have read over his speech.”

Perot’s penchant for keeping his own counsel, his discomfort with the Establishment and his prickly personality led observers to predict that his political quest was doomed from the outset.

His sudden decision not to run, some backers admitted, will make many critics seem prescient.

“This will give a lot of them a chance to say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Nitkiewicz said. “It raises a lot of questions about what kind of man he is. Many of the stories about him seemed blown out of proportion, but (his withdrawal) has certainly raised some doubts.”

The absence of Perot as a candidate left his volunteers in a quandary about who to vote for--or whether to vote at all.

After bashing the major parties about being out of touch with most citizens, few could admit that they might vote for Bill Clinton or George Bush in the fall.

Pat O’Neil, an unemployed businessman from Princeton who was New Jersey state coordinator for Perot until late June, is not so inclined.

“I don’t think I’m going to vote for either of them--never mind work for them. Since I started voting in 1977 it has been nothing but the lesser of two evils. Do I have the same situation again in ‘92? If it wasn’t for Ross Perot I would have. Am I going to vote again? I really don’t know. Call me in a few weeks.”

In Oklahoma City, there were similar feelings of shock.

“We were going to be moving into our (new) campaign headquarters (today),” said Jamie Hurst, the 42-year-old wife of a local auto dealer.

She had expected Thursday’s press conference to be an upbeat affair, an attempt by Perot to put an optimistic spin on the departure of Rollins the day before.

“But that’s not what happened,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance yet to let it sink in.”

Contributing to this story were staff writer Geraldine Baum from New York and correspondent Rhonda Hillbery from Minneapolis, Minn.