Perot’s Exit May Open Door to New Calls for Change : Aftermath: Sentiments unleashed by the aborted presidential bid could fracture the two-party system, some experts say.

With its legacy of political betrayal, the abrupt end to Ross Perot’s presidential campaign may only compound the feelings of alienation and discontent that drew tens of thousands of Americans to his banner.

But far from driving them permanently out of the game, many scholars and political analysts believe the net result of the Texas independent’s mercurial bid for the presidency may be to intensify many voters’ demand for an end to politics as usual.

“There is an astonishing force in this country that’s mobilized for change against anybody that represents existing power,” said Kathleen Hall Jamison, a leading authority on political communication at the University of Texas.

Perot announced Thursday that he had decided he could not win and was withdrawing to avoid throwing the election into the House of Representatives and the country into turmoil.

As two-party orthodoxy regained its hold on the presidential election landscape for this year, the Perot faithful across the nation vented frustration Friday at the sudden quiet from the maverick who had given voice to their concerns.

Some political experts, including the GOP pollster Richard B. Wirthlin, predicted that as many as 30% of Perot’s supporters may now choose to sit out the fall election.

But other scholars, pollsters and experts on voter behavior argued that the most important lesson taught by the Perot phenomenon is that the Democratic and Republican parties hold dwindling sway over the American electorate. And whether the parties change or are outflanked, they say the sentiments unleashed by Perot cannot long be silenced.

For months, different groups of voters have swung into action behind protest candidates, backing ultra-conservative Patrick J. Buchanan, ultra-liberal Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. and Perot. And if each of these campaigns ended in disappointment for its devotees, many experts say that will not stop voters from grasping for change beyond the structures now in place.

“If we learned anything, it is that there is potential out there for an anti-Democratic, anti-Republican movement--but the messenger was just wrong,” said Edward A. Goeas, a Republican pollster.

As the recognition that the Perot candidacy was over sank in across America on Friday, the voices of many of his supporters sounded the bitterness of those whose illusions had been too abruptly dashed.

“I’m upset and angry that Perot pulled out, and I don’t like the other two,” said a 38-year-old Dallas computer technician who would identify himself only as Ron. “I’ve never been a big politician, but I liked everything Perot said and stood for.”

“For the first time, we believed there was a legitimate shot at changing the structure in Washington, and that’s been taken away,” said Phil Rierdan, a top official in Perot’s Massachusetts campaign. “We don’t have anything left except a lot of people’s feelings hurt.”

Such a sense of abandonment seems destined to leave many Perot supporters with a sour taste. Having signed on with Perot out of faith that he was something different, many seem to be concluding that his odyssey represents the crassest form of political opportunism.

“Those who were cynical before and saw an opportunity in Perot to affect the system will now be left even more cynical and more alienated from the process,” Wirthlin said.

But even more than anger, what echoed through the musings of Perot supporters in dozens of interviews on Friday was a bleak sense of numbness as they surveyed what was left of the election lineup.

In Phoenix, 56-year-old Walt Peters grumbled that he would “go to Switzerland” rather than vote for either President Bush or Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.

In suburban Boston, 47-year-old John Schwarz complained that Perot’s abrupt withdrawal had left him feeling “disenfranchised again.”

And in Aspen, Colo., 53-year-old Montey Hughes said of the remaining field: “There’s no one else.”

It is precisely this disenchantment with existing alternatives that leads many experts to see the Perot phenomenon as a reflection of a broader movement. Even if the Perot boom benefited from unusually high levels of national discontent, they say, the fact that he rose as high as 40% popularity in some polls underscores the fading grip of the major parties.

“The long-talked-about weakness of the two-party system may in fact have borne fruit,” said John Petrosic, a political scientist at UCLA.

Among those who monitored the Perot candidacy most closely was Harrison Hickman, a Democratic pollster. He contends that the stunning popularity of the Texas billionaire made clear that both Democrats and Republicans have long been too sanguine about their own condition.

One standard assumption of presidential politics has been that Democrats will command the loyalty of at least 40% of the voters, with Republicans building upward from a 35% base. The battleground for most elections is assumed to be the 25% bloc of moderate swing voters in between.

But Hickman argues that Perot’s success has unhinged such calculations.

“The true commitment of voters to the political parties is substantially less than anyone had thought,” he said.

Perot’s support had plunged to 20% by the time he dropped out of the race, but scholars like Jamison still describe that level of backing as an “astonishing” indication of voters’ willingness to embrace an alternative to the two major parties.

“There is potential for the message,” Goeas said of the course charted by Perot.

As both Bush and Clinton began to court the Perot vote, their attempts to echo elements of his message could readily be heard. In accepting the Democratic nomination Thursday, Clinton said his candidacy offered a choice that was “not conservative or liberal--not really even Democratic or Republican.”

For his part, Bush sought to appeal to reformist strains among Perot supporters by proclaiming that they “want to see the kind of changes I want to see.”

Whether the parties can succeed in accommodating such sentiment remains a point of dispute--not only among experts but among Perot supporters such as 28-year-old Richard Kidd, a West Point graduate who directed the Oregon campaign.

“Democracy should not be for two parties,” said Kidd, who is already planning to help more third-party candidates qualify for presidential ballots. “It should be for everybody. The parties again must be responsive to people.”

Wirthlin argues that for many Americans the lesson of Perot will be that a third-party candidacy brings with it the unsettling prospect of a presidential election that must be resolved by the House of Representives. Unless one candidate wins an absolute majority in the Electoral College--270 electoral votes--the House must choose the President. Only a constitutional amendment can change that.

“This will give parties the ability of pointing out what the consequence of a challenge to them really means,” he said. “I think it will be some time before anyone else attempts to follow the route of Ross Perot.”

And even Jamison, who believes there is more than enough sentiment to sustain a new political party, contends that the combined effect of campaign-finance laws, presidential primaries and rigid media coverage may make it all but impossible for such an effort to succeed.

“If this were the 19th Century, a third party would have emerged by now, a party that is neither liberal nor conservative,” she said. “The tragedy may be that the only person who was able to become a viable third candidate could only do it because he was a billionaire.”