Some Perot Volunteers Trying to Revive the Campaign : Politics: Several are planning a caravan to Dallas to talk the tycoon back into the race. Others concede that the party is over.

A day after Ross Perot abruptly canceled his undeclared bid for the presidency, leaders of his large corps of devoted volunteers in California and other states headed for Dallas on Friday in a quixotic attempt to talk him back into the race.

Dazed but not daunted by Perot’s announcement, several state coordinators went on a binge of overnight “networking.” By morning, they were talking of plans for candlelight vigils and caravans to the Dallas campaign headquarters.

Angry words and hurt feelings still surfaced, and some offices were quickly shutting down, but many outposts reported busy-as-ever phone lines and a renewed enthusiasm for the Texas billionaire’s fuzzy but still alluring message.

“They may have killed the messenger, but they can’t kill us,” said Boulder, Colo., organizer Lynn Standerwick. “We just formed a search committee to find a candidate” to run against Rep. David K. Skaggs (D-Colo.), she said. “Our big issues will be the deficit and campaign reform. We’re very enthusiastic.”

Skaggs, perhaps the first incumbent member of Congress to be so targeted by the nascent movement, could not be reached for comment.

Not all Perot supporters were so upbeat in the wake of the Texas billionaire’s announcement that he had decided not to run.

“It was like a wake (Friday) morning,” said Virginia regional coordinator Tom Overocker from the Falls Church, Va., office outside Washington.

Perot did, however, encourage his supporters to keep their petition drives alive to ensure that politicians don’t forget their concerns. And in Illinois and New York, volunteers decided to continue their petition efforts--but many of them quickly added that they don’t intend to vote for Perot in November.

“I think we have more than enough (signatures) to get him on the ballot,” said Renae Kilian, who was just hired Monday to be Perot’s campaign director for Illinois. “But I would think after that we won’t have a lot of unified activities. We’ve got a lease for a couple more weeks, and then we will get on with our lives.”

Perot workers in Massachusetts were preparing to shut down their offices, said Phil Rierdan, media coordinator for the state campaign.

“My expectation is that it will die. You need a leader, and there is none available. And you need money, and there certainly isn’t any of that available,” Rierdan said.

And in Aspen, Colo., 54-year-old Ray DiVega, an illustrator and Perot volunteer, groused: “Ross is a big weeny. I’m taking my furniture back from the (volunteers’) office.”

In California, rank-and-file Perot loyalists kept campaign offices open as souvenir hunters snapped up Perot paraphernalia. “People are coming in wanting anything--newsletters, faxes, anything--as souvenirs,” said Ivan Sharpe, a spokesman for Perot’s San Francisco office.

Elsewhere in the state, volunteers struggled to overcome feelings of anger and betrayal. “The immediate reaction was, half of the people wanted to draft Perot and half wanted to hang Perot,” said Jack Brodbeck, spokesman for Perot’s California organization. “But now it kind of comes to the point of, well, what do we do now?”

Some volunteers came up with their own answer--head for Dallas and lobby for Perot’s re-entry into the race. California Perot Chairman Bob Hayden, a Ventura engineer, and Charles Turpin, volunteer coordinator in Oklahoma City, were among those who planned to do so. (Later, Perot said on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” that he would meet with his state coordinators in Dallas this weekend.)

“We started networking (Thursday) night about our caravan to Dallas,” Turpin said. “Last time I checked, we had 22 states coming with us. We’re sending 200 volunteers down (today). . . . We want to tell Perot the problems are not insurmountable.”

And in Phoenix, the state headquarters for Perot, the mood was anything but glum. Phones were ringing, supporters were streaming in the door and workers were doling out T-shirts, buttons, hats and signs.

Fred Travers, 67, a first-time volunteer, nearly shouted to one caller: “You betcha, we’re going to stay with it. We’re going to get him back on the track.”

But others called that a political pipe dream. “If you think about it, if he did decide to come back into the race, he . . . wouldn’t really be a very viable candidate,” said a Perot leader in San Diego who asked not to be identified.

And Perot spokeswoman Sharon Holman said in Dallas that the campaign was at an end. “It’s all over, as far as we’re concerned,” she said.

A related question is what will become of computerized lists of Perot partisans across the country--a political prize that could be of great value to the major political parties. In California alone, between 30,000 and 50,000 people actively worked for him.

Some volunteers said they hadn’t decided what to do with their lists--and others seemed less than enthralled with the idea of passing them on. One Perot leader said volunteers in her South Bay office would erase their computer files before they would sell them to Democrats or Republicans.

Times staff writer Jim Risen in Chicago and correspondents Laura Laughlin in Phoenix, Florence Williams in Aspen, John Laidler in Boston, Rhonda Hillbery in Minneapolis, and David Hulen in Anchorage contributed to this story.