Keeping the Faith : Politics: Some volunteers of the deflated Perot campaign still believe the movement can go on without him. But little of their former adoration remains.

Gene Waldman picks up Ross Perot and body-slams him to the floor.

“Hey, Ross, stop lying down on the job,” shouts Waldman.

His hostility vented, the 36-year-old media liaison for Perot’s San Fernando Valley campaign office bends over and picks up the cardboard cutout of the former presidential candidate, stands it in a corner and sighs.

Waldman’s punishment of a cardboard action figure seemed cathartic--and slightly weird. But no more weird than a presidential campaign without a candidate.

Perot’s sudden departure from the campaign nine days ago sent thousands of Perot volunteers into shock and mourning. But by Friday, the first flush of anger was spent and a different mood was evident at the Sherman Oaks headquarters as local volunteers pondered their uncertain future.

Half a dozen workers leaned over the reception desk with the red, white and blue bunting to shoot the bull, looking as aimless as retirees sitting on park benches with empty chessboards in front of them.

When the phone rang, as it did infrequently, the volunteers seemed to compete to see who could be the first to reach it.

“Perot’s no more but we’re still here,” they answered.

The question is, for how much longer? The volunteers are waiting to find out from campaign officials in Texas whether Perot will continue to pay the bills for the Ventura Boulevard operation while the ex-candidate redefines his role in the fall campaign.

Waldman, who wears a watch bearing the face of Howard Jarvis, for whom he worked as a driver in 1979, said he was confident that the Valley office would stay open because it has played a pivotal role in the Perot organization.

But when a creditor called to ask about his $800 bill, Waldman urged him to submit it quickly.

Waldman is a firm believer that the movement Perot started can go on without him.

“The movement is much more important than the man,” Waldman said. “Ross Perot was the tool that brought us together. All we have to do is get reorganized, set our goals and figure out how to reach our goals.”

He said the organization might now focus on local elections.

The withdrawal announcement touched off a period of frenetic activity at the Sherman Oaks office. Waldman worked a 23-hour day on the Thursday Perot made his announcement, concluding with a five-hour stint on a local radio talk show that ended at 4:40 a.m. Friday. He did his best to reassure the battalions of brokenhearted supporters who called in asking, “Why did he do this to us?”

The headquarters office also was deluged by calls from the media seeking tragic stories of Perot workers who mortgaged their houses and quit their jobs to follow like apostles the man with the crooked eyebrows.

Mike Norris, a gray-haired business consultant who serves as the Los Angeles County coordinator for the campaign, is one of those who suffered. Just three days before Perot’s announcement, he turned down a one-month contract for $8,000 to advise a clothing business how to tighten up security to prevent losses. He said he was extremely angry.

Volunteers continued to appear at the doors to the campaign office on Ventura Boulevard to ask if there was anything they could do. Norris said he had signed up 131 of them by Tuesday. But he can’t tell them what, if anything, there will be to do after next week, when the Texas officials are expected to decide what their commitment will be to a campaign without a candidate.

“We’re asking people to sit tight for a week or 10 days until we get definitive direction out of Dallas,” Norris said.

Meanwhile, the office is still open for business, even if it is hardly the hub of activity it was two weeks ago, when crowds of passers-by would gather out front to watch through the window the big-screen television that endlessly replayed a March speech by Perot to the National Press Club.

In its place Friday was a 19-inch set tuned to a CNN psychologist giving on-the-air advice.

Campaign officials also were much more candid to visitors, fully aware that there was no reason to protect the image of a non-candidate.

Norris told a story about the sign he used to have in front of his house in Studio City that said “This House Is Sold on Ross Perot.” After Perot withdrew, Norris said, his wife suggested putting up a new sign reading, “This House Was Sold Out by Ross Perot.”

Norris said he doesn’t think he will vote for Perot even if he gets back in the race.

Perot memorabilia sold well in the days after the announcement to political junkies who especially prize the material of a failed campaign.

“Last Saturday we did $1,800 in memorabilia,” Waldman said.

T-shirts selling for $15 each read “The Party’s Over” and are meant to refer to the two-party system Perot challenged. But in the wake of the candidate’s withdrawal, they seemed to have a whole new meaning on Friday.

“Yeah,” Waldman said with a laugh. “It’s almost like predictive.”