Ross Perot’s Budget Plan

The daily speculation and consternation about what will happen to the supporters of Ross Perot now that he’s apparently out of the presidential campaign has missed an obvious venue for their involvement: the national and state-level movement for term limitations.

If it’s true that the Perot campaign attracted a large number of previously disaffected, unmobilized voters then a sizable share will return to the anonymity of private life, their cynicism about American politics confirmed once again. However, if Rousseau, Jefferson, Mill and others have been right about the personal rewards that come from political participation, then many of Perot’s supporters will not simply return to private life. Where will they go?

A small number will bury their frustrations with the Bush Administration and go back to the GOP; a larger number, having made at least a psychological commitment to the need for change in Washington, will hook up with Clinton and Gore.

For most others, however, involvement with either party may prove too unsavory. These supporters will turn their energy, ignited during the Perot campaign, to other unconventional candidates or to anti-incumbent political movements. It would be a natural for a healthy share of Perot’s volunteers to sign up for service in the political movement with the best chance of shaking up politics as usual from one end of the nation to the other: the movement to reinstate the practice of rotation in office as a fundamental principle of republican government by limiting the terms of state and national legislators.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Assistant Professor,

Dept. of Politics and Society

UC Irvine