Perot’s Ambiguity Generates Hope, Confusion, Disgust : Campaign: Supporters plead with the Texan to re-enter the race. He says he may declare solely to buy air time to deliver his economic message.

In trying to divine the electoral intentions of Ross Perot, the last person to ask is Ross Perot.

In television and print interviews during the last week, he has teased and tantalized his supporters into believing his re-entry into the presidential race was all but inevitable.

But he also has said his return to the fray is “unlikely” and that all he wants to do is to force President Bush and Bill Clinton to confront the deficit and other economic problems facing the country.

And then Friday he said he might declare his candidacy solely for the purpose of buying air time to deliver his message of economic austerity.

Which Ross Perot is to be believed? And why should he be trusted when, after promising in February to run a “world-class campaign” if his supporters put his name on all 50 state ballots, he then dropped out ignominiously even before the first lap of the race had been run?

Arizona on Friday became the last of the 50 states to submit petition signatures to win Perot a spot on the ballot. Walt Peters, chairman of the Arizona Perot organization now known as United We Stand, America, said he has every expectation that his man will rejoin the presidential sweepstakes.

“It’s my opinion he’ll be candidate for President, after we ask him to,” said Peters. “We’re giving him a reasonable time before the election; (today) is 46 days before the general election. It’s not his obligation (to run) but it would just be our plea, from his supporters in United We Stand, America, to raise his hand and volunteer.”

But Perot ducked Peters’ invitation to attend the Phoenix rally Friday marking the submission of ballot petitions, considering an appearance on the NBC “Today” show a more appropriate venue for venting his ambiguous purposes.

After dancing around the question of whether he would re-enter the race, Perot said on the program that he wanted to address the American people directly on the nation’s economic crisis, but that the television networks would not sell him time unless he was a bona fide presidential contender. “So I may be the first guy in history that had to declare he was a candidate so that he could buy TV time,” Perot said. “We’ll have to see. The lawyers are working on it now.”

He repeated his pledge to follow the wishes of his volunteers; if they demand that he run, Perot has said, he’ll just have to do their bidding.

Perot said last week, “If after we do everything we can to get the parties to face the issues, if they won’t, if the volunteers said, ‘It’s a dirty job but you’ve got to do it,’ I belong to them.”

Virtually all of the state chairmen contacted by news organizations this week said they want Perot to rejoin the race. But Perot says that before he makes any decision, all 50 state coordinators, after consulting with their local volunteers, would have to petition him formally to re-enter.

Already, some states are issuing pleas. “You must re-enter the race,” said a fax message sent to Perot’s Dallas headquarters by the California organization this week. “It’s a dirty job, Ross, but you’ve got to do it! You won’t be in the ring alone. We’ll be there with you every step of the way.”

Will he be moved?

“I don’t know,” said Bob Hayden of Ventura, the California chairman of United We Stand.

“I don’t believe that (qualifying on the Arizona ballot) should be construed that this is the day something will happen,” Hayden said in a telephone interview from Perot’s statewide headquarters in Los Angeles. “I don’t believe Friday is the turning point. But it is a significant day.”

Hayden said that California had 50,000 volunteers and 50 offices at the height of Perot frenzy in early July. Now, he says, they are down to 16 offices and maybe half the number of volunteers. But he contends that all 50,000 volunteers will be back if Perot re-enters the race.

Orson Swindle, the Perot-paid executive director of United We Stand, said despite the sincere enthusiasm of the Perot volunteers, Perot will not be pressured prematurely into declaring his candidacy. He said the state organizations should be concentrating on gathering responses from candidates for federal office on how they would deal with the national debt, deficit, joblessness and other critical economic questions. Based on the replies, he said, the organization will endorse candidates starting early next month.

It’s unclear, however, how effective that tactic will be. The Nevada United We Stand organization earlier this month endorsed a GOP primary challenger to incumbent Rep. Barbara F. Vucanovich (R-Nev.), but Vucanovich won anyway. United We Stand also endorsed the losing candidate in the Nevada Democratic Senate primary.

Swindle, who was a Commerce Department official in the Ronald Reagan Administration, said the leaders of United We Stand were unanimous in wanting Perot to run. “We respect his judgment, his desires, his way of doing things. But we’re somewhat impatient and obsessed with instant gratification. . . . But it’s a matter of timing. When it’s time, it’ll be time,” Swindle said.

Perot’s indecision has thrown the Bush campaign off stride, officials concede, particularly in states such as California and Texas, where the Perot movement is strongest.

The Bush campaign’s national political director, David Carney, said that Perot “complicates things particularly because of the uncertainty about whether he’s going to get back in the race or not.” The Bush team cannot decide whether to target a direct mail appeal at Perot petition signers because of the uncertainty about Perot’s intentions.

“You don’t know what to do,” Carney said. “Do you go after the petition signers and then find out you’ve wasted your resources (if Perot gets back in)?”

Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos said the Clinton campaign has not altered its strategy to account for the Perot factor and has given up trying to figure out what the Dallas billionaire is going to do. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it?” he said Friday. “I mean, he goes back and forth.”

Even if he re-enters the race, Perot cannot count on the support of all 5.5 million voters who signed petitions to put him on the ballot. Many were disillusioned or disgusted by his abrupt July departure from the race and his indecision since.

Miriam Grayboff, a former Perot supporter in Atlanta, said she fully expects Perot to rejoin the race just before the election.

“Perot is not dead. The guy is coming back,” Grayboff said in a telephone interview this week. “His ego is too big to keep back. He doesn’t want to be known as a quitter. He’s just waiting until it’s too late for the media to scrutinize him.”

She said the campaign had been taken over by a handful of lawyers and accountants under the direction of Dallas Perot headquarters, officials she refers to as the “Dallas SS.”

She said Perot is motivated as much by his hatred for President Bush as by ego gratification. But she fears that his re-entry would “muddy the waters” and deny Democratic nominee Bill Clinton a clear-cut victory. She said that thousands of swing voters in Georgia might desert Clinton to cast their ballots for Perot, allowing Bush to eke out a victory in that key Southern state.

She described the millions of people who signed Perot petitions as unwitting dupes whose names are now stored in Perot’s computers in Dallas. Most of the signers she knows have lost all respect for Perot because of his withdrawal and his subsequent ambiguous comments about rejoining the race, she said.

“The only real loyal followers are people on his payroll,” Grayboff said.

Times staff writers Ronald Soble and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.