Perot Gets Back in Race, Vows an Unconventional Campaign : Politics: Texas tycoon says he’s responding to will of the people in running for President. Retired Vice Adm. Stockdale is running mate.

Ross Perot, continuing to astound and confound the American political system, on Thursday formally declared that he will be a candidate for the presidency after all.

Saying that he is responding to the will of the people, the Texas billionaire said that he plans to run an abbreviated and unconventional campaign focused solely on what he called “the issues that concern the American people.”

He said he feels compelled to run because the two major candidates have failed to face up to the country’s current economic and political problems.

Perot had said last July that he would not be an independent candidate for the White House because he had concluded that he could not win and that his presence would be disruptive.

In a raucous and at times hostile press conference in a North Dallas hotel meeting room, Perot ducked most specific questions on his controversial plan for economic revival, which he issued in book form last month. Instead, he doled out large portions of his standard stump speech, heavily laced with patriotic homilies and attacks on the media.

More than 200 press representatives were present to witness the hurling of Perot’s latest political grenade. The room was also packed with cheering and sobbing Perot supporters who had come to witness the revival of their hero.

Perot announced that he was joining the campaign in an 18-minute speech, which he read from a prepared text. He was flanked on the stage by his wife, Margot; his vice presidential candidate, retired Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale and his wife, Sybil; his sister, Bette; and three of his five children: Nancy, Carolyn and Ross Jr.

He left the stage immediately after his remarks, refusing to answer a single question and leaving the podium to Orson Swindle, executive director of the Perot volunteer organization, now known as United We Stand, America.

Reporters demanded to know when Perot would begin answering questions and defining the purpose of his candidacy. After 10 minutes of increasingly angry questioning, Perot returned to the podium, explaining that he left because he “wanted to get my family safely out of here.”

Perot’s political rebirth, which was preceded by two weeks of broad hints that he was preparing just such a move, changes the dynamic of the political campaign in ways that no one can predict.

With less than five weeks remaining until Election Day, Perot’s presence on the 50 state ballots holds the potential to shift key states to or from President Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Although recent polls show Perot winning barely 10% support, he could upend the electoral map. A national tracking poll by Cable News Network and USA Today released Thursday gave Perot 7%, Clinton 52% and Bush 35%.

Clinton, in Milwaukee, reacted matter-of-factly to the development but with a gentle poke at Perot’s earlier dalliance.

“My reaction is that I got into this race and I stayed in this race through thick and thin because I believed that we couldn’t afford four more years of George Bush and trickle-down economics, because I believe we need an investment strategy to put the American people back to work. My plan is the best plan to put the people back to work,” the Democratic nominee said in an impromptu statement in the Hyatt Regency lobby.

He vacillated when asked whether Perot’s entrance would hurt his own campaign. “Not if I do a good job. It could. But if I do a good job and the people who are supporting me stay and we keep getting the ideas out--we’ve clearly got the best plan.”

Minutes later, outside the hotel, Clinton added: “I think we’re going to win this campaign.”

Bush’s White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, appeared unruffled, and, in fact, Bush aides have been saying all week that they would welcome Perot’s candidacy as a way to shake up the lock that Clinton appears to have on the lead. “He is on the ballot in all 50 states,” Fitzwater said. “Mr. Perot has a strong corps of supporters across the country, and he deserves to have an opportunity to run. We will continue to press our campaign for economic growth and security.”

Perot is thought to dislike Bush, but he denied Thursday that he was joining the campaign to hurt the President’s reelection chances.

“Absolutely not. That’s press myth number 615,” he said. “Absolutely not. Absolutely not.”

He noted that Bush and his aides have called him “everything from ‘monster’ to ‘crazy,’ ” but said he was not engaged in a vendetta against the incumbent.

“I wouldn’t spend 10 minutes because of personal dislike,” Perot said. “I certainly wouldn’t spend the money I’m having to spend on this” solely to defeat Bush.

So far, Perot has spent about $18 million of his own money, with tens of millions more almost certain to go for television advertising. When he contemplated entering the race earlier this year, Perot said he’d be willing to spend $100 million to fund his own campaign. Bush and Clinton each get about $55 million in federal funds and are limited to that. But their political parties can spend millions more on supportive activities, such as getting out the vote.

It was 11 weeks ago to the day that Perot withdrew from the race, saying he had no chance to win and did not want to be “disruptive” to the process. He said that the Democratic Party had been “revitalized” under Clinton, but he did not endorse the Democratic nominee and had continued to leave open the possibility of re-entering the contest.

Since then, his headquarters staff has shrunk to 50 workers from 150 and his volunteer organization has been vastly reduced, with perhaps no more than a few hundred thousand loyalists left from the 5.5 million voters who signed petitions to put his name on the ballot.

Swindle, of United We Stand, America, said that 150,000 Perot supporters had been polled over the last three days to gauge their sentiments about Perot’s candidacy. He said that 93% had said they wanted him to run.

But Swindle acknowledged on Wednesday that only Perot supporters and volunteers had been polled and that the result was a foregone conclusion.

Perot explicitly apologized to his supporters Thursday for his July 16 decision to suspend his campaign.

“My decision in July hurt you. I apologize,” Perot said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I made a mistake. I take full responsibility for it.” He explained that he had left the race because he thought the major parties would address the nation’s fundamental economic ills. “We gave them a chance,” Perot said. “They didn’t do it.”

Perot said that his motive is as much to clean up the American political “mess” as to right the faltering economy.

“We will create a new political climate where the system does not attract ego-driven, power-hungry people,” Perot said. Many in the press corps--perhaps the most openly skeptical group faced by any American politician since Richard M. Nixon--giggled aloud at the final words of that sentence.

Perot said that he had called the press conference to announce his candidacy and “have a positive good time.” Instead, he said, “everything here is the usual hostile, negative yelling, screaming.”

He said he would not “spend one minute” answering questions that are not relevant to the issues concerning the public.

But he could not avoid questions about the latest report involving the use of private investigators to look into the backgrounds and finances of some of his supporters.

The Perot campaign paid more than $76,000 in August and September to a San Francisco security firm. The firm provided security guards and investigated allegations of embezzlement and fraud within the volunteer organizations of several states.

Perot dismissed the report as a “non-issue,” while not denying that the campaign had employed the sleuths. He said the bulk of their work was in providing security for state offices and investigating threats against Perot or his employees.

Swindle said the firm provided “the same type of security arrangements that the Secret Service would normally provide.”

One reporter tried to ask a substantive question arising from Perot’s platform, as presented in Perot’s best-selling paperback, “United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country.”

Echoing a criticism of the plan made by Clinton campaign economic advisers, the reporter asked whether Perot’s plan for tax increases and benefit cuts would have a disproportionate impact on the middle class.

“I wouldn’t dignify that answer with a comment,” Perot shot back. He refused to elaborate.

Perot also declined to describe how he would conduct his campaign, saying that opposing coaches don’t give away their game plans before the big game.

“We’re not going to lay out our strategy for you. It’ll be unconventional, I’ll tell you that.” He added that he was in the race to win, and that he would win by highlighting the issues.

Perot’s platform was put together by a group of experts he gathered. But the principal author of the plan, John P. White, was less than enthralled with Perot’s latest move.

“Now, my friend Ross says he’s going to run, and I think that’s a mistake,” White said in a speech Thursday at American University. “And I told him so.

“I think he is going to confuse the election process, and he risks demeaning the issues he brought to the fore.

“Fundamentally, I don’t think he wants to be President,” said White, a former official in the Jimmy Carter Administration. “Clearly, there is evidence, in the way in which he withdrew and when he did it, that raises doubts about whether he has the temperament to be President.” Aides said that Perot and Stockdale expect to be invited to participate in the presidential debates and that they would accept.

Swindle said that Perot would conduct press conferences and other public forums in the future, but he signaled that the Perot drive would largely be waged on the airwaves.

“I think you will see a heavy emphasis on media, on television,” Swindle said.

Perot’s only scheduled public appearance in the next few days is an interview with Barbara Walters on the ABC program “20/20” tonight.

The Perot campaign has hired Texas’ largest advertising agency, Temerlin-McLain, to buy blocks of television time to air the candidate’s spots, two dozen of which have already been shot. Perot aides have contacted ABC about purchasing a half-hour block of prime time on Oct. 9, according to network sources quoted by the Associated Press.

But Perot will be his own campaign manager, Swindle said. He has no plans to hire a professional staff, as he did last spring by bringing on board Republican Edward J. Rollins and Democrat Hamilton Jordan. Perot later fired Rollins, and Jordan quit after Perot dropped out last July.

Stockdale, in brief remarks, called Perot an “extraordinary man” and described him as the “guardian of the American fighting man.”

Stockdale, like Swindle, was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and has been forever grateful for Perot’s efforts on behalf of POWs and missing servicemen since the late 1960s.

Stockdale, perhaps anticipating the rough ride ahead, then quoted the Greek philosopher Epictetus, who he said was his patron saint during his captivity in Hanoi: “A life not put to the test is not worth living.”

Reaction to Perot’s announcement was mixed.

“I think he planned this way back in February,” said Sue Drew, a former Perot campaign coordinator in Monrovia, Calif., who now supports Clinton. “I think it’s just a shrewd business tactic. . . . I feel betrayed that he lied to us, the volunteers. He quits in July, the volunteers don’t hear from him until Oct. 1. That’s betrayal.”

Drew predicted that Perot’s candidacy will not play well with the American public. “I think he’s hoping absence makes the heart grow fond, but I don’t think it will work that way. He lost a lot of people when he pulled out, and they won’t be back.”

But Shirley Everett, a Perot volunteer in Thousand Oaks, Calif., was gleeful. “I’m ecstatic, just thrilled that Ross Perot has entered again. I think we need a third choice. This country is in such terrible trouble. . . . He’s sincere, he’s for the working class. Ross Perot is a refreshing change.”

John Townsend, Perot’s Alaska state coordinator, agreed. “Finally! Finally! It’s going to put a man in office who will actually do something for a change. He will change America back to what it’s supposed to be.”

And some suggested that Perot will boost the quality of the presidential debate.

“I applaud what he’s trying to do, which is to force the other candidates to face the music and debate the issues,” said Merrick Okamoto, who had served as Orange County chairman for the Perot campaign until July. “I just don’t believe that with all the water that has gone under the bridge he can win the presidency.”

Okamoto hasn’t decided who he will vote for, but says he won’t campaign for Perot.

Some political observers said Perot could boost Bush right back into the White House.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic campaign consultant in Washington, said: “It’s an irony that he despises George Bush, yet he may be Bush’s only hope. . . .

“Perot can’t win the race. He serves only to confuse the situation, to muddy the debates, and to get us back into a three-dimensional chessboard with the Electoral College. . . . He could end up tilting certain states, depending on where he deploys his resources.

“California is out of reach, but he could end up tilting Florida or Texas or other states in the South.”

Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington, Eric Bailey in Orange County and Cathleen Decker in Wisconsin contributed to this story.

THE PEROT FACTOR: He’s back, but there is disagreement on the impact. A24

DROP IN POPULARITY: A Times Poll shows Perot lacking appeal in California. A25

Profile: James Stockdale

Here is some background on retired Vice Adm . James Bond Stockdale, Ross Perot’s running mate: Age: 68 Education: Graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946. Military: Led the first bombing attack against North Vietnam in 1964, in response to bogus reports of Vietnamese attacks on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. “I literally led the initial strike of a war I knew was under false pretenses,” he said. He was shot down a year later and became the highest-ranking naval prisoner of war. He was held for eight years. Served in the Navy until 1979. Awarded the Medal of Honor and 26 combat decorations. Currently: A senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Personal: Wife, Sybil, four sons. Stands on key issues: Says he favors abortion rights, is “not opposed” to gun control, and contrary to Perot, supported military action in the Gulf War, noting that it had been approved by Congress. Source: Associated Press