Perot Ejects Political Pros, Plans to Fly Solo

Independent candidate Ross Perot will spurn the advice of political professionals and rely entirely upon his own instincts and money to mount his last-minute insurgent bid for the presidency, an aide said Friday.

Just one day after entering the race, the billionaire Texan let it be known that he has divorced himself entirely from all of the political experts and even many of the longtime friends who had been involved in his potential campaign earlier this year.

“We are going to let Perot be Perot,” declared Orson Swindle, executive director of Perot’s nationwide organization and his de facto press spokesman. “I think everybody should know that he does not like the idea of turning himself over to someone to make him over into something he is not.”

Perot, whose campaign prospects blossomed last spring on live national television talk shows, has told associates that he will rely heavily upon that medium to carry his message to voters because he does not expect to get favorable coverage in the daily press.

He not only expects to take part in the nationally televised debates with President Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton, but he already has begun to purchase network time to run a series of low-budget, prerecorded half-hour commercials and so-called “fireside chats” in which he will outline his proposal to trim the federal deficit and restore the nation to economic health.

On Friday, in an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC-TV’s “20/20,” Perot emphasized that his prescription for nursing a sick economy back to health would cause pain for every American. Aides said that would be the central theme of his campaign in the weeks to come.

“There will be pain everywhere,” he said. “It’s like World War II. We had shared sacrifice.”

During his initial consideration of a presidential bid earlier this year, Perot was surrounded by a cadre of longtime business associates, such as Tom Luce and Morton H. Meyerson, and professional political advisers, such as Republican Edward J. Rollins and Democrat Hamilton Jordan.

But the candidate quickly soured on the advice of the political operatives, which he apparently viewed as too conventional. The billionaire candidate also refused to fund a costly television advertising campaign that his political aides urged on him.

Perot’s falling out with his professional staff came to light when Rollins resigned in protest from the campaign on July 15. Just one day later, Perot announced that he would not enter the race.

Apparently as a result of that experience, Perot decided when he chose to enter the race on Thursday that he would run the campaign himself, serving as his own campaign manager, speech writer and scheduler.

“This is going to be an unorthodox campaign,” Swindle said. “It’s run by volunteers. We are not professional political people. There are no professional political people involved in this thing whatsoever.”

In an opinion column published in the New York Times earlier this week, Rollins said Perot’s rejuvenated candidacy was doomed to failure because he “is a man who will not listen to anybody.” He added that Perot’s “greatest political asset, his independence, has also proved to be his most fatal flaw.”

James D. Squires, Perot’s former press secretary, told the Los Angeles Times that the independent candidate now listens to only a couple of men, including Swindle, who serves as executive director of United We Stand, America, the Perot organization; former television anchorman Murphy Martin; and former Tennessee publisher and politician John Jay Hooker.

“He’s going to run this campaign the way he wanted to run the first campaign and we wouldn’t let him,” said Squires, referring to the political professionals. “The others wanted him to do things that were against all his instincts.”

Perot’s television ads were produced by Martin during the period when Perot was out of the campaign picture. When he entered the race on Thursday, he said that he was doing so, in part, because the networks had refused to sell him time to air his ads when he was not officially a candidate.

According to Swindle, Perot has already purchased a half-hour of time on CBS on Tuesday night, immediately before the National League baseball playoffs. The Associated Press reported that the half-hour will cost him $380,000. In addition, Swindle said he was seeking to purchase a half-hour on ABC on Friday night, which was said to cost him about $620,000.

One of Perot’s prerecorded commercials explains his economic plan and another is a biography of the self-made billionaire, according to Swindle. In addition, he said that Perot has prepared a number of 30-second commercials on a variety of themes.

Swindle said Perot’s ads will offer an undiluted explanation of the bitter medicine that he has prescribed for the nation’s economy, including a 50-cent gasoline tax, higher taxes for Social Security recipients, cuts in Medicare and other government entitlements and limits on home mortgage interest deductions.

Squires said Perot will rely on paid television advertising and talk show interviews because he anticipates that the news media will portray him as a spoiler in the presidential contest.