ELECTIONS PRESIDENT : Perot Backers Blame Media for Brouhaha

Ross Perot supporters in Ventura County stood by their candidate Tuesday in the controversy over his charges that Republican dirty tricksters may have plotted to smear his daughter.

Dozens of irate Perot supporters called his county headquarters to vent their anger over the media’s coverage of the allegations, volunteers said.

At the same time, the volunteers said they have been victimized by Ventura County’s own dirty tricksters who have stolen most of Perot’s political signs planted throughout the county.

Telephone callers and hard-core Perot supporters staffing the headquarters in Port Hueneme said they weren’t necessarily mad at the Bush Administration for--as Perot charged--allegedly plotting to embarrass Perot’s daughter, Carolyn.

Instead, according to volunteers fielding the calls, Perot supporters said they were outraged at the media for what they perceived to be another ploy to discredit their candidate.

“The media is trying to swing it” against Perot, said a piqued Mary Smith, 62, of Oxnard, walking into the storefront office to pick up a Perot presidential campaign sign. “I would do nothing they ask me to do.”

Smith, a registered Republican who voted for President Bush in 1988, said she hardly blinked when she heard Perot describe on Monday a plot to besmirch his daughter.

“It’s 100% believable,” she said.

Leaders of Ventura County’s major political parties challenged Perot’s credibility on the dirty tricks allegation and did not see it as having an impact on the presidential race.

“It’s no more than comedic relief right now,” said Nels Henderson, chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee. “It tells you something about his style. He doesn’t have any proof. And it’s really not an issue in the election.”

“It doesn’t sound likely,” Richard Ferrier, chairman of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, said of the Perot disclosures. “I found it implausible. There’s no evidence.”

The Perot headquarters, a former clothing store in a small shopping center, was abuzz with activity as volunteers manned three telephone lines at desks festooned with red, white and blue balloons. Perot T-shirts, pins and signs were stacked on tables at the entrance.

“The callers are mad as hell,” said Alex Pegel, 38, of Port Hueneme, a Perot volunteer handling the telephones. “People say they are canceling their subscription to The Times.”

On Tuesday, The Times ran an editorial--titled “Can This Man Be Taken Seriously?”--in which Perot’s contentions about the alleged dirty tricks were questioned.

Bob Hayden, Perot’s California coordinator, appeared dismayed too when he glanced at the editorial.

“The American people are so tired of negative campaigning,” Hayden, a Ventura resident, said. “They’re tired of media that plays on negative stories that make front-page headlines.”

CBS’ “60 Minutes” also came under fire from Perot supporters for what they saw as sensationalizing the Texas billionaire’s allegations concerning his daughter.

“Dozens of calls, dozens of calls,” was how Pegel, a former television producer, described the deluge.

“The whole tone of the calls changed in the last two days” as a result of the dirty tricks brouhaha, said Dick Clemence, 60, of Ventura, another Perot volunteer handling telephone lines. “People are extremely suspicious of the media’s motives. They don’t feel they’re getting the truth.”

But of the purported dirty tricks plot itself, volunteer Barbara Myers of Oxnard just shrugged it off.

“That’s politics,” she said.

Meanwhile, Pegel, pointing to yellow patches on a Ventura County wall map, charged that vandals with an anti-Perot bent had plundered about 80% of the 1,100 Perot campaign signs placed around the county.

Stealing the signs was “a dirty trick,” Karrol Maughmer, Perot’s Ventura County spokeswoman, said.

“It was done too systematically--whole strings of signs plucked out of clusters of other signs,” she said.

“It’s a sleazy campaign trick,” echoed Pegel.

Maughmer also said she was disenchanted with the media and, in turn, proud of the Perot organization’s slogan:

“Don’t let the media elect the next President.”