Trade Pact Debate Disappoints Valley Group

The stalwarts of United We Stand America were not all that united. Nor were they sure exactly where they stood.

Members of the West Valley chapter of the group, formed to promote Ross Perot’s drive for the presidency, were disappointed in the first debate between their leader and Vice President Al Gore over the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.

Gathering to watch it on cable television in a Mexican restaurant in Woodland Hills, they were rooting for a clear-cut Perot victory, but ended the evening unhappy with the results and sounding even a little peeved with Perot.

“Overall, it was a very poor debate,” said Joelene Paris, 54, who owns a small company that makes ceramic mugs in Thousand Oaks. “It was more of a brawl. It wasn’t controlled, I don’t know what it was.”

Most of the 40 or so other members in the back room of the Casa de Carlos restaurant agreed.

“It wasn’t really a debate,” said Ron Gerds, a semi-retired heating and air-conditioning contractor, who had also made the drive from Thousand Oaks to watch the debate. “People were just buried with information. The personal attacks should have been cut off.”

And it wasn’t one of Perot’s trademark homespun one-liners that got the biggest laugh of the night, but a response from one of the members to Gore’s comment that Mexicans were not as poor as most Americans believed.

“Yeah,” mumbled someone in the back of the room sarcastically. “They’re all down there driving Cadillacs.”

The choice of Casa de Carlos, a Mexican restaurant, for the gathering had nothing to do with the group’s fear that NAFTA would siphon off American jobs to Mexico, members said. It’s the same restaurant where they always meet.

But while the group was less than completely satisfied with either man’s tactics, the debate did not change any minds.

“I had already decided about NAFTA, but I think Perot did great,” Frann Laudeman of Calabasas said. “I think he spoke for the American people. What bothers me is that you have all these (television) commentators coming on after the debate saying that he didn’t do well. I sat in a room full of people who would disagree.”

“Gore speaks to corporate America, not to the real America,” concluded Harry Musolff, the chapter’s president.

Meanwhile, a group of pro-NAFTA people who got together in a private residence in Mount Washington seemed to have watched an entirely different debate.

“I think Gore was much more consistent and free of rhetoric,” said Dan Garcia, head of real estate and public affairs at Warner Bros. “I think he was the clear winner tonight.”