Man Behind ‘Perot Phenomenon’ Sees Bigger Changes Ahead : John J. Hooker, a flamboyant deal-maker, envisions a 1996 campaign with five candidates for the White House.

He’s made and lost several fortunes. He’s never held public office after a lifetime of lusting to be President. In his hometown, he’s derided as a flamboyant blowhard and has-been by people who in their next breath praise his visionary brilliance.

Now, John J. Hooker, lawyer, deal-maker and world-class eccentric--the man credited (or blamed) for orchestrating Ross Perot’s entry into the last presidential campaign--is getting ready for 1996 with an even bigger idea: the end of American politics as we know it. Just remember you heard it from him first.

Never mind that the “Perot phenomenon” he helped engineer fizzled like a bad spoof of a Frank Capra movie; Hooker says that doesn’t matter. “The Perot phenomenon had nothing to do with Perot!” he said the other day. (In Hooker-speak, every sentence ends with an exclamation point.) “It had to do with the American people wanting to take the government back, wanting one-man, one-vote and wanting to feel like true participants!”

What does this mean for 1996? This is Hooker’s vision: five candidates, all with their own political parties, running for President in the general election. One would be a Democrat, one a Republican, one would represent the far left, another the far right, and Hooker is betting that one will be Perot.

“The time has come in America when people are going to have candidates that will speak their point of view on a more meaningful basis than is possible under a two-party system!” he said.

Perennial Democratic insider Bert Lance, Hooker’s co-conspirator in formulating this theory of the American political future, put it another way: “We’re going to see a ballot that looks like America.”

With five strong candidates, no single person likely could win sufficient votes in the Electoral College, and selection of the President would be thrown into the House of Representatives. Hooker and Lance argue that this would be the start of coalition government, with various political factions uniting over common interests to pick a President.

Critics say this is a recipe for chaos.

“I can see serious social and economic problems if the House elected the President,” said George Barrett, a Nashville attorney active in state Democratic politics and a longtime friend of Hooker. “It would open the door to the selection of a demagogue.”

There is also a contradiction embedded in the proposition, Barrett contends: While such a system would appear to give various constituencies a stronger voice in government, the actual selection of a President would be made by the 435 Washington insiders who make up the House of Representatives. He sees this as far less responsive to the people than the current Electoral College system.

After two years of running this theory past friends in private, Hooker and Lance took it public recently, spelling it out before an audience of Neiman Fellows at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

Perot proved that a candidate can get on the ballot and win 19% of the vote without support from the two major parties, even while running a “bad campaign,” Lance said.

Hooker and Lance predict that either Patrick J. Buchanan or Pat Robertson, recognizing that they have no chance of winning the Republican Party nomination, will launch an independent candidacy in 1996.

Hooker, a liberal who won overwhelming black support in his races for Tennessee governor in 1966 and 1970, said that he is actively courting the Rev. Jesse Jackson to run in 1996 as the independent leftist candidate. He suggested, however, that the two-time presidential candidate lacks the fire to run.

A spokeswoman for Jackson would say only that Hooker is a “friend” and would not comment on a possible candidacy.

Sander Vanocur, the former TV political and diplomatic correspondent who is now working at the Freedom Forum, criticized the plan as a Balkanization of the electoral process that would lead to congressional government. “You all want excitement in politics,” he said. “I don’t think you can govern with excitement.”

Hooker and Lance insist that they are not advocates. “I’m not at all happy about what is taking place,” Lance said. “I’m just saying change is out there.”

But they are not above agitating to help make it happen.

Urging Perot to enter the race, Hooker said, was the first step to the realization of this vision.

And what qualifies these two discredited politicos to advance such a theory?

Bill Kovach, former New York Times Washington bureau chief and now director of the Neiman Fellowship, introduced Lance at the forum as having a keen understanding of American politics--a man so integral to the Jimmy Carter White House that when he resigned as budget director in 1977, the Administration lost its effectiveness and vision.

Lance, now a business consultant in Calhoun, Ga., resigned because of a congressional investigation into allegations of mishandling funds at his Georgia bank. He was indicted on 33 federal counts of bank fraud, but a jury acquitted him of nine counts in 1980; the other counts were dismissed.

He resigned as bank chairman in 1986 and agreed to pay a fine after being charged with violating federal security laws and making questionable loans.

Despite his troubles, Lance’s political judgment is respected. Walter F. Mondale nominated him--unsuccessfully--as Democratic Party chairman in 1984, and Lance chaired Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign and advised Jackson in his 1988 bid.

Hooker also has the ear of the politically powerful, despite being dismissed by many for his flamboyance and much-vaunted lack of personal discipline.

“John Jay is erratic, psychotic and brilliant,” said Raymond Thomasson, an aide to Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter. “John Jay has an uncanny, unnatural ability to read individuals, to read groups of individuals and the winds of change and predict where things may go. . . . He is absolutely a visionary.”

John Siegenthaler, the Freedom Forum director and a former aide to Robert F. Kennedy, remembers being on hand in 1968 when Hooker eloquently and movingly persuaded Hubert H. Humphrey to denounce the Vietnam War.

But this serious side is often hidden by the cartoonish character he created for himself to play four decades ago while still in law school. The character, who wears a cream-colored homburg, dark vested suit, collar pin and gold watch fob, is in part a homage to his father, a larger-than-life Nashville trial lawyer.

Aside from advancing his new political theory and planning a book, Hooker, 63, is launching a new business venture. He describes it as being like the Domino Pizza franchise, only offering home-delivered full-course meals.

In the 1960s, Hooker made his first fortune with Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken. He had several hundred outlets when a Securities and Exchange Commission probe led to its collapse during his 1970 gubernatorial campaign.

In 1991, when Hooker helped orchestrate Perot’s entry into the presidential race, he was widely described in newspaper articles as a “flamboyant millionaire.” People who know him well say he was dead broke, a condition from which he has yet to extricate himself.

Yet, he still keeps up appearances while plotting his financial and political comeback. Still wearing his trademark uniform, he quickly takes charge of any room he enters--flirting with any woman in sight--and he still insists on picking up the dinner check.

“You can’t be in a room with John J. Hooker and not know who he is!” he exclaimed.

Times researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.

Vision or Political Folly?

John J. Hooker is described as a brilliant deal-maker whose serious side is often masked by the cartoonish character he’s created for himself.

HOOKER’S PLAN: Presidential general elections with five strong candidates vying for the White House.