Perot to Stay in Race; Decision a Blow to Lamm

Ross Perot declared Wednesday that he remains in the race for the nomination of the Reform Party he founded--dealing a potentially fatal blow to the day-old campaign of the party’s other announced presidential candidate, former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm.

“If the people want me to, certainly, I think it’s pretty obvious now, I am dedicated to this country,” Perot told CNN’s Larry King in response to questions about whether he would run. “I will continue to make whatever sacrifices are necessary. . . . “

Lamm, who watched Perot’s announcement here with a group of supporters after a day of campaigning, professed to be still confused about Perot’s intentions, saying, “He’s an enigma.”

But Perot, in fact, left no ambiguity about his intention not to step aside. Asked about Lamm, Perot said he wanted to “compliment him for his courage.”

But, he added, “we have to be responsive to the people who created this party. They have a strong desire for me to participate, and I am prepared to do whatever it takes” to help solve the nation’s problems.

“If they feel I am the person they want to do this job, then certainly I will give them everything I have to get it done,” he said.

Lamm said he will pursue the Reform Party nomination in any event. Asked if he could defeat Perot in his own party, he said, “I’m going to try.”

Perot cannot take the party nomination for granted, Lamm said. “The fact that they’re going to just blindly say that he’s our candidate is not going to happen. They’ve got minds of their own, and that’s what intrigues me about this Reform Party.”

But Lamm had clearly hoped Perot would not run. “I think he probably realizes we need a fresh face,” he had said Tuesday night after announcing his own candidacy.

Lamm’s supporters, like Mark Sturdevant, the vice chairman of the California Reform Party, had said repeatedly that they would “take Perot at his word” that he did not want the nomination for himself.

Indeed, Perot has repeatedly said that he hoped someone else would step forward to take the nomination--”it’s not about me,” he has said over and again. But many of those who had worked with him in his 1992 campaign had said from the day Perot first launched a new party that, in the end, he would not be willing to turn it over to someone else.

Now, Lamm faces the huge task of building name recognition and overcoming Perot’s built-in advantages in a party that he built. Lamm has significant support among members of the Reform Party in California and among potential financial backers in Silicon Valley, but he is little known in much of the country.

Ultimately, the Reform nominee will be chosen during a one-week canvass of the party’s roughly 1.3 million members between Aug. 11 and Aug. 18. The votes will be counted by an outside organization hired by Perot, who has consistently refused to identify the group.

Winning the nomination would set Perot up for a repeat of his 1992 third-party effort, but with a major difference. Opinion polls continue to reveal dissatisfaction with the two-party system and a potential opening for a new party. But the same surveys also show widespread disapproval of Perot.

A Los Angeles Times Poll this spring showed only 28% of Americans holding a favorable impression of Perot, 57% viewed him unfavorably. That is nearly a complete reversal from a Times Poll in October of 1992--a month before Perot won more than 19 million votes in the presidential election. At that point, he was viewed favorably by 52% and unfavorably by only 33%.

What support Perot does have seems to be drawn roughly evenly from President Clinton and Republican Bob Dole.

As for his party, Perot said it would endorse candidates in every one of the nation’s congressional and Senate campaigns and predicted it would provide the swing vote to decide which party controls Congress. But many outside analysts agree with Lamm, who said Tuesday that for the Reform Party to have a long-term impact on American politics “this party has to declare some degree of independence from Ross Perot.”

For his part, Lamm spent the day seeking support among the California high-technology community, declaring that he sees Silicon Valley as a metaphor for his own campaign for political reform.

His goal, Lamm said, is to try “to create a new political movement that is equivalent almost to the starting of Silicon Valley.”

The pioneers of the state’s computer and related high-tech industries “saw a need, they saw how you could put together a variety of assets, and create wealth,” Lamm said. Now, he added, he seeks to use a similar process “to create a better problem-solving machine than right now serves America.”

The Silicon Valley area, which runs down the San Francisco peninsula through Stanford University to San Jose, has been a region open to political mavericks, especially moderate Republicans, such as former Reps. Pete McCloskey and Ed Zschau, and the area’s current congressman, Tom Campbell (R-San Jose).

Zschau appeared alongside Lamm at his news conference at San Jose’s Tech Museum of Innovation and endorsed his candidacy. So, too, did former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery, a Democrat.

In a session with reporters here, Lamm spelled out his positions on several controversial issues, and on one he seemed to shade his position closer to Perot’s.

Lamm said he considered himself an advocate of free trade, but he appeared to credit Perot with foresight for his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Portions of NAFTA, notably on worker safety and the environment, were not adequately negotiated, and “if it came up now, I would vote no,” Lamm said. “It’s very important that the Reform Party not be branded as a protectionist party. We very much want free and fair trade.”

Lamm said he would have voted for California’s Proposition 187 in 1994 and that while he could not comment specifically on the affirmative action initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot in California, he said that he would preserve affirmative action for now, eliminating it at the end of the 10-year period of “reform and renewal” that he has called for.

* MAJOR OVERHAUL: How Social Security would change under Lamm. D1