Perot Reassumes the Mantle of Political Spoiler : The GOP again stands to be hurt most by his candidacy

Ross Perot has relaunched himself into presidential politics, this year as the candidate of the new Reform Party, which grew out of his remarkable race for the White House in 1992. Then, Perot took nearly 20 million votes, almost 19% of the total cast, a showing many Republican Party officials believe cost George Bush his chance for a second term. Perot isn’t expected to run as strongly this time around. But even with considerably reduced appeal Perot could tally enough votes in enough states to affect the electoral vote outcome in November.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who nominated Bob Dole at last week’s GOP convention, worries that 80% to 90% of Perot’s support could come from voters who would otherwise favor Dole. If 80% of the 2,296,006 votes Perot got in California four years ago had gone to Bush, he and not Bill Clinton would have won the state’s 54 electoral votes. If at the same time 80% of Perot voters in Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio had instead opted for the GOP, Bush would have carried those states and gathered enough electoral votes to win. No wonder McCain says of Perot’s candidacy, “it hurts us.”

How Perot got the Reform Party nomination isn’t a particularly pretty story. About 1.1 million voters who earlier signed petitions to get the party on state ballots were deemed by party officials as eligible to nominate a presidential candidate. But who these voters were was kept a deep secret. Richard Lamm, the former Colorado governor who was the first to declare he wanted the party’s nomination, was refused access to the list and so could not solicit support directly. In the end precious few--only about 4%--of the presumed party faithful bothered to take part in the nominating process. Perot’s central claim this year as before is that he represents the people, while the two major parties represent only special interests. He will be the Reform Party’s candidate based on the ballots of just 32,145 of those people.

Perot’s welcome if eccentrically presented contribution in 1992 was to harp on certain issues the major candidates preferred to ignore or skip over, among them the need for campaign financing reform. But when it came to talking about the hard steps needed to deal with pressing economic issues--just how to slash budget deficits or control entitlements, for example--Perot waffled and took refuge in the same imprecisions and generalities as Clinton and Bush. Perot continues to present himself, disingenuously in the light of his history, as the untainted outsider who speaks for all who hate the status quo. No doubt that remains a potent vote-getting posture. But a posture is a long way from being a coherent program. Just what kind of alternative Perot in fact presents remains to be defined. The greatest value he could bring to this year’s election would be to continue to harp on the deficit and entitlements, if for no other reason than to egg on Dole and Clinton to respond with specific proposals.