Word: perot
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...Ross Perot is not the sort of politician who would pick a running mate from, say, New Hampshire just to bring geographical balance to the ticket. He'd rather draft a can-do hero. Insiders say Colin Powell has been on his short list. But Perot's greatest ticket-building efforts so far, according to one report, have been spent trying to woo Desert Storm commander NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF. Frustrated voters would be likely to cheer Stormin' Norman as just the sort of guy who could help get things done in Washington. But Schwarzkopf, who reportedly has turned down Perot...
...Ross Perot enjoys comparisons with Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt. He sees himself as a can-do guy in a can't-do era -- as a feisty straight-talker like Truman, as a bold experimenter like F.D.R., whose plan for rescuing capitalism ("Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it and try another; but above all try something") is echoed in Perot's call for "action, action, action." Perot may never be ranked with Truman and Roosevelt -- and of course he would have to win first -- but he already personifies an enduring strain in American life...
...itself, wrote the educator Horace Mann. For those men, he said, the question was "Where can I be -- not what can I be." Jackson shared the public's disdain for this complacency and championed the frontiersman's ideal, the equicompetence of most men to most tasks. Like Perot, Jackson had wide support in all sections of the country (which sets both men apart from most third- party candidates, who have essentially represented various extremes...
...have so many felt so estranged from their leaders. As recently as 1964, only 29% said the government was run for the benefit of a few big interests. Today that figure is 80%. For these reasons, and because so many view George Bush and Bill Clinton as "just" politicians, Perot could actually win in November. The anecdotal evidence supports the surveys. People see Perot as a personification of the American Dream (from newsboy to billionaire) and want to believe in him as a political savior. They are eager to perceive him as having the character and temperament to be President...
Still, any number of obstacles could cause Perot to fade like a cheap suit. Right now he is seen as sincere (which calls to mind George Burns' famous crack, "Sincerity is everything: if you can fake that, you've got it made"). But Perot's feistiness could come to be seen as meanness, his buccaneerism as recklessness. Already some of his (few) articulated positions have been exposed as two-faced; on taxes, for example, he has alternately said over the years that he favors raising them and that he never would. He has played the system to great advantage...