Word: perot
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...Ross Perot is fundamentally a superb salesman. So superb that it amounts to a form of genius. Over the years, he has become far more sophisticated in his analysis of political issues, but he retains the glib salesman's tendency to reduce complex realities to catchy slogans. In the old days, he advocated, as a cure for poverty, teaching the Boy Scout Oath -- to do my best, to do my duty, to God and to my country -- to every child in the ghetto. Let's face it, it's not sufficient...
This is not a man who has grasped the concept of dead oceans. American Perot-nistas bear a superficial resemblance to the Argentine variety. What we have here is a strongman, a right-wing populist: no party, no program -- just a cult of personality. All he needs now is an Evita...
Once when Juan Peron was returning (he was always returning), the Peronistas stopped cheering after he had passed by and commenced shooting one another, having nothing in common other than their allegiance to Peron. One suspects the Perot-nistas (the coinage is by novelist Peter Tauber) will have the same problem, though one trusts not as dramatically...
There is always a superficial attraction to the notion of an outsider coming in to clean up a corrupt, wasteful political system. "Let's send Ross Perot up there," cries Bubba. "He knows how to kick ass." Successful "bidnessmen" have been running for office in Texas for years on that appeal: "Vote for me; I've met a payroll; I understand the bottom line." We have been plagued in recent years by rich guys bored with making boodle who decide to take up public service instead. An entirely commendable impulse, but why don't they start by running...
Then one day I put into print a glaring error about Perot. I was holding forth on one of the more devastating imbecilities of the Reagan era, the abolition of the progressive income tax in favor of a two-tier flat tax rate. I ended this screed by observing, "And so you see, if you make more than $17,500 a year, you will not be in exactly the same tax bracket as H. Ross Perot." And then, because my high school English teacher taught me to write balanced sentences, I added, comma, "who makes more than $1 million...