User:Brianshapiro/Drafts/Ross Perot

Brianshapiro/Drafts/Ross Perot
Perot at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2008
Born	Henry Ross Perot (1930-06-27) June 27, 1930 Texarkana, Texas
Education	Texarkana Junior College United States Naval Academy
Occupation	Businessman
Political party	Independent Reform
Spouse	Margot Birmingham
Children	H. Ross, Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine
Website	perotcharts.com

Henry Ross Perot (pronounced /pəˈroʊ/; born June 27, 1930) is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988. Perot Systems was bought by Dell for $3.9 billion in 2009.

With an estimated net worth of about US$3.4 billion in 2011, he is ranked by Forbes as the 99th-richest person in the United States.

Early life

Perot was born in Texarkana, Texas, to Luly Maye Perot (née Ray) and Gabriel Ross Perot. His father was a cotton broker. He attended a private school called Patty Hill. He graduated from Texas High School in Texarkana in 1947. One of Perot's boyhood friends was Hayes McClerkin, later Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a prominent Texarkana, Arkansas, lawyer.

Perot joined the Boy Scouts of America and made Eagle Scout in 1942, after only thirteen months in the program. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Perot entered the United States Naval Academy in 1949 and helped establish its honor system. By the time he graduated in 1953 he was president of his class and battalion commander. By late 1954, Perot was made a lieutenant, junior grade. In 1955, however, Perot expressed some discontent with his life in the United States Navy in a letter to his father. He quietly served the remainder of his four-year commitment and resigned his commission.. Perot married Margot Birmingham of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1956.

Business

Electronic Data Systems (EDS)

After he left the Navy in 1957, Perot became a salesman for International Business Machines (IBM). He quickly became a top employee, filling his year's sales quota in two weeks. He would regularly fill his sales quota months early and ask for more work, only to be told he was making more money than some of the company's executives; in response, he requested, and received an 80 percent reduction on his commissions so he could keep on working. Perot soon approached IBM executives with the idea the company not only sell hardware, but also supply customized software and technical support, only to be dismissed. Still upset by the rejection, he was inspired to leave IBM and start his own company after reading in a copy of Reader's Digest a quotation from Henry Thoreau: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Recognizing that some companies needed computer services but couldn't afford the gigantic expense of an IBM mainframe, and that some companies bought computers but didn't use them all the time, he decided to create Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a data processing company. The corporation was created in mid-1962, with a $1,000 loan from his wife, and he soon courted large corporations for his services. He was refused seventy-seven times before he was given his first contract, but soon his business was doing moderately well, counting Collins Radio, Frito Lay, PepsiCo, and Keebler Co. as its clients. In the 1960s, a market for processing medical-claims records was created from the newly formed Medicare and Medicaid programs, and EDS began to capture state contracts. The company went public in 1968 and the stock price rose from $16 a share to $160 within days. Fortune called Perot the "fastest, richest Texan" in a 1968 cover story.

In 1969, after Collins Radio started having financial difficulties, Perot started a takeover bid with a tender offer, with the hopes that the combined assets of the companies would be able to create a rival to IBM. Several large institutional investors bought up shares with the belief that the EDS bid would be successful, but after Perot refused to increase his tender offer, and the investors no longer thought they could make a good profit, they stood in opposition to the takeover and started looking for other firms.

The company under Perot was known for its conservative culture, strict dress code and moral code. Men wore dark suits, white shirts, and subdued ties, and facial hair and tasseled shoes were forbidden; while women were not allowed to wear pants, except in cold weather with prior permission. People who had divorced were looked at skeptically during the hiring process, and an extramarital affair could be grounds for dismissal. The pay was low and the hours was long; but Perot tried to compensate by giving his employees company stock, sending flowers to their wives to thank them for their sacrifice, and in certain cases, offering them special medical care. In a famous episode, he helped stage a hostage rescue mission, when two of his employees were being held as prisoners in Iran after the Iranian Revolution. In order to identify with his employees, Perot would eat at the company cafeteria. "What is an EDSer?" Perot once asked; "An EDSer is a person that goes anywhere, anytime, twenty-four hours a day, seven days in a week, to make sure that EDS is the finest company in the world and nobody beats us in competition."

Perot gained some press attention in 1974 for being "the biggest individual loser ever on the New York Stock Exchange" when his EDS shares dropped $450 million in value in a single day in April 1970. In 1979, Perot negotiated to buy Microsoft, then a young 28-employee company. He was contemplating investments in fledgling makers of small computers, such as Apple, and saw Gates as a supplier of software for them. The deal fell apart; Perot found Gates' asking price too high. They've since kept in touch with each other. Later in 1985, when Steve Jobs was ousted from the management of Apple, and set out to form NeXT, he called Perot, who contributed with financial investments.

GM buyout and dispute

In 1984, EDS was sold to General Motors for a sum of $2.55 billion, in a deal under which EDS was to operate as an autonomous unit with Perot at the helm; Perot had hoped this would allow him to play a major role in the turnaround of General Motors as well as to expand EDS into international markets. Retaining ownership in the company, he was GMs largest individual stockholder and a member of the board of directors. Almost from the start, there was conflict over the exercise of power by Perot and GM's chairman Roger B. Smith. The two disagreed about the degree of independence that EDS had within the company, and soon clashed over basic elements of their agreement, such as employees' pay. While Perot thought he should decide the salaries of his employees, and compensate them for achievement, Smith claimed the amounts were too high compared with GM' payment structure, and complained that several EDS employees were paid better than GM executives. Perot criticized the high benefits given to GM managers compared to rank-and-file employees.

In 1985, Perot was the lone dissenting vote against the acquisition of Hughes Aircraft, arguing before the board that it was thoughtless spending which would just be throwing money at a problem, saying that the acquisition didn't change the fact that the cars being sold were riddled with defects. He used the occasion to criticize the company's management, saying it was "procedures oriented, not results oriented," that took weeks to decide problems, in which one would have to go through a series of unproductive meetings. He also complained that the management was out of touch with both workers and consumers, pointing to perks such as chauffeur-driven cars, special dining rooms and the 14th floor of the GM building, where the company's top managers work behind two sets of locked and guarded doors. Perot exhorted the board not to be simply a "ratifying council" which approved the decisions of management.

In 1986, as GM's profits continued to fall, they announced they would be closing 11 factories and laying off 30,000 workers. Perot — upset at the layoffs — turned his dispute public, using it as means to criticize General Motors' corporate culture,, arguing that it was why Japan instead of America was now leading the automotive industry. In an interview with Ward's Auto World, a trade publication in Detroit, he called openly for an end to "the GM system." In May, he spoke to the Wall Street Journal describing Smith as a buffoonish bureaucrat, and the primary problem with GM; and a month later going on the record with Business Week, decrying the bureaucratic culture that he felt was killing the company: "The first EDSer who sees a snake kills it. At GM, the first thing you do is organize a committee on snakes. Then you bring in a consultant on snakes. Third thing you do is talk about it for a year." Perot had also hoped bringing the dispute public would convince GM to sell EDS back to him. Instead, only after trying to get rid of EDS by selling it to AT&T, GM ended up buying out Perot's stake in the company for $700 million with the agreement that he could not compete with EDS for three years. He ended up even attacking the amount of money being offered to buy him out; pointing to the amount of workers that were fired. Perot had been planning to vote against year-end bonuses for GM executives before the buyout, later saying it was one of the "stress points" that led to their decision. A dispute soon arose over the terms of the buyout agreement and he and GM went to court.

Perot's criticisms struck a cord with the public and produced a flood of bad press for the company, leading its market share to drop from 45 percent to 41 percent overnight.

duPont Glore Forgan

In 1970, the leaders of the New York Stock Exchange appealed to Perot to invest in a failing brokerage firm duPont Glore Forgan, telling him that a failure would lead to a run on other brokerages, possibly leading to the threat the exchange might close. Perot eventually invested millions of dollars in the firm, assumed its management, and appointed new owners, soon gaining a reputation as the man who would "revolutionize Wall Street" by bringing in his data processing technology and reforming their business culture.

Perot spoke to the press, saying that the problem with Wall Street was that brokers felt like they existed to make commissions, instead of protecting their client's principal. The big change in Wall Street would be that the broker would exist to serve his client; with that in mind, he set up a 6-month training program in Los Angeles, where prospective brokers would learn customer relations skills. Perot's conservative management style chaffed with the New York stockbrokers, as he brought in ex-military officers to train for jobs, demanded longer work days, and made drinking during lunch hours taboo. Because of that, competing brokerages found it easy to lure the firm's top brokers, and with them their clients.

To stem losses, he completed a partial merger of the company with Walston & Co., another company he invested in to secure a data processing contract; duPont Glore Forgan took over both firms' back-office operations, stock clearing, data processing and customer accounts, while Walston, now renamed duPont Walston Inc., ran the 143-office domestic sales arm. Once in effect, Walston lost $30 million and went bankrupt within nine months. Its stockholders claimed the arrangement allowed Perot to lay duPont liabilities on Walston and thereby siphon Walston capital. DuPont soon followed Walston into bankruptcy court. Perot lost heavily and ended up liquidating the firm.

The Nixon administration was also involved in appealing Perot to make the initial investments. Perot felt that the NYSE board members were exaggerating their claims, saying in a letter that he knew the U.S. government would never let the stock exchange to cease activity. His mind changed when Nixon aides phoned him and told him "the stock market will close if you don't buy this firm." After the investment, they credited Perot with averting a market crash.

Perot later lobbied to have some of his losses reversed. This lead to a tax bill provision that would have offered persons with at least $30,000 of capital losses in a year the chance to take a three-year carry-back, where the losses would be applied against the gains from previous years, resulting in lower capital gains taxes for those years. A Wall Street Journal report pointed out that Perot could hope to save as much as $15 million, and suggested it was the result of his campaign contributions to many Ways and Means Committee members, labeling it the "Perot amendment". It would amount to "what may be the most gigantic tax break in history for one person," the Journal said. Perot, in the press, referred to the amendment as "sound legislation", said he did not inform the Congressmen of his interest, and offered to be excluded from any benefits if it were enacted, either by name in the language of the bill, or by a refusal of the tax refund. The House eventually voted to reverse the amendment.

Perot Systems

In 1988, exactly 18 months to the day after the GM buyout, Perot and several former EDS managers announced the founding of the Perot Systems Corporation, Inc.. For the first 18 months, Perot Systems was obligated under terms of the buyout to operate as a nonprofit company. Since 1990 it had competed aggressively against EDS, IBM, and others for multiyear information systems management contracts. His son, Ross Perot, Jr., eventually succeeded him as CEO. In September 2009, Perot Systems was acquired by Dell for $3.9 billion.

Perot Group

At the same time he founded Perot Systems, he created the Perot Group, a holding company.

Politics

Early political activities

Although he later ran as an outsider, Perot maintained ties to influential government officials since the 1970s, and had close access to Presidents since Lyndon Johnson. He was closest to Richard Nixon's administration; documents from the administration indicating that they had a mutually supportive relationship, suggesting that deals were arranged between them. Later, Ronald Reagan appointed Perot to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and he was invited to personal conferences. Through the 70s and 80s, Perot was also involved in several efforts to help American POWs, and was appointed by different governors of the state of Texas to head reform initiatives, including on drug policy and education.

Perot stands next to a portrait of George Washington at his office in 1986.

Beginning in the late 80s and continuing in the early 90s, Ross Perot began speaking out about what he described as the failings of the United States government. Perot asserted that the United States "had grown arrogant and complacent after the War" [referring to World War II] and was no longer the world's greatest nation. Instead of looking into what was to come, he argued, America was "daydreaming of [its] past while the rest of the world was building its future." He said:

Go to Rome, go to Paris, go to London. Those cities are centuries old. They're thriving. They're clean. They work. Our oldest cities are brand new compared to them and yet… go to New York, drive through downtown Washington, go to Detroit, go to Philadelphia. What's wrong with us?

Perot became a regular commentator on the 1988 election, criticizing the press for letting Bush and Dukakis "get away with murder" by avoiding the issue of the federal deficit, arguing for structural reform in Medicare and Social Security such as means testing, and that European countries should pay for the United States to maintain bases in their countries.. There was already public discussion of a possible run by Perot for President, or involvement in a Presidential administration, with some arguing he would fit on a Republican ticket, and others a Democratic ticket.

United We Stand

Perot became heavily involved in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, starting in 1969 after hearing a press conference by returned prisoners of war, Douglas Hegdahl and Robert Frishman, where the two made accusations of brutal treatments by the North Vietnamese government. Murphy Martin, a Dallas news anchor, showed Perot a documentary in which he brought four women whose husbands were missing in action to Vietnam to try to meet with the North Vietnamese, and had him meet with some of them. Inspired by this, he founded with Martin an organization he called United We Stand, which would be dedicated to publicizing the issue and improving the treatment of those who were captured. His idea for the organization later was expanded to be a broader call for unity during the war. As he was planning the organization, Perot spoke to the Nixon White House, to make sure that his actions wouldn't interfere with their efforts.

Nixon aides were able to convince Perot to concert his efforts with theirs, and Perot ended up coordinating a large, multi-media ad campaign to coincide with Nixon's planned "Silent Majority" speech, supporting his Vietnamization policy. On September 6, the organization ran full-page advertisements in 300 newspapers — including The New York Times, Washington Post, Dallas Times Herald, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle — calling for the ending the Vietnam war in a manner that would "insure a just and lasting peace". The ads, headlined The Majority Speaks, in turn had coupons people could cut out and mail in to show their support, to create a voice for the "Silent Majority" that Nixon spoke about. On November 9, which had just a few days prior been declared a National Day of Prayer for prisoners of war, another set of advertisements were run, headlined The Majority Speaks: Release the Prisoners. It featured two small children praying "Bring our Daddy home safe, sound and soon". Later in the week, he funded a television program "United We Stand" — titled after the organization — which aired on 50 major stations, starring former astronaut Frank Borman. In all, he spent more than $1 million in personal funds. The plan was to fill trucks with the returned-coupon mail and dump out the contents at a press event in front of the White House, but despite the fact that Perot had told them that in the first two weeks they had received "a minimum of three million coupons to date", this never happened.

During the Christmas season, in a mission that called Operation Understanding, Perot chartered two Braniff 707s, named "Peace on Earth" and "Good Will Towards Men", loaded them with medical supplies, bedding, clothing, and Christmas dinners, and flew to Hanoi to deliver them to American POWs, only to have the North Vietnamese reject it. As an alternative, he planned to show good will by turning the food over to orphans in North Vietnam, using Russia as an intermediary. The Nixon administration objected, concerned that it would be used by propagandists as admission of guilt over the war. The next day, on Christmas, Perot chartered a third plane, "The Spirit of Christmas", carrying the wives and children of 150 of the prisoners to the peace conference in Paris, where they could protest to the North Vietnamese delegation for their failure to comply with the Geneva Convention. In January of 1970, Perot sent a cable offering to build facilities as well as give food, clothing and medical supplies for their people, in order to repair war damages, as long as the POWs were released. When prompted by the press, he said he would be willing to spend as much as $100 million for a ransom, although he didn't set a ceiling. In April, he launched another mission, this time with a press contingent of 80 reporters and cameramen and a few wives of missing servicemen. He first stopped in Laos, to visit the prisons for North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam, filming their conditions and taking letters from the prisoners to deliver to their families, the then took the films and letters to the North Vietnamese embassy in Laos, in an attempt to embarrass them into providing regular mail to the US prisoners in Hanoi. Perot met with Vu Tien, the North Vietnamese charge d'affaires in Laos, for an hour and thirty-five minutes. Vu Tien refused to take the letters or films and told Perot the United States had destroyed their hospitals and schools, to which Perot responded that if the POWs were released, he would pay to rebuild them from his own pocket. In response to the refusal, he began an effort to saturate the radio air waves of North Vietnam with information about their prisoners held in the South. United We Stand also stationed men in Saigon to gather letters from POWs and send them to the North. Perot told the press that he concluded that the North Vietnamese "don't care" about their men taken prisoner, and, further, that they told him they didn't understand why Americans would care so much about theirs, given that the death toll was much higher.

Returning home, Perot organized a letter writing campaign called "Project: Prisoner Release", coordinating with independent "I Care" campaigns that sprung up around the country following his remarks concerning the attitude of the captors. It ended up sending so many protest letters to North Vietnam that it overwhelmed their postal system. He also had designed a tableau meant to show what it was like to be in a POW camp, which he persuaded Congress to place in the Capitol rotunda, and which then toured state capitals across the country. The prisoner of war issue, largely with his help, had for the first time created a sizable emotional support for the war; after having replaced television footage of wounded soldiers and massacres, with illustrations of POWs being held by the North Vietnamese in "tiger cages." The POW efforts reportedly hurt his business image, and he was mocked by state officials as a "rich but eccentric uncle", but Perot later described the mission as a success: "Although it hurt me personally, it did embarrass the Vietnamese into changing their treatment of the POWs. It worked."

Perot was enough of a nuisance to the North Vietnamese, that they issued several wires where he was denounced as a propaganda tool of the Nixon administration, referring to it as a "psychological warfare scheme." In a 1992 Senate panel hearing, Perot made the claim that an FBI representative told him a Black Panther group had him on a hit list because his POW work in Vietnam. He said that afterwards, he hired security guards, and that there was an incident where several men jumped his fence, only to be chased away by his dog. The Black Panthers, like the Vietcong, was a Maoist group, and Huey Newton did author a letter in 1970 saying the Black Panthers would offer "an undetermined number of troops" to the National Liberation Front, which the North Vietnamese then ran on their wires. Investigations in 1992 showed that his ex-security guard didn't know anything about it, neither did a Dallas police officer in charge of intelligence in the city.

The venture was inevitably identified with political support of Nixon, and documents released by the National Archive show that the Nixon administration viewed them that way, but Perot insisted at the time that it was non-political. He said the he would have done the same if Hubert Humphrey had become President, saying that he was a political independent who had supported both candidates of both parties and thought of himself as neither liberal nor conservative. "It's not Nixon's war or Kennedy's war or Johnson's war," Perot said. "It's our war because its our country." Perot stated that in the 1968 election, he contributed to the campaigns of both of Nixon and Humphrey, saying he hoped it would give both a chance to communicate their philosophies to voters. To further distance himself from the administration, he said, "I know what the stereotype is, if you're rich and from Dallas, everyone expects you to be far right. I say look at what I've done and it isn't so." In 1970, he showed up at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami, in part to show that his efforts were independent of Republican politics. One party leader who attended the fundraiser, surprised, commented, "I had expected a real conservative, but Perot sounded like a liberal Democrat."

Perot also expressed that he was not a war hawk, saying "I am deeply concerned with getting the peace made. I can respect the people who are doing something in peaceful dissent. This was not a campaign to support Nixon himself — it was to support the office he holds. I felt one side was covered so effectively and the other side was handled so ineffectively. The trouble is nobody understands this war. I want the war over and I want it over at the earliest possible moment. Here's what I'm saying when I support the policy of the president: all the presidents and their secretaries of state since Truman have come to the same conclusion, that we must stabilize Asia. I conclude that if I knew what they know, I'd be making the same decisions." At a press conference after the Laos trip, when asked by Fred Branfman, an anti-war activist, why he was more focused on the prisoners of war than the bombing which was leading to deaths of Vietnamese, he answered that he shared the concern, but that others were addressing the issue. Perot also argued that the way to address dissent is to make sure that the dissenters feel like they're being represented. He further stated his belief that the only way equal opportunity could be addressed is if the war in Vietnam were ended. In his 1992 campaign, when the issue came up, and he was prompted, he said he agreed with his running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, who argued that the protesters prolonged the war, but added that the problem with the war effort was, "We never committed our nation, but we committed our troops."

American Horizons Foundation

After his POW efforts, he created the American Horizons Foundation, which he described as "a dues-paying organization which hopefully would grow and grow and grow...the money to be used for producing year-round educational television programs which give equal time to pro and con views on 'great national issues.'" According to Perot, each program would have a 20 minute impartial presentation for background, and 20 minutes for each of two exponents of differing viewpoints on the issue, to make sure all sides were represented. Computer-sized cards would be distributed with the weekly television guides in local newspapers, and viewers would be asked to fill out the cards with their opinions on the issue and mail them in; the results would then be made available to anyone who wanted to know what Americans were thinking. "Its an electronic town hall," said Perot, "We want to advocate and inform, we don't want to propagandize. That's the though part of all of this, the balance; so that when it's all over, you may go one way and I may go another, but the exciting thing is that we're going somewhere."

Western Video Industries, producer of This is Your Life, later announced that they were working with Perot on a television series, called "American Horizons" after the foundation. He would underwrite a multimilion dollar series on American life and culture; it would be non-political, but aimed at presenting America in a favorable light. They were working try to clear a schedule for 52 weeks of Sunday evening hours; proposing to buy time from local stations at a rate slightly higher than the station would get in conventional network compensation. It would carry no commercials, with a promised production budget of betwe en $200,000 and $250,0000. Former astronaut Frank Borman, who had worked with Perot on the POW issue, was hired as president of the foundation and would be a spokesman. Western Video was said to have commitments from number of major-market stations

He was also considering plans for creating a organization dedicated to improving press coverage of world and national issues, especially for local media sources; the organization would fly reporters on trips they who would normally not be able to take, in order to broaden the knowledge of reporters and increase diversity in news broadcasts.

Documents from the Nixon administration show that, as he worked on these projects and his POW efforts, Perot was on the phone to the White House several times a week. A 1971 memo says that Nixon suggested the "purchase of media" by Perot, who then considered trying to buy The Evening Star, a Washington newspaper, or the ABC network. He also suggested Perot pour a sum of $10 million into a right-leaning think tank, American Enterprise Institute, in order to build it up as a counterweight to the left-leaning Brookings Institution, which he refused to do. The same memo claimed that Perot, or one of his aides, offered a sum of $50 million to a public relations campaign to help burnish the President's image. According to the papers, Perot broke off the discussions early in 1970. In a personal letter to H.R. Haldeman, Perot instead promoted his American Horizons project, which he described to them as even-handed and non-partisan, to which the administration was unenthusiastic. Perot explained his reason for bowing out: "I cannot be involved with this series, dedicated to presenting a balanced view of national issues, and also be involved with the other activity, without endangering the credibility of the television series;... I must decline to be involved in the public relations effort. As a private citizen, I can continue to be involved as an individual in personal efforts to accomplish major goals, such as obtaining the release of the prisoners, but I cannot commit myself irrevocably to the public relations effort without permanently losing the ability to communicate with a substantial portion of the total population."

During the 1992 campaign, the allegations of a $50 million offer was suggested as evidence that he was involved in money-for-influence deals; Perot denied the allegations, saying any plans only existed in the minds of the Nixon aides who were trying to set them up. In an interview with the Associated Press, Perot said that Nixon aides would often solicit him with "fantasyland numbers ... and beautiful and strange ideas. And I always made it clear to them I wasn't interested. I can't control what people scribble on their pads." Perot's campaign acknowledged that he discussed starting an "electronic town hall" with Nixon, but denied the money offer, saying, "At no time did Mr. Perot indicate any interest at all in spending $50 million on a special project for the president."

Later POW/MIA efforts

He continued to believe that hundreds of American servicemen were left behind in Southeast Asia at the end of the U.S. involvement in the war, and that government officials were covering up POW/MIA investigations in order to avoid revealing a drug smuggling operation used to finance a secret war in Laos. He became engaged in unauthorized back-channel discussions with Vietnamese officials in the late 1980s, which led to fractured relations between Perot and the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In 1990, Perot reached agreement with Vietnam's Foreign Ministry to become its business agent in the event that diplomatic relations were normalized. Perot also launched private investigations of, and attacks upon, U.S. Department of Defense official Richard Armitage.

In the early 80s, Perot also financed the $160,000 competition to pick a winning design for the Vietnam war memorial. Along with others, he protested the winning design, referring to it as a "tombstone", his chief objection being that it honored the dead without saying anything about those who fought there and returned home. Perot said that very few Vietnam veterans he talked to liked the design, explaining "they think it is an apology, not a memorial." Admiral James Stockdale, who would later become Perot's running mate, resigned as director of the finance organization under similar objections. The efforts of Perot and others led to the construction of a statue to complement the memorial, "The Three Soldiers" by Frederick Hart.

Iran hostage rescue

Just prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the government of Iran imprisoned two EDS employees in a contract dispute. Perot organized and sponsored their rescue in a mission called Operation Hotfoot (an acronym for "Help Our Two Friends Out Of Tehran"). The rescue team was led by retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons. When the team was unable to find a way to extract their two prisoners, they decided to wait for a mob of pro-Ayatollah revolutionaries to storm the jail and free all 10,000 inmates, many of whom were political prisoners. The two prisoners then connected with the rescue team, and the team spirited them out of Iran via a risky border crossing into Turkey. The exploit was recounted in a book, On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett, which became a best-seller. In the 1986 miniseries, Perot was portrayed by Richard Crenna.

Some admired his daring, while some Americans then in Iran, maintained that Perot's rescue effort made their own situation more difficult. He was also criticized for releasing genuine criminals along with political prisoners, and violating both U.S. and international law. Perot used the occasion to criticize President Carter. "When the 52 hostages at the U.S. Embassy were taken," Perot recalled, "we sent our people back to Iran to gather intelligence. We had men volunteering to go train with the Delta rescue team, but [President] Carter was too indecisive... federal [officials] sat around wondering how many Iranians we could afford to kill. I said, 'What are you going to tell our men — that they could shoot the first 50 and no more?'"

Texas War on Drugs Committee

In 1979, Perot was appointed chairman of the War on Drugs Committee by the Texas governor William Clemens, leading to some of the toughest narcotic laws in the nation. Among the drug laws passed were measures that automatically revoked the license of health professionals convicted on felony drug charges, banned drug paraphernalia and "head shops," curbed prescription drug abuse, provided for asset seizure, and set a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for adults convicted of selling drugs to those 17 years old or younger. According to later estimates by the committee, in three years after the laws were instituted, sales of substances referred to as "dangerous drugs" had fallen 51 percent.

In 1988, two different journalists wrote that while on the committee, Perot supported several unorthodox police procedures; that he encouraged Dallas cops to "go in [to high-crime neighborhoods], cordon off the whole area, going block by block, looking for guns and drugs." When the stories first appeared, Perot did not try to correct the record; however, during the 1992 election, after charges he would disregard the Constitution if President, he denied the allegations.

Part of the effort was also a massive public education programming to keep children from using drugs, which he had a role in extending nationally. In 1981, after learning about First Lady Nancy Reagan's concern about youth drug use, Perot went to see her in the White House and convinced her she could make a contribution and recast her image — this led to the creation of the "Just Say No" campaign.

Select Committee on Public Education

In 1983 he was appointed by Democratic Governor Mark White the head of the newly created Select Committee on Public Education (SCOPE), an effort to reform the Texas public school system. Perot was selected because of the intent to make sure the schools were up to the demands of a technology-based economy. The best known of Perot's proposals that were passed into law was the "No Pass, No Play" rule, under which it was required that students have passing grades in order to participate in any school-sponsored extracurricular activities. The intent was to prevent high school sports from being the focus of the school's funding, and to emphasize the importance of education for the students who participated in sports. Another key reform measure was a call for teacher competency testing, which was strongly opposed by the teachers unions in Texas. Bill Hobby recounted the reform effort in a 2010 editorial, referring to Perot as "a standout leader". He also referred to him as "fearless" and "quotable", giving anecdotes from the experience:

Perot said there were little schools with sixty teachers and twelve coaches. When a principal objected that such a situation was “rare,” Perot retorted, “So is a one-legged tap-dancer, but it happens.”

Perot used aggressive tactics in his efforts to get the legislation passed, including referring to Texas students who were studying to become teachers as "the dumbest in college." He met a lot of resistance from teachers unions and Texas football fans, leading to a number of bumper stickers that read "I don't brake for Perot."

1992 Presidential run

Main article: Ross Perot presidential campaign, 1992

The stirrings of a Perot candidacy began in May 1991, when he appeared at a grass-roots rally organized by Jack Gargan's THRO (Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out), a group dedicated to term limits and fiscal responsibility. At the event, he delivered a rousing speech exhorting "the people" to "take back" the country from the politicians, saying "it's time that somebody cleaned out the barn". As soon as Perot finished, the crowd of more than 3,000 showed their enthusiasm, stomping their feet, chanting "Run, Ross, Run" and waving signs that Gargan had distributed which read "Perot for Prez" and "Ross for Boss." Perot responded by saying, "I don't wan't a title. In a minute, I'd go up there to Washington and spend the rest of my life working day and night to fix it, just a private citizen." Gargan later flew to Perot's offices in Dallas to tell him he was going to announce a Draft Perot movement.

On February 20, 1992, Perot appeared on CNN's Larry King Live — the fourth time since 1991 — and announced that he would run if his supporters would put him on the ballot in all 50 states as an independent. After a lively interview concerning political issues, King directly asked Perot if there was "any scenario in which [he] would run for president." He at first responded with a firm "No," but 45 minutes later he spontaneously affirmed that he would if drafted to do so.

Arguing that the government was controlled by political interests and did not represent the broader public interest, Perot's political message was three-prong: 1. reform campaigns and reduce the influence of lobbyists; 2. protect American jobs from free trade agreements; and 3. reduce the national debt. He advocated campaign finance restrictions, a shorter election cycle, ethics reforms which prevented Congressmen from receiving free gifts, trips, and junkets, and ending what he called "the revolving door" where elected officials would leave to work as lobbyists and then later return to office. Striking a populist note, he also called for the election of the President by popular vote, a Constitutional amendment to bar Congress from raising taxes without a public referendum, and "electronic town halls", to be held regularly to involve voters in deciding major political issues. "With interactive television every other week," he said, "we could take one major issue, go to the American people, cover it in great detail, have them respond, and show by congressional district what the people want." To help reduce the deficit, he argued for means-testing for both Medicare and Social Security. He referred to himself as a "fiscal conservative, social moderate".

Draft campaign

By March, a phone bank was set up at Perot's office, staffed with volunteers to inform interested voters and supporters on how they could assist Perot's potential campaign. Over a million calls came in during the first ten days that the phone banks were active, after which point they were averaging about 30,000 a day.. It was still several months before the Democratic and Republican conventions, and Perot filled the vacuum of election news, as petition efforts began state-by-state, and he appeared on talk shows, discussing his plans and positions on political issues. Perot won a large share of the vote in both the Democratic and Republican primaries in Oregon and Washington in mid-May. In the Oregon primary, he was written-in by 13% of Democrats and 15% of Republicans. Exit polling showed Perot's favorability at or above that of Clinton and Bush in their respective party's primaries.

The sense of momentum was reinforced when Perot was able to attract to his inner circle campaign several prominent insiders. Among those he hired were Hamilton Jordan, campaign manager and chief of staff for Jimmy Carter, Ed Rollins, campaign manager for Ronald Reagan, Frank Luntz, a pollster for Pat Buchanan, John P. White, a budget official under Carter, and Hal Riney, an ad consultant for Reagan. Perot tried to balance his campaign between his team of insiders and his grassroots support, who were starting to feel left out, leading him several times to go against his adviser's wishes. When Gargan invited Perot to give a keynote speech at a THRO convention in Texas, Rollins and others in the campaign insisted he didn't attend, since the focus of the group was to oust incumbents from office, and they feared he would alienate several senior members of Congress who he would need to work with if he were elected. Perot overruled his staff and decided to show up.

By June, a TIME/CNN poll showed that Perot had become the front runner in the race, earning 37% in a three-way race, with Bush and Clinton behind him, tied at 24% each; Gallup showed him even a bit higher, at 39%.

Withdrawl and re-entry

By mid-July, Perot's poll numbers began to suffer after he made several public gaffes, including a perceived insult where he addressed the audience at a NAACP convention as "you people". Now down to 25%, his advisers had became increasingly disillusioned that he was ignoring their advice, and warned that if he continued to ignore them, his support fall to single digits. Co-manager Hamilton Jordan threatened to quit, and Ed Rollins resigned after Perot fired ad consultant Hal Riney, who he worked with on the Reagan campaign. Riney had been trying to convince him to run a $150 million advertising campaign. During the chaos in the campaign, media coverage of the Democratic National Convention began, leaving the Clinton campaign with a larger than expected bounce. Polls had shown Clinton propelled into first place with 42%, Perot now trailing in third with 20%. The day Clinton gave his acceptance speech, Perot appeared on Larry King Live to announce he no longer had the intention to campaign, citing the "revitalisation of the Democratic Party" as reflected in changing poll numbers. He said at one point he believed that victory was possible; but, now, given the Democratic resurgence, he thought he no longer had a chance to win, expressing concerns that his presence in the race would cause the electoral college to be split and create the possibility that the House would decide the election. He further stated that both parties were now focusing on the issues that he raised and that his supporters cared about.

Meanwhile, the Perot Petition Committee continued its efforts to get him on the ballot state-by-state. Perot shortly released a book, titled United We Stand, America, where he detailed his policy proposals. Suggestions in the book included raising the gas tax 50 cents, a boost of the top income-tax rate from 31% to 33%, and a 10% cut over various spending programs. He suggested that the gas tax be increased only slowly over a period of a decade, and used both to help pay down the debt and fund alternative energy infrastructure. At the back of the book was a checklist of positions he believed all federal candidates should pledge to. The campaign committee reorganized and a new organization was created — called, after his book title, "United We Stand America" (UWSA) — which positioned itself as a bottom-up grassroots effort. Perot continued to fund the ballot efforts even as his campaign staff had been disbanded, his aides telling reporters that he believed in his volunteers and that getting on the ballot would force Bush and Clinton to discuss the issues he discussed in his book. Documents filed with the Federal Election Committee showed that, despite his withdrawal announcement, his campaign spending continued was never interrupted. Nearly $4 million was spent in the month following his appearance on Larry King Live. About $1 million was spent from his personal fortune to help secure ballot access in New York, an effort that entailed the hiring of hundreds of workers from temporary employment agencies to gather signatures on nominating petitions. While out of the race, the campaign committee was also quietly working on preparing new campaign advertising. A campaign aide commented, "We've been saying all along we wanted to keep our options open." The ballot campaign continued with its success, and by the end of September, when his name was on ballots in all 50 states, Perot started to hint that he might be re-entering the race.

Perot announced his re-entry in October, stating that he was restarting his campaign due to pleas from his supporters, and apologized to them for ever having left. He now argued that the major party campaigns had ignored his issues. "I thought that both political parties would address the problems that face the nation," he said. "We gave them a chance. They didn't do it." At the time of his re-entry, Perot was polling as low as 7 percent. Unable to find any other candidate to be his running mate, he chose Admiral James Stockdale, who had been a stand-in name on many state ballots.

Bill Hillsman, who produced a few unaired advertisements for the campaign, wrote that Perot's withdrawal was a tactic to find temporary relief from the press.

Debates and infomercials

Perot participated in all three presidential debates; the first time that a third party candidate was involved in a national televised debate since John B. Anderson in 1980, and was the first presidential debate to ever feature three candidates. Perot was seen as doing exceedingly well in two of the debates. Three out of four polls declared Perot as the winner of the first debate; Clinton was generally acknowledged as the winner of the second; and polls for the third debate showed a split between support for Perot and Clinton as the winner. For the third debate, 60 percent polled said Perot's performance made them think more favorably of him, and more than half of the 12 percent who said the debate made them switch their preference said they were now voting for him. Later poll showed that his performance caused his net favorability rating to skyrocket 70 marginal points, from -46 to +24 (56-32 percent favorable). Polls also showed that by a 3-2 ratio, Perot gained more converts from Clinton supporters than from Bush supporters. After the first debate, Perot's polling numbers had risen from 7 percent to 14 percent; after all three, they rose to to 19 percent.

As the campaign was winding down, Perot took to the airwaves with four 30-minute and two 60-minute infomercials, where he famously addressed a camera with a series of pie graphs and bar charts, receiving unprecedentedly high viewership. His first one, which outlined his economic plan, was seen by an estimated 8.2 million households according to the Nielsen ratings, placing it as second in its time slot, after ABC's 20/20. The program drew a higher rating than the baseball play-off game that preceded it. The second one, which was autobiographical, did almost as well. Ratings dropped for subsequent broadcasts, but the broadcasts still did better than many network prime-time shows.

One of his last infomercials was overshadowed by the interview on 60 Minutes, where he revealed that one factor that influenced his withdrawal was purported 'dirty tricks' being done by the Bush campaign, including a scheme to smear his daughter with a computer-altered photograph and to disrupt her wedding. Many people dismissed this as paranoid, with Marlin Fitzwater referring to the idea as 'loony'. However, polling at the time showed that it did not impact his public image. An internal Republican tracking poll also found that "more people than not believed Perot." Scott Barnes, the private investigator and security consultant who convinced Perot about the dirty tricks, later recanted his story. He revealed in 1997 that he had lied about the existence of the photographs, and that he had created the hoax with others, who, like him, were not involved with any political campaign. Barnes was a Perot supporter, and believed that if it were revealed that Republicans were involved in dirty tricks, it would harm Bush's candidacy.

Election results

In the final NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, Perot was in third place with 15%, behind Bush with 36% and Clinton with 44%. On election day, he received 18.9% of the popular vote, approximately 19,741,065 votes, making him the most successful third-party presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. Perot received no electoral votes. Perot managed to finish second in two states: In Maine, Perot received 30.44% of the vote to Bush's 30.39% (Clinton won Maine with 38.77%); in Utah, Perot received 27.34% of the vote to Clinton's 24.65% (Bush won Utah with 43.36%). Although Perot won no state, he received the most votes in some counties, including Trinity County, California.

A detailed analysis of voting demographics revealed that Perot's support drew heavily from across the political spectrum, with 20% of his votes coming from self-described liberals, 27% from self-described conservatives, and 53% coming from self-described moderates. Economically, however, the majority of Perot voters (57%) were middle class, earning between $15,000 and $49,000 annually, with the bulk of the remainder drawing from the upper middle class (29% earning more than $50,000 annually). Exit polls also showed that Ross Perot drew 38% of his vote from Bush, and 38% of his vote from Clinton, while the rest of his voters would have stayed home had he not been on the ballot.

One factor that influenced Perot's final showing was the perception that he couldn't win. One question on the exit poll ballot asked "Would you have voted for Perot if you thought he had a chance to win?"; 36 percent of the respondents indicated they would have. According to Bill Schneider, a CNN political analyst, this would have led to a Perot victory, with Perot in the lead with 36%, Clinton second with 34%, and Bush coming in third with 30%. An additional 4 percent who did not answer this question had voted for him, which would have brought his polling total up to 40%, although Gallup polls found that 5 percent of Perot supporters said they wouldn't have voted for him if he thought he could win. A late Gallup poll also showed that Perot's poll numbers rose as high as 28 percent, one point ahead of Bush at the time; Gordon S. Black, founder of Harris Interactive, a polling group, argued that the difference between that showing and the final election numbers was due to entirely to the "wasted vote" argument. Others argue his rise in the polls was arrested due to his 'dirty tricks' claim.

United We Stand America

Shortly following the election — in January, 1993 — Perot announced that United We Stand America, the volunteer organization he used to support his campaign, would now transition itself into a political watchdog group, focused on monitoring elected officials' voting records and following issues. The group wouldn't officially back candidates, but nonetheless, promoted it for its ability to be a significant force in shaping elections; in a training video that was sent out, he declared "We can literally provide the vote that determines who gets elected." Perot said he would pay the bills for the organization until it became self-supporting; for the time being run by a staff of 30 in Dallas, Texas. Because some analysts saw this as a personal vehicle for him to maintain a support base and influence after the election, they contended that Perot was really trying to shape his own image as "the national watchdog". A few days after the announcement, the group began airing 60-second TV commercials in many cities, to start the recruitment drive. Perot himself went across the country making various public appearances.

"National watchdog"

In early March, he appeared before a House-Senate committee on congressional reform, raising the ire of some members who thought him patronizing, but earning praise from others. He argued that lawmakers should give up junkets, stop living lives of "opulence", cut back the number of staff and committees, and spend more time before constituents. While in February, Perot had praised President Clinton's economic agenda as given in a speech before Congress, now he criticized the details of the plan, and said it fells short because no business people were invited to help in its creation. He chastised both to stop the "funny talk we don't understand", saying that misleading language was used too often, and that "a debt is a debt" and "a tax is a tax". One Congressman asked defensively, "Do you really believe that most of here are crooks? Are we really that bad?" The most widely reported exchange was between Perot and Democratic Senator Harry Reid. Reid said to him critically, "You gave us five minutes of details and 45 minutes of sound bites ... I think you should start checking your facts a little and spend less time listening to applause so much." He shot back "I do check my facts" and criticized Reid for not checking his, leading the room to erupt in applause. Republican Bob Dole, on the other hand, flattered Perot; suggesting he be made chairman of a White House commission to reduce wasteful spending.

Later that month, he returned to TV with a new 30-minute infomercial, billed as a "national referendum". A narrator broke in periodically to ask 17 questions, all of them listed on 30 million ballots that were distributed in advance in copies of TV Guide — viewers were then asked to mail these in, to show public demand for deficit reduction and government reform, which would be in turn parlayed to Congress. Leaders of UWSA organized nationwide events to help the effort bring in responses. Perot also testified at a hearing before the House Small Business Committee, where he spoke strongly against NAFTA, urging for it to be scrapped.

In April, Perot aired another infomercial to weigh in on the impending vote on Clinton's economic package. He criticized it for not adequately addressing deficit reduction, and urged tougher remedies to be instituted; he was also critical of defense cuts, an economic stimulus package, and other administration policies. "Nobody has taxed everybody better than the President is about to," Perot quipped in a follow-up interview. In May, he came out against Clinton's health-care reform plan, saying that the President was trying to do too much in his early Presidency and that the plan would be a "catastrophic" failure. Perot also suggested that Clinton might go to war with Bosnia to distract from his problems. He was soon noted as becoming a gadfly to the Clinton in a similar way he was to Bush during the campaign.

Perot's popularity continued to grow, as reflected in public polls, while he began to be heavily criticized by establishment politicians and the press. Perot's favorability rating, as tracked by CNN/Time, reached a peak of 68%, and by US News 67%, and remained significantly stronger than other politicians; showing both a larger number of people giving him a favorable rating, and a smaller number giving him an unfavorable rating. US News & World Report featured a poll in a cover story with two hypothetical match-ups for a 1996 race — in the first, Perot and Bill Clinton tied with 35-35, with Bob Dole trailing in third with 25 percent; in the second, Perot led with 38, with Clinton following with 37 and Jack Kemp in third with 25 percent. In a CNN/Time poll, respondents said 46% would be likely to vote for Perot if he ran for president again, compared to Clinton at 33%. According to a different US News poll, 74 percent of respondents said they felt Perot was trying to help the country, and 45 percent said they had more confidence in Perot than in Clinton in protecting the middle class, and a majority said Perot would do better in handling the economy. Perot's base began to be labeled, by different writers, "the radical center", "the radical middle", and "the militant middle" Political analysts began referring to Perot voters as the new swing voters, something that would continue throughout the 90s. Meanwhile, in reaction, editorials written by Clinton supporters appeared with scathing headlines like "Ross Perot: How much will we let him get away with?" as Clinton himself, in response to Perot's attacks on his proposals, criticized him for "rumor mongering" and encouraged the press to cover him critically, telling them "I will ask you to apply the same level of scrutiny to him as you do to me." Although Republicans had so far been treating Perot with reverence with the idea that they could woo his voters, including entreaties by Newt Gingrich and John Kasich, a survey by a conservative polling organization showed that Perot was a threat to their base and could split a future election, and many Republicans started adopting a critical stance. In the lead was William Kristol, who commented "There's an unwillingness to hit the bottom line here, to say the guy is a demagogue ... we can't let the dissatisfaction with Clinton's stances be captured by Perot." William Bennett likewise said "Perot's full of hot air ... This guy is peddling from an empty wagon."

His growing public presence was honored by Sesame Street, which had added the character "H. Ross Parrot", who, armed with chart and pointer, taught kids the alphabet.

NAFTA debate

By October, more conflict had heated up between Perot and the party establishments because of his vocal opposition of NAFTA. Although earning allies with liberal Democrats like Marcy Kaptur, David Bonior, and Jesse Jackson, labor organizations such as the AFL-CIO, progressives as Ralph Nader, and paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchanan, the leadership of both parties had been pushing forward on the trade agreement. Perot organized several rallies and argued that the agreement would cost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, as businesses would move to Mexico, where labor costs were cheaper and there were less environmental regulations. He tied his position against NAFTA into his efforts to build United We Stand America, speaking at events promoting the organization, and suggesting that it would retaliate at the ballot against members of Congress who voted for the pact. Perot had challenged the administration to a debate about NAFTA, suggesting his sparring partner be US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and saying he would pay to televise it. He shortly afterwards released a book, Save Your Job, Save Our Country: Why NAFTA Must Be Stopped — Now. The Clinton administration launched a counter-attack, with Mickey Kantor issuing a 73-page rebuttal saying the book was "riddled with inaccuracies, errors, and misleading statements. Former President Jimmy Carter, who also supported the agreement, referred to Perot as a "demagogue", and the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, Alan K. Simpson, ridiculed Perot's warnings that it would cost jobs. Senator Bill Richardson voiced concerns that Perot was injecting racism in the debate, saying "He's using hateful stereotypes, Mexico-bashing, and racially offensive rhetoric."

An agreement was finally made by Perot and the administration to a televised debate, where Perot would face Vice President Al Gore. Perot had wanted three debates, each held at already scheduled anti-NAFTA rallies; Gore criticized that as designed to pander to a non-neutral audience. Eventually they agreed to appear together on Larry King Live; the decision of which to host it on a TV talk show considered by some "demeaning" to the discussion on the issue. In an intentional tactic to psych-out Perot and get him to be more emotionally on edge during the debate, White House aides started to publicly refer to Perot as "crazy." The debate aired on November 9, and although both Perot and Gore were criticized for their "schoolyard bickering", Gore was generally believed to have come out better, confirmed by a a much-cited overnight snap poll by USA Today/CNN/Gallup where respondents had declared Gore a winner 59 to 32 percent. During the debate, Gore had also pressed the argument that Perot wasn't a disinterested citizen, but would stand to personally profit from NAFTA's defeat; this seemed to hit a cord, and the same poll showed 47 percent agreeing with Gore on that issue. The same polling group asked people who watched the debate on whether their support of NAFTA changed; opinion in favor in the group went up to 57 percent from 34 percent, and opinion against in the group went down to 36 from 38. A later poll by CNN/Time, carried out with more accurate polling techniques, showed 18 percent of respondents saying Perot won, 47 percent saying Gore, with 35 saying neither won.

Further polls showed that Perot's favorability ratings suffered dramatically, CNN/Time showing that those who viewed him favorably were down to 35 percent and those who viewed him unfavorably up to 54 percent. A more extensive poll by the Associated Press indicated that the plurality were actually withholding their opinion; 42 percent responding that they were unsure of their impression, 27 percent saying it was favorable, and 30 unfavorable. The same poll respondents when asked what type of job Perot would do as President compared to Clinton, said 20 percent better, 27 worse, and the majority said he would be doing about the same. And although his favorability was down, polls still showed that he would perform better in a Presidential race than he did in 1992; when asked between Clinton, a generic Republican, and Perot, 23% of respondents chose Perot.

Perot's demeanor during the debate became often parodied by comedians, including on Saturday Night Live, where Dana Carvey in character repeated the plea "let me finish", which he made in response to interruptions by Al Gore.

Despite the administration presenting it as a walloping, Time magazine declared that Perot was "Gored but not gone," and commented that his support would still prove instrumental in shaping the NAFTA vote, which was still expected to be close. A national survey right before the vote showed that despite Perot's perceived failure, his arguments still held sway among the majority of the public. Respondents were split evenly on their support for the agreement, 42 percent saying NAFTA should be approved, 42 saying it should be rejected, and 16 percent were unsure. However, a 58 percent majority said they believe NAFTA would hold down wages in the country and 54 percent said they believed it would hurt U.S. workers. 48 percent said they believed NAFTA will cause a net loss of jobs, while 32 percent said they expected it to result in job gains.

1994 Elections

After a two-month hiatus, Perot returned to the public spotlight in January to push for a series of budget and ethics reforms, and, secondly to criticize the Clinton health-care plan, which he called "an airplane with no wing". In February, at a meeting with United We Stand America to plan its 1994 election strategy, he gave a list of priorities, including a balanced budget amendment, line-item veto, campaign finance reforms, elimination of foreign lobbyists, and cuts in Congressional pay. He also stepped up his criticism of Clinton's health-care approach, saying it was "one where government basically runs healthcare". Perot continued to host a series of election rallies, geared to fire up his voters and fight on those issues, hoping they could provide the swing votes in in important races. At that time, when asked about his opinions, he said he disagreed with the Democratic agenda, from health care to a recent crime bill, but argued that Republicans had offered no "positive constructive proposals" to counter them. He stated that the goal would be to continue to pressure them, however, because a third party would take too much time to organize; adding in "we all agree that if we fail we have to form a third party."

In October, Perot appeared on Larry King Live to announce his support of Republican candidates who had signed the Contract with America, which had promised much of what Perot was arguing for. Many have later argued that the idea for the Contract with America was even borrowed from a series of pledges Perot proposed in his 1992 book which was titled a "Check List for All Federal Candidates". According to Clay Mulford, Perot's campaign manager, the idea of "getting a contract of issues that candidates would have to sign in order to get an endorsement ... was transferred to Republicans, and of course, Perot was delighted by it." On the show, Perot argued it was time to give the Republicans a "a turn at bat," saying "for the last 40 years the Democrats have controlled the House of Representatives. For the last 60 years they've controlled the Senate for all but 12 years. Those folks who work for us haven't done a good job for all those years." He tempered his endorsement with a warning that if the Republicans didn't deliver, he would start to organize for a third party: "I promise you, Mr. and Mrs. America, I will give you every ounce of everything I have and we will create a third party that will deliver." The same month, Perot started to host a nationally syndicated radio show called "Listening with America," where he promoted the same idea.

While most Republicans took his endorsement positively, William Kristol continued to warn his party about associations with him. "The notion that Ross Perot or another figure will ride in from outside and speak for 'the people' is the traditional appeal of a demagogue. Republicans make a mistake when we pander to Perot in any way because he ultimately will turn against us too." Perot's move alienated some UWSA members, who had wanted to keep the organization away from endorsing specific candidates. Some were upset with the support for Republican candidates, since they were the largest supporters of free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT.

Exit polls suggested that Perot's endorsement had some, but not absolute influence over Republican victories. Two-thirds of those who said they voted for Perot responded that they backed Republican candidates — compared to half in 1992 — although three-quarters of them said that his call to give them "a turn at bat" did not influence their votes. In the five races where he made specific endorsements, results were mixed; three candidates won, while two lost. Most notably, he failed in Texas to help Governor Ann Richards fend off a challenge from George W. Bush.

Soon after the elections, the issue of GATT came up, and Perot moved in opposition with some of the same allies he had in the NAFTA fight. Perot suggested a debate be held on GATT, but this time between Mickey Kantor and economist, author, and Perot advisor Pat Choate; saying that the choice of Choate rather than Perot would prevent the issue from being bogged down in politics. Perot contacted Senator Dole about setting up a forum, and repeated a past offer to pay the expenses. Kantor indicated that he would debate Perot, but not Choate.

UWSA National Conference

The following year, Perot issued an invitation for potential Presidential candidates to appear at the annual conference of UWSA, suggesting it was a chance to discuss the possible formation of a third party. By the time of the conference, a slate of 38 speakers had been scheduled, including big names like Jesse Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Lamar Alexander, Alan Keyes, Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, Dick Armey, and Tommy Thompson. The national chairs of both the Republican and Democratic party were also on the list. The first two days of the conference were devoted to speeches, while the third day and final of the conference was set aside for a series of "workshops" on various issues, including one which is dear to the hearts of many United We Stand America members, the establishment of a full-fledged political party that speaks to the concerns of Perot's followers. Some UWSA members were upset that the meeting, rather than being a productive discussion of forming a third party, ended up being a chance for Republican candidates to solicit Perot's blessing. Republicans were seen as showing up to dissuade him of the notion that a third party was needed, with speakers like Gingrich arguing that they agreed with Perot's agenda, even pledging support for campaign finance reform. Press accounts light fun of how everyone was sucking up to Perot, often quoting a crack by Daschle about how everyone was eager to "kiss his ring."

Around the same time, Perot released a book on reforming Medicare, Intensive Care, and appeared before a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee to address it. The book listed many options for saving Medicare, but did not endorse a specific plan.

Reform Party

In September, Perot had announced that he was still unhappy with the two major parties, and would be launching an effort to form a third party, at first referred to as the "Independence Party", as a play on the term "Independent", but later taking on the name "Reform Party", because in some states that was taken. Perot called upon all "outstanding" public figures not already aligned with either the Democratic or Republican parties to compete in an Independence Party nominating convention, to be held next spring. At that time, Perot didn't commit on whether he would run, but said he was staying out and watching to see if a good slate of candidates would form. He was reported as speaking to many public figures who would potentially be interested, including retired General Colin Powell, former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker and Senator Bill Bradley.

Polls on a possible Perot run at the time showed him doing somewhat better than his performance in 1992. A CNN/USA/Gallup poll conducted earlier in August showed that in a three-way race featuring Clinton and Dole, Perot would earn 23 percent of the vote. A separate poll by Newsweek, conducted in October, showed 27 percent as saying they were likely to vote for him. Still, the press reported it as negative news for him, since the same poll showed that 52 percent of respondents would vote for Powell on a third-party ticket, 52 percent said Powell should start his own party rather than joining Perot's effort, and only 42 percent said he was organizing the party for the good of the country. Perot's unfavorabile ratings were still relatively high.

1996 Presidential run

The convention date approached and the only candidate who announced his intention for the nomination was former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm. When it became clear that Lamm was receiving significantly less support in polls and would not be eligible for FEC matching funds, Perot announced his entry into the race. Some were upset that Perot changed his mind and in their view overshadowed Lamm's run for the party nomination. This built up to the beginning of a splinter within the movement when it was alleged certain problems in the primary process, such as many Lamm supporters not receiving ballots, and some primary voters receiving multiple ballots, were Perot's doing. The Reform Party claimed these problems stemmed from the petition process for getting the Reform Party on the ballot in all of the states, since the party claimed they used the names and addresses of petition signers as the basis of who received ballots. Primary ballots were sent by mail to designated voters. Eventually, Perot was nominated by a margin of 65-35 percent and he chose Pat Choate as his vice-presidential candidate. Lamm refused to endorse Perot.

The controversy within the party nonetheless effected Perot's polling numbers; while after winning the nomination, he was faring 19 percent in the three-way race, after negative statements by Lamm in the press he had fallen down to 12 percent. William Kristol weighed in again, saying Perot was "not an entirely sane individual,". He also remarked, "I don't think the rest of us really ought to dignify him by taking him seriously as a presidential candidate," leading Perot to call into CNN and ask for the opportunity to respond. Perot's poll numbers further dropped to 5 percent after the Republican and and Democratic national conventions, which gave each of their candidates a bounce. One poll even showed him as low as 2 percent, which led Kristol to press his point on CNN that the low mark justified networks to stop covering his candidacy.

Sure enough, press coverage of Perot significantly dropped off, and he remained within the 5 percent range for most of the rest of the race. Perot had a boost in late October when after weeks of near-invisibility, he announced a press conference to respond to Dole's entreaties to get him to drop out of the race. The expectation was that he might quit so much of the media, including broadcast networks, carried the press conference live. Instead, Perot used the opportunity to repeat his campaign theme and attack both of the other candidates. The next poll showed a bounce in his support up to 11 percent. He remained around those numbers until the final weeks of the campaign, polling 8 percent before the vote, and finally receiving 8.4 percent, or approximately 8 million votes.

Supporters of Perot and third parties — including George Farah in his book Open Debates — have attributed his poor performance to both the media blackout and his exclusion from the Presidential debates. Perot was barred after the Debates Commission set a bar of 15 percent; even though a Harris poll showed that 76 percent wanted him included, and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed 60 percent. Perot complained that the Debates Commission was composed of Republicans and Democrats, and the co-chairman was the former head of the National Republican Committee and a registered lobbyist. He suggested that Bob Dole wanted him excluded from the debates, because of the belief it would hurt his candidacy. A lawsuit was filed to prevent his exclusion, but he failed to get a judgment before the debates took place; instead it dragged out in courts until after the election, and was paid for with the leftover FEC matching funds. Perot also faced difficulties buying time on TV to air his infomercials. The campaign filed a complaint with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an attempt to force the networks to sell them prime-time slots they wanted. Clay Mulford, a Perot campaign attorney, said, "The problem is we're not getting the time slots we need in order to take our case to the American public and it is simply illegal for the networks not to provide us adequate resources, adequate time in order to give us reasonable access to make our case to the voters." The FCC refused to intervene. Two infomercials ended up being aired; one two hours before the Presidential debates, and the other a day before the election.

Later activities

Perot attending the 2009 EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C.

Later in the 1990s, Perot's detractors accused him of not allowing the Reform Party to develop into a genuine national political party, but rather using it as a vehicle to promote himself. They cited as evidence the control of party offices by operatives from his presidential campaigns. Perot did not give an endorsement during Jesse Ventura's run for governor of Minnesota in the 1998 election, and this became suspicious to detractors when he made fun of Ventura at a conference after Ventura had a falling out with the press. The party leadership grew in tighter opposition to groups supporting Ventura and Jack Gargan. Evidence of this was demonstrated when Gargan was officially removed as Reform Party Chairman by the Reform Party National Committee.

In 1997, Perot appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, and along with Russ Feingold and Bill Bradley, called for the appointment of an Independent Counsel to investigate allegations by of illegal campaign financing by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as violations of the Hatch Act by President Clinton.

In the 2000 presidential election, Perot refused to become openly involved with the internal Reform Party dispute between supporters of Pat Buchanan and of John Hagelin. Perot was reportedly unhappy with what he saw as the disintegration of the party, as well as his own portrayal in the press; thus he chose to remain quiet. He appeared on Larry King Live four days before the election and endorsed George W. Bush for president. Despite his earlier opposition to NAFTA, Perot remained largely silent about expanded use of guest worker visas in the United States, with Buchanan supporters attributing this silence to his corporate reliance on foreign workers. Some state parties have affiliated with the new (Buchananite) America First Party; others gave Ralph Nader their ballot lines in the 2004 presidential election.

After that, Perot had been largely silent on political issues, refusing to answer most questions from the press. When interviewed, he usually remained on the subject of his business career and refuses to answer specific questions on politics, candidates, or his past activities.

The one exception to this came in 2005, when he was asked to testify before the Texas Legislature in support of proposals to extend technology to students, including making laptops available to them; additionally, changing the process of buying textbooks, by making electronic books (ebooks) available and by allowing schools to buy books at the local level instead of going through the state. In an April 2005 interview, Perot expressed concern about the state of progress on issues that he had raised in his presidential runs.

In January 2008, Perot publicly came out against Republican candidate John McCain and endorsed Mitt Romney for President. He also announced that he would soon be launching a new website with updated economic graphs and charts. In June 2008, the blog launched, focusing on entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), the U.S. national debt and related issues.

Family

Perot is married to Margot Birmingham; they have five children (Ross Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine). As of 2007, the Perots have 15 grandchildren.

Personality and public image

Ross Perot, net favorability between 1992 and 1996

Based on a combination of CNN/USA Today/Gallup and CNN/TIME polling data between those periods. The graph shows favorability and unfavorability ratings over time, with key points marked with the name of the event and the net marginal favorability.

...

Perot's favorability among the public, according to polling data, has been volatile, but over time has shown a general pattern. Whenever he is given media exposure, his favorable rating increases and unfavorable rating decreases. Examples of increased favorable impressions are when he entered the 1992 election, his participation in the debates and his infomercials, his 1993 'national referendum', 1994 USA rallies, the 1995 UWSA convention and subsequent ballot drive for the Reform Party, and the late 1996 press conference which gained broadcast media coverage. In between those periods of media coverage his favorable rating would generally decline and unfavorable rating would climb. There are a few exceptions to that; in several cases, unfavorable impressions of him dramatically increased — when he decided to quit the 1992 race, when he re-entered, when he was perceived as doing poorly in the NAFTA debate, and during infighting between him and Dick Lamm during the 1996 campaign; and in contrast, favorable impressions of him dramatically increased immediately after the 1992 election, reaching their peak during the Clinton inauguration. This can be attributed to the fact that polls and news stories throughout the period showed that the public responded favorably to the issues that he addressed, even when they viewed him negatively on a personal basis. A common refrain was that he had a "good message" but was a "bad messenger". Several polls that have given respondents the option of whether they view Perot in a "neutral" manner, show him with closer positive to negative ratings, when showing high unfavorable ratings in other polls, because of a significant number of people choosing the middle option.

Electoral history

Ross Perot, three-way polling between 1992 and 1996

Based on a combination of CNN/USA Today/Gallup and CNN/TIME polling data between those periods. Newsweek and US News & World Report polling numbers used to fill in for May 1993, where there was a lack of polling data from the other sources. Polling data between the end of the 1992 race and the beginning of the 1996 race puts Ross Perot against Bill Clinton and either George H.W. Bush from post-election polling, Bob Dole as the potential 1996 polling candidate, or a generic Republican.

United States presidential election, 1992

• Bill Clinton/Al Gore (D) - 44,909,806 (43.0%) and 370 electoral votes (32 states and D.C. carried)
• George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle (R) (Inc.) - 39,104,550 (37.4%) and 168 electoral votes (18 states carried)
• Ross Perot/James Stockdale (I) - 19,743,821 (18.9%) and 0 electoral votes
• Andre Marrou/Nancy Lord (L) - 290,087 (0.3%) and 0 electoral votes

United States presidential election, 1996

• Bill Clinton/Al Gore (D) (Inc.) - 47,400,125 (49.2%) and 379 electoral votes (31 states and D.C. carried)
• Bob Dole/Jack Kemp (R) - 39,198,755 (40.7%) and 159 electoral votes (19 states carried)
• Ross Perot/Pat Choate (Ref.) - 8,085,402 (8.4%) and 0 electoral votes

Writing

Books

• Perot, Ross (September 1992). United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country. Hyperion Books.
• Perot, Ross; Choate, Pat (September 1993). Save Your Job, Save Our Country: Why Nafta Must Be Stopped--Now!. Hyperion Books.
• Perot, Ross (April 1993). Not for Sale at Any Price: How We Can Save America for Our Children. Hyperion Books.
• Perot, Ross; Simon, Paul (July 1996). The Dollar Crisis: A Blueprint to Help Rebuild the American Dream. The Summit Publishing Group.
• Perot, Ross (January 1997). Intensive Care: We Must Save Medicare and Medicaid Now. The Summit Publishing Group.

Opinion-Editorial

• Perot, Ross (February 15, 1988). "How I Would Turn Around GM". Fortune.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (August 30, 1992). "'How Stupid Do They Think We Are?'". The New York Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (August 26, 1993). "Can workers kill NAFTA? You bet". Los Angeles Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (August 19, 1994). "Before We Wreck the Health System . . ". The New York Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (September 11, 1994). "Not Worth It For U.S. To Invade Haiti". The New York Times. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
• Perot, Ross (September 23, 1994). "Giant sucking sound grows louder". The New York Times. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
• Perot, Ross (January 5, 1995). "Guess who the losers are in the Mexican peso crisis". Los Angeles Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (September 5, 1995). "U.S. must address debt now". The New York Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Perot, Ross (April 7, 2005). "Texas, discard your 'pencil and paper' for technology; House bill to keep schools competitive deserves support". Houston Chronicle.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Honors

• On April 22, 2009, Ross Perot was made a Honorary Green Beret at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that also honored the OSS, Alamo Scouts and the First Special Service Force, elite World War Two units that were inducted into the "1st Special Forces" Regiment.
• Mr. Perot was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1988.
• On September 18, 2009, the Texarkana Independent School District named him (1947 graduate of Texas High School) as a 2009 Distinguished Alumnus.
• In May 2009, he was appointed an honorary chairman of The OSS Society.
• On October 15, 2009, the United States Military Academy at West Point awarded him with the distinguished Sylvanus Thayer Award.
• In honor of his 80th birthday, the bridge connecting Walton and University drives in Texarkana, Texas, was named the H. Ross Perot Bridge.
• On Oct. 2, 2010, Perot was given the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. He is the 26th receipent of the award.
• On October 28, 2011 it was announced that a newly discovered dinosaur species would be named after Perot and his family, for their contributions to science and science education within Dallas. The species was formally named Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum.

Further Reading

• Rapoport, Ronald; Stone, Walter J. (2005). Three's a crowd: the dynamic of third parties, Ross Perot and the Republican resurgence. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472030996.
• Posner, Gerald (1996). Citizen Perot: His Life and Times. Random House. ISBN 9780679447313.
• Follett, Ken (1984). On wings of eagles. Penguin. ISBN 9780451163530.
• Barta, Carolyn (1993). Perot and his people: disrupting the balance of political power. Summit Group. ISBN 9781565300651.
• Levin, Doron P. (1990). Irreconcilable differences: Ross Perot versus General Motors. Penguin Group. ISBN 9780452263864.
• Franklin, Howard Bruce (1993). M.I.A., or, Mythmaking in America. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813520018.
• Ferguson, Thomas (1992). "The Lost Crusade of Ross Perot". The Nation. 255 (5). The Nation Company L.P.: 168+.
• Landrum, Gene N. (2004). "Believe and the world will follow you anywhere: Ross Perot". Entrepreneurial Genius: The Power of Passion. Brendan Kelly Publishing Inc. ISBN 9781895997231.
• Brooks, John (1973). "Climax: The Day Henry Ross Perot Lost $450 Million". The go-go years: the drama and crashing finale of Wall Street's bullish 60s. Weybright and Talley. ISBN 9780471357551.
• Hillsman, Bill (March 2004). Run the Other Way: Fixing the Two-Party System, One Campaign at a Time. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743224468.
• Alger, Dean (October 1994). "The Media, the public, and the development of candidates' images in the 1992 election" (Document). Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Abramson, Paul R.; Aldrich, John H.; Paolino, Phil (Autumn 1995). "Third-Party and Independent Candidates in American Politics: Wallace, Anderson, and Perot" (PDF). Political Science Quarterly. 1 (3): 349–36. doi:10.2307/2152568. JSTOR 2152568.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

External links

• Perot Charts; a blog launched June 2008 by Perot to examine different national issues with charts and graphs. Link is dead 11 Aug 2011.
• United We Stand, H. Ross Perot; text of the book published by Perot in 1992 to mark the launch of his Presidential campaign, complete with charts. The text is hosted by the site of the organization he created that year United We Stand America, as saved by The Internet Archive.

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