Word: perots
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Although the exact message to voters is still being fashioned, an organized effort to build support is taking shape. Republican advanceman Joe Canzeri has been making sure that crowds at Perot rallies have been plentiful and telegenic. Tim Kraft, who handled Jimmy Carter's field forces in 1976, will deploy 30 operatives across the country. Each coordinator will be charged with setting up offices in three or four states and zeroing in on voters within each congressional district. Most of the $4 million raised by the campaign so far ($3.2 million of it from Perot's pocket) has been spent...
...insiders advising Perot have decided that they must wrest management responsibility away from the volunteers, who are considered less reliable and certainly less pliable. "If you've got paid people working for you, you can come out with a plan and expect that it will be followed. If you have volunteers, you must meet with their approval, or they won't do it," says Meyerson...
...however, the volunteers have performed remarkably well. In New York part-timers have established two separate structures: one to overcome the state's byzantine electoral laws and assure Perot a spot on the ballot, and another to cultivate grass-roots activities through November. One petition- drive worker in New York City who attended an orientation meeting received four follow-up phone calls confirming that she would actually hit the streets with a clipboard. Other statewide groups have been equally effective in marshaling support and finding their way through the legal thicket. Perot's California organization, which collected more than...
...battles. In Tulsa organizer Pat Clancy says a Dallas-based team took over his group's bank account when they consolidated operations in Oklahoma City. When Clancy balked at being shut out, the World War II veteran was told he was a "security risk." According to Cliff Arnebeck, a Perot volunteer in Ohio, the Dallas-based advisers "squelch and humiliate" grass-roots workers. If a local organizer is at the center of a controversy over tactics or long-range strategy, the professionals "put out the fire by jettisoning those under attack...
...some cases the professionals are attempting to channel the energies of the petition workers elsewhere. In many regions Perot's paid staff members are trying to set up in 100 days the kind of support network that has been in place for the major parties for years. One idea: enlist volunteers in an adopt-a-voter program, in which each draws up a list of 25 other potential Perot supporters, ensures that they are registered and monitors the level of their enthusiasm right up to Election Day. Although Perot has criticized both parties for kowtowing to special interests, his campaign...