Word: perots
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...weeks ahead the TV talk shows are apt to be filled with Washington insiders harrumphing mightily that, of course, Perot could never deal with Congress; it would be a disaster. This conventional view is buttressed by a strong argument: Perot, the perpetual maverick who could never recruit allies on the GM board of directors, would be facing a Congress of 535 members of the opposition parties. Pet rocks, indeed. But legislators can also read the election returns, or they wouldn't be on Capitol Hill in the first place. As California Democratic Congressman Howard Berman says, "The level of demoralization...
What should instead give voters some pause is Perot's sincere let's-go-back-to-the-way-it-was-in-my-civics-book naivete, a primeval patriotism that is a pivotal part of his political appeal. Each time Perot says a political question has a "simple answer," alarm bells should go off. Each time Perot promises to get "world-class experts" together to solve a national problem, warning lights should flash. There is, alas, nothing simple about governing today's America; there is nothing easy about solving pressing problems when the government is nearly $4 trillion in debt; world...
...Perot's candidacy is both a symptom of the failure of American democracy and a hopeful beacon of its ability to regenerate itself. Over the past two decades, presidential politics has become a blood sport reserved for the paid professionals; there is no room for amateurs anymore, no storefront headquarters staffed with volunteers, no buttons, no bumper stickers. Into this cynical world of negative TV spots and staged sound bites Perot marched in to announce, in effect, "This is America. We don't have to take their candidates, we can nominate...
...What Perot has tapped is the spirit of volunteerism that so entranced Tocqueville 150 years ago, the this-is-a-new-land-and-we-can-do-anyth ing ethos that once defined the national character. Ross Perot in three short months has out of nothing created something far larger than a multibillion- dollar company, or perhaps something even larger than the multimillion- dollar campaign he will fund. Win or lose, his populist crusade and the challenge he is mounting to the establishment parties may well help break the deadlock of American democracy...
...ROSS PEROT BASES HIS CRUSADE for the presidency on being an outsider, a political ingenue who wouldn't know a Gucci-shoed lobbyist if he tripped over one. This reformer would have the public believe he has nothing in common with the fools in Washington. He supports a ban on "these guys with their alligator shoes," who swarm over the halls of Congress trying to open loopholes large enough to drive their leased Jaguars through...