Word: perots
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...have withdrawn into a passive-aggressive political mode: protest for its own sake. "We're gonna fight until hell freezes over," bellows Pat Buchanan, "and then we're gonna fight on the ice!" Disenchantment, whether idealistic or merely snarling, has produced a permanent American political out group (Buchananites, Perot voters and a much larger constituency of nonvoters) whose unhappiness erupts in periodic aneurysms and whose message to the political process is the passive aggressive's succinct "Screw...
THERE'S GOOD NEWS FOR anybody worried that the Dole rebound will mean a dull presidential race. Though he hasn't made up his mind, Ross Perot is leaning toward taking another run at it. Once again, he sees an opportunity and a rationale. Budget balancing, term limits and the reform of Medicare and Social Security are all stalled in Congress or neglected, so far, as campaign issues. So Perot told the Washington Post last week that while he would prefer to stay in private life, "I cannot live with myself knowing what these problems are and seeing the people...
...four years ago, when he got 19% of the vote, Perot could make chaos theory the best predictor of November's outcomes. A new TIME/CNN poll indicates that in a three-way race held now, Perot would get 14% of the vote, Clinton 46% and Dole 33%. Perot's presence would draw more votes from Dole (7 points) than from Clinton (3 points). Even so, White House strategists are worried about a Candidate Perot who aims most of his fire, as he did in 1992, at the incumbent President...
Given the progress of this year's Republican primaries, it's easy to see why Perot would be tempted to move. Buchanan talks like him, bashing NAFTA and GATT, while Forbes spends like him, powering his campaign with his own plentiful cash. And both of them claim the status of political outsider that was crucial to Perot's strength four years ago. For a man with the Texas billionaire's robust self-regard, it can't be much fun to watch stand-ins play the role he wrote for himself...
...particular, the collapse of Buchanan's prospects leaves an opening for Perot to collect some of Pat Buchanan's radically unhappy constituents with their concerns about wage stagnation and job security. But first these voters have to find Perot's Reform Party. For now it is guaranteed a ballot spot in just four states: California, North Dakota, Utah and South Carolina. In another half a dozen states, independent parties already on the ballot, most of them spin-offs from the '92 Perot campaign, are expected to merge with the Reform Party. And Perot lieutenants are pressing petition drives elsewhere...