Ross Perot Had the Last Laugh
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
11 July 19
Ripped as a human punchline in his heyday, Ross Perots political career
foretold violent change in America
Everyone laughed at Ross Perot. If the biggest third-party threat to the
presidency since the Bull Moose Party hadnt existed, late-night comics
would have invented him.
In the early nineties, when Perot took on Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush
for the presidency and became a political phenom, Perot impersonations were
the rage. Dana Carvey doing Perot doing Neil Diamond after Perots famed
1993 NAFTA debate with Vice President Al Gore was a hit (You dont bring me
flowers
Yer not listenin!). Jim Carrey doing Perot doing Steve Martin was
more risqué (You every notice how theres no blacks, Jews, or Puerto Ricans
on The Jetsons? Future looks pretty bright, dudnt it?). I remember seeing
standup acts in New York at the time and Perot was mandatory. He was
Americas punchline.
Even after his passing from leukemia at 89, the rim-shot takes continued.
The New York Times regurgitated the permanent insult for all short
politicians elfin in its weirdly vicious story about Perots death:
And in 1992 he became one of the most unlikely candidates ever to run for
president. He had never held public office, and he seemed all wrong, like a
cartoon character sprung to life: an elfin 5 feet 6 inches and 144 pounds,
with a 1950s crew cut; a squeaky, nasal country-boy twang; and ears that
stuck out like Alfred E. Neumans on a Mad magazine cover
Perot was an odd duck to be sure, and he had some troubling characteristics
(including alleged overuse of surveillance against employees of his company,
Electronic Data Systems). Detractors never figured out that it was precisely
his eccentricity that won him support. Every joke lobbed at him added votes
in an era when people were becoming distrustful of what Time called the
professionalization of politics. Middle America saw Perot as an antidote to
politics-as-usual slickness.
To Middle America, the glib, slick exterior of the two-party system (with
its quadrennial stage-managed election façade) spoke to its alienation from
the populace. This made the square-peg personality of Perot more accessible.
You know who else has funny looks and goofy speech and would be easy fodder
for comedians if they had to go on TV every day? Most people.
Voters understood on some level that Perot was being mocked less for being
funny-looking than for having the temerity to run for president without
going through party bureaucracies, donors, and the Washington media.
His half-hour campaign ads predicting future economic catastrophe were
constantly ridiculed. Perot was a human George Foreman Grill! A joke! Who
runs for president by infomercial?
But it should have been a huge red flag that up to 16 million people tuned
in to these lectures from Perot. One of the first, Balancing the Budget and
Reforming Government, showed him holding up a card that quoted Cicero:
History repeats itself.
The budget should be balanced.
The treasury should be refilled.
Public debt should be reduced.
The arrogance of public officials should be controlled.
These shows of a funny little Southerner in a suit talking by himself in
front of pie charts for a half hour straight outdrew baseball games and
primetime network entertainment programs. They won big ratings because of
their hokey style and B-movie production values. This was the beginning of
the collapse in trust in the news business and in traditional politicians,
who were increasingly seen as having more style than substance.
Early in the 1992 campaign, Perot was leading the three-way race. At one
point in June of that year, a Gallup Poll showed him with 39% support, with
Bush at 31% and young Bill Clinton at 25%. A Time poll a few days later had
him at 37%, with Bush and Clinton both at 24%. These were stunning numbers.
It cant be an accident that a third-party candidate rose to prominence at
precisely the moment when the two parties came together on economic issues,
particularly trade.
Perot ran before it became historical fact that both parties supported NAFTA
Bill Clinton hedged a lot in that race, saying things like on balance it
does more good than harm but the Texan routinely hammered the theme that
the two parties coddled financial interests above ordinary people. In one of
the debates, he accused both Clinton and Bush of having people representing
foreign countries working on their campaigns.
If Perots infomercial ratings were a harbinger of future anger toward the
fake news media, the success of this campaign against NAFTA foretold the
anti-globalism movement. Much as Perot in his business life capitalized on
inefficiencies hed spotted in corporate bureaucracies like that of IBM
(where hed worked as a salesman in his youth), he rose in public life
because he was early to see cracks in our political foundation that later
burst wide open.
Insofar as Perot was even remembered in recent years, its often said that
he was a precursor to Donald Trump. Both were ostensible-billionaire
non-politicians who campaigned against free trade and loosely fell under the
rubric of populist/nationalist phenoms. Both men became political stars
through gluttonous use of free media (Perot had Larry King, Trump had Mika
and Joe). Also, Trump ended up running in 2000 for the nomination of Perots
Reform Party, making the connection seem apparent.
It isnt. Perot and Trump were elevated by the same winds of discontent,
even if they were personally and politically dissimilar Perot was neither
a rake nor a con artist. Nothing remotely like to the accusations of
personal corruption that surround Trump ever arose in connection with the
fastidious Perot, a famed/infamous moral scold.
Perot was married to the same woman for 62 years and was said to be a loyal,
if difficult employer (his company had a moral code that prohibited
infidelity). Trump is the ultimate symbol of excess; Perot bragged about
never owning more than three or four pairs of underpants at a time as a
young person. Perot never spoke in favor of Trump. Apart from criticism of
NAFTA, a protectionist bent, and a general disdain for the two parties, they
didnt have much in common.
Perot captured 19 percent of the vote in 1992, and probably would have had
more, had he not temporarily dropped out of the general election race that
year, citing a bizarre blackmail scheme. The Times reported that Perot was
afraid a campaign of Republican dirty tricks would spread a story that his
soon-to-be-married daughter was a lesbian, if he did not drop out. Like many
other things about Perot, it was dramatic and odd who knows what really
happened?
Perots buzz cut and paperboy background spoke to nostalgia for a vanished
past, but his political career was futuristic. His insight was that in the
modern communications age, a politician could use technology to bypass
traditional filters to power. Cable TV then, like social media now, allowed
him to get around donors and parties and make a direct case.
When he failed, pundits laughed and dismissed his rise as a one-time weather
event. It proved to be anything but, as Trump used the same tactics, if not
exactly the same politics, to win the White House. Next time, we should
probably do a little less laughing.
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