Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Contenders Ross Perot 20240712

4 trillion in debt. Going into debt, an additional million in an hour and a half. Its not the republicans fault, of course, and its not the democrats fault, and what im looking for is who did it. Now, theyre the two folks involved, so maybe if you put them together, they did it. The facts are, we have to fix it. Somewhere out there there is an extraterrestrial doing this to us, i guess. Everybody said they will take responsibility. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. That was independent candidate ross perot during three separate debates in 1992 talking about one of his favorite issues, the u. S. Debt. In that election the texas businessman won 90 of the popular vote, the largest vote for an independent candidate sin since. Good night and thank you for being with us. Were doing this series as a way of looking at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who failed in the white house but had an influence on American History. Ross perot is one of 12 were featuring in this series. Joining us now, ross perots biographer don brinkley. As a person who has done biographies on history, what strikes you as ross perot. Hes more like gerald ford or thomas edison. Patriotism becomes kind of a cheap word. Ross perot is sort of a superpatriot. Hes less interested in money and politics than he is in doing whats right for our country. This comes, i believe, from his naval background, his Constant Service to our country, looking for pows and mias during vietnam and constantly supporting our special forces. But the clip you just ran tells you that in 1992, perot talked about the center issue of america, the National Debt. We were at 15 trillion. When he was talking about the sucking jobs leaving america due to nafta outsourcing, its probably on the left the issue that the most disturbed zone of middle class americans is that jobs had gone overseas and many towns in the midwest or south are languishing right now. So the histories ross perot talked about in his campaigns are being echoed today by the tea party on the right and on the left. Is that what youre saying . Hes a centrist. You cannot look at ross in the paradigm of typical politics. We often want to label people right, left. Hes something out of an older american fiber of the wagon trains out west or of the world war ii or created war heroes, soldiers, explorers, inventors. Thats what ross perot is really about. His entering the race was about public service. He put a considerable amount of money where his mouth was. He ran every season we have people flirting with thirdparty runs, but ross perot did it, and its quite extraordinary to get about 19 of a vote. Its kind of unprecedented, and it came from middle class people all over america. So its interesting to reflect now on this whole united we stand movement that ross perot ran in 92 and with the reform party in 96, and wondering, is there going to be a thirdparty person . Is there a ross perot that might enter the nixon 2012 . If you look at his platform in 92, he seems to be right on with the key issues including border problems, drugs, violence on the texas border, the need for public education. He has very controversial things such as putting a gasoline tax on. We look at ross perot and he echoes our current debate. In fact, he had been on the National Stage for a while. In the late 80s he began speaking about these issues he was concerned about. We looked at our Video Library and our first meeting with ross perot was in 1997. Here he was speaking to the Banking Association that year. Lets take a look at where we are and lets take the rosecolored glasses off. All these people are saying, the metals have been found. I think were tough enough to take bad news and i think its time we look at the facts. Weve got a 3 trillion debt by 1988. Our debt is being significantly funded by foreign nations at this point. The greatest nation in the history of man doesnt even have the will to pass a national budget. We continue to pass continuing resolutions that put us ever deeper into debt, and weve given up trying to live within our means as a country. There is no correlation between taxes paid in and money spent. We are losing an International Business competition. Some of our banks have problems, savings and loans have serious problems, wall street is bouncing all over the place. Our personal spending habits of our people are as bleak as our federal spending habits. Our people spend everything they make, all it can borrow and they have no savings. 1987, 24 years ago, and except for upping the numbers and the fact that americans are now saving because of the 2008 crisis, almost every one of these issues could be talked about with the same words today. Thats absolutely correct. Remember why ross perot could give that speech. He was a genius, really, at startup operations. He understood the corporate world. In 1962 he created Electronic Data Systems and ended up selling it a few years before that speech, i believe, in 1984 to General Motors and became arguably the richest person in texas and was getting on the cover of fortune magazine, so he knows what hes talking about how to take a startup business, and he understood the importance of Data Collection for companies. He even at one point invested in apple with steve jobs at one point. He worked, of course, for ibm when he was a young man. So he really wanted the United States in his adult life to be the great country it was of his childhood, the country that fdr brought us through in the Great Depression and world war ii, that cando spirit that just fills him up. And the fact that we were losing in the 80s to japan a lot, and of course today our problem is competing with china, and the fact that so many people in congress seemed to be bought and paid for, the lobbying in washington, in getting rid of lobbyists and corrupt politicians was at the core of the pro message. This is a callin program, and you make it very interesting. We will, in a few minutes, put our phone numbers on the screen so you can be involved in the conversation about ross perot, the issues he was involved in then and the legacy today. In 1993, this book was published, perot and his people, disrupting the balance of people. Carolyn bartadjoi joins us from home in texas. Can you tell us about him and what shaped the man we knew on the National Stage . Well, perot was from texarkana. He had a very average texas childhood. He lived in a strong, stable middle class family. As a boy, he broke horses, he traded horses, he was an eagle scout. Even in later life, i think that he kept all the traits of the eagle scout. He would set objectives for himself, goals, and then try to pursue those goals. You know, he was very much in the texas tradition of the day, and as he grew, went to the Naval Academy and then started his own businesses, he wsort of rem represented, as doug said, the cando spirit of texas. His vision was big, the state was big, there was boundless opportunity here, the sky was the limit sort of thing. He really sort of played into what was sort of the texas mythology with texas politicians who were larger than life, very successful businessmen who made a fortune here. They were risk takers, they were not afraid to fail. And that was the sort of spirit that he had that i think got him into this thing. Its worth noting that at the Naval Academy, ross perot was president of his class the last two years, so early on showed leadership traits and the ability to galvanize people under his leadership that we would see later in life. Just a quick overview of his business career. Lets take a look at after the Naval Academy, he left the navy after four years and went to business, as we mentioned, into ibm as a salesman where he quickly became the top salesman of the company. That was by 1957. By 1962, he had founded his own company which is Electronic Data Systems. In 1984 he sold eds to General Motors for 2. 4 billion and then stayed on the board for a number of years afterwards. In 1988 he founded Perot Systems, and in 2009 sold that company to Dell Computers for 3. 9 billion, the source of his great wealth. But carolyn barbarta, he and hi family were philanthropists. Can you talk about that side of his family . Theyve given a fortune to all sorts of charities here in dallas, and mr. Perot himself has made many anonymous contributions in small ways, has helped individuals and without people even knowing about it. There is a hospital here named for margo perot, his wife. Hes given a whole lot of money to the boy scouts. Its just endless, their if i l philanthropy. Doug, you mentioned earlier his involvement with the p. O. W. S. Can you tell more about that issue and how it created a divide between him and a later president. We mentioned he graduated from the Naval Academy in annapolis as the president. That was a big deal. You were the sort of person that believed you were only as good as the guy left behind. He was a greater leader. During those years when he was in the navy, he sometimes would have to go and get soldiers that were on leave or got drunk in a foreign town and get them back on the ship. It became sort of a hallmark of his life. You never leave anybody behind. And he was very upset during the vietnam war, rightfully so, that the United States we didnt push the p. O. W. mia mission enough. He went to backchannel negotiations with vietnam to say we want every one of our guys back. And hes become, really, a hero of the u. S. Military veterans for his constant concern about our soldiers and our troops. Recently i gave a talk down in dallas for veterans day, and these were daughters of world war ii veterans. There were hundreds of world war ii vets there. I got to talk with ross perot over dinner one night, and one of the most Amazing Stories he told me was recently when our s. E. A. L. S team killed osama bin laden, they shipped him they thought so much of him or special forces that they staffed the walking cane of bill louden and he went to the s. E. A. L. S museum in florida, which everyone should visit, because i think our s. E. A. L. S should be time hero of the year. But he put the stick there to all the people in attendance of bin laden. Thats how conscientious he was about getting jobs for people in his companies, helping veterans whenever he can, and particularly with the special forces which he thinks represent the best of the best of the american spirit. We visited his boyhood home in texarkana. Were going to show you that. As were looking at that, i would like Carolyn Barta to talk about his involvement at the behest of texas governors, including the war on drugs and education reform in his home state. Well, he was appointed to a couple of task forces, one by former governor bill clements, and then another one by former governor mark white, so clements was a republican, white succeeded him as a democrat. They both tapped perot and asked him to serve. One was on education reform, and i think it just kind of points out how mr. Perot was always one to speak his mind. He was never afraid to say what he thought. And he thought that in the Public Schools there should be special classes for talented kids, and the brightest kids should go to better classes. Some of the parents, texas parents, thought, well, thats elitism and maybe we dont want that in our Public Schools. And so perot just very sarcastically said, okay, lets put all the fat girls on the drill team, lets put have everybody be the quarterback. It was just sort of an example of how he always spoke his mind. But he was never reluctant to take on a job if he was asked to do a job like that for a couple of governors that showed that the democrats and republicans both liked him. And for years his name had been mentioned as a potential candidate for something in texas, because he was a leader. And he was also sort of in the tradition of oldtime texas politicians. You know, people like speaker sam rayburn well, even going back to sam houston, doug, in the republic of texas, that kind of charismatic leader. Speaker sam rayburn, lbj, governor john conley, governor clements who was certainly one to speak his mind, governor ann richards who was in a class by herself as well. He was so much like some of these older texans who would just tell it like it is and didnt mind doing the hard work to if he thought it would help the state or help the country, he didnt mind doing the hard work to do it. Carolyn, let me jump in at that point. One more bit of the pro biography building i want to put on the screen before we get to his campaign in 92. In iran, a number of eds workers were held hostage and mr. Perot was personally involved in the rescue of those, something that was later captured in a book by ken follett called on wings of eagles. It became a National Bestseller and later a movie on television. Can you talk about how this and youve watched a lot of politicians building the personal biography through the telling of stories like this and how he did it effectively. This was an amazing story. In 1979, jimmy carter was president. You had the beginnings of the iranian revolution, and two of his workers for his company, for Electronic Data Systems, had been held captive. He wanted them sprung free. He went and hired a former special forces people to go in and find a way to get them loose. He ended up they ended up using an anti an eayatollah khomenei rally were not just two of his employees were released, but about 10,000 Political Prisoners got released. They had a rendezvous and were later able to get smuggled out of turkey. This was a highly successful maneuver of getting in there and getting his guys back. It gets back earlier to what i said about the p. O. W. S and mias. Ross perot was loyal first and foremost. If you worked for him and you were loyal to his company, he would do anything for you. If you listened to people who knew him well, thats the number one trait, personal loyalty to people he believes in. We have a great photograph of that period of ross perot with Richard Crenna who played ross perot in a movie that was played nationally on local television. Set the stage about the ross perot bid for candidacy and how the public was feeling about him. We know George Walker bush, or president 41 as hes referred to now, he saw the wall coming down, the breakup of the soviet union, the end of the cold war. And in 1991, the gulf war, which most people thought was a Great Success of ousting Saddam Hussein from kuwait. In early 1992, pat buchanan was going after president bush as having a silver spoon in his mouth and was an elite, out of touch there was a powerful revolt within the Republican Party. Also that spring you had another insurgent, jerry brown, coming in and trying to reattract them, so you have the Democrat Bill clinton and George Herbert walker bush, and suddenly ross perot goes on larry king on cnn and says, look, im going to run as an independent if i can be on the ballot of all 50 states if im drafted. Im not going to run the typical campaign, the but the peop bu want my ideas. The ousting of jobs he was against, but he was also against the gulf war. He thought it would be a mistake and that special forces should have gone in and killed Saddam Hussein. He started soaring in the polls and became the darling in the summer of 92, and then well pick up the rest of the story in a little bit. Lets show that larry king live february 22, 1992 interview when ross perot shows his willingness to run. Lets go to grassroots, america where people are hurting and saying, why are we in this mess . First of all, look in the mirror. Were the owners of this country. We dont act like the owners. We act like white rabbits that get programmed by messages coming out of washington. We own this place. Is there any scenario in which you would run for president . Can you give me a scenario in which you would say, okay, im in . Number one, i dont want to. But is there a scenario . Number two, if youre that serious, you, the people, are that serious, you register me in 50 states. And if youre not willing to organize and do that, then this is all just talk. Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying im playing to the ordinary folks. If youre dead serious, i want to see some sweat. Why do i want to see some sweat . I said it earlier, i want you in the ring. Carolyn barta, let me ask you how much of a surprise that announcement was by the time it was made in february of 92. Well, i guess it surprised most people, but the truth of the matter was that he had been out making speeches for several years, and particularly leading up to the larry king live interview. In fact, just a couple weeks before that, he was in tennessee to speak to a Business Group and he was interviewed by a reporter there, and he told him virtually the same thing, that if he saw some skin in the game, if people got in the ring and put him on the ballot, he would think of doing it. It was published. Nothing much came of it, and perot was talking to a man in tennessee and another one in florida who were sort of activists and trying to draft him to run, and john j. Hooker in tennessee, sort of a flamboyant businessman, kept calling him, talking to him and trying to get him to run. And it got to the point where they started talking about, well, where would we where should i announce . And they considered conventional sources, New York Times, l. Times, wall street journal, and he liked larry king live. Throughout the campaign he liked going on talk shows where he could talk and get his message out. So, anyway, as i was told the story, john sigenthaller of the tennesseean, the editor there formerly, called larry king live, and im not sure whether he set it up or just told him to ask the question. Perot said that he was going on larry king live to talk about the economy. And he made an impulsive statement. He never thought it would go anywhere. But the truth of the matter was he had been thinking about this for quite a long time. And even three months before he made a speech in tampa to a group called throw the hypocritical carascals out. A man down there, jack gargan, was trying to do a draft campaign. There were signs, draft perot. There were a thousand, 2,000 people listening to him speak down there. He was curious about it. How do you get on 50 ballots . And, in fact, asked some of his staffpeople to do some research to see, how do you get on the ballot . So he had been mulling it over in his head for a good while. It was a surprise to most of the country, but i think that he had been thinking about it for a good while. And his challenge to his supporters to get him on the ballot in 50 states really became the subject of Carolyn Bartas book which she contends is really about the people who followed ross perot and how they were galvanized to move outside of the conventional twoparty system in support of issues and this figure leading those issues. Well talk a lot more about that as the program continues. Two clips and then were going to start taking calls. These are backtoback clips. Just to give you a sense of flavor, Doug Brinkley mentioned earlier that ross perot was very critical of george h. W. Bushs prosecution of the first gulf war. Well hear about that in an interview he gave to cspan in march of 1992. And then immediately after that, also, in the spring of 1992, youll hear a clip from a very wellknown texas journalist, molly ivans, who is now past, but very well known in texas politics, and she was asked in the spring to talk about this texas politician she knew so well. Well show you both of those clips and come back and take your calls. They should understand why were going to war. Lets take the example you gave me. It was four months before the white house could figure out why we were doing it. One time it was jobs, the next time it was oil. Finally they got it together and they had to get rid of nuclear, chemical, bacterialogical and hussein. If i knocked on your door and said, i would like to borrow your middle son to go to war to work with this dude who has a propensity for sex every wednesday night, you would probably hit me in the mouth. One night i made a mistake about ross perot in my column. I wrote about how they abolished the income tax and i was writing in my column about why it was a bad idea. I said, so, you see, if you make more than 17,500 a year, you will be in the exact same tax bracket as ross h. Perot. And because my english teacher taught me to write complete sentences, i wrote, comma, who makes more than a Million Dollars a year. But i made the journalistic error. I thought it was a safe claim but i did not check. The guys at our business desk in dallas called and theyre just laughing their asses off. They said, ivans, ross perot makes a Million Dollars a day. Im sitting there thinking, boy, this is going to be an embarrassing correction when the phone rang and an operator said, ross perot calling collect for molly ivans. He really is funny. I like the guy. And i was sorry about that because im sure he is politically incorrect to an extent that would make peoples teeth hurt around here. But, in fact, i do like ross perot. Hes a damn hard guy to dislike. There is a lot to like there. The down side is that basically guys who have made a lot of money in business tend to have a very hard time of working on a system of checks and balances. The other downside is the man is slightly paranoid which is a bit like being slightly pregnant. This is the contenders focusing on the president ial campaign of h. Ross perot in 1992 and 1996. We have douglas brinkley, and Carolyn Barta who wrote a book and supported him in 1992. Lets begin your telephone calls on the contenders starting with ralph watching us in chicago. Ralph, youre on the air. Caller thank you, susan, awesome. Didnt mr. Perot pass on distinguishing himself from his two rivals who were heavily compromised in the war on drugs by not calling for a road map to peace on drugs . As successful contenders, harrison and cleveland used opium along with benjamin franklin, and jfk with speed and lincoln used medical marijuana, and each of our last three successful contenders used both grass and coke medically as preventatively and recreationally . Thank you. What were really getting at is the socalled war on drugs which became a popular phrase in the 1980s in the United States. The problem was all these urban centers had whole generations of kids that were getting addicted to different types of narcotics. His whole life he was working for Public School systems on drugs in particular. There were some you couldnt even go into, including dallas, which was a very rough city, people forget, back in the 80s and 90s. Perot took a pretty hard line cracking down on drugs, and we have the crack epidemic that hit the United States after that. He was tough on that issue. So if you are somebody who is a libertarian and believes that drugs should be legal in the United States, perot would not be on your side. Matt is watching us in plano, texas and youre on. Good morning, matt. Caller good morning. I want to make a comment and a question. Hes had a profound effect here in plano. He ended up moving his headquarters here, and because of that i believe dr. Pepper and a few other corporations decided to move here as well, and later on he ended up finding Perot Systems as well. Hes had a huge impact where i live, and i thank him for that. But my question is about his choice for stockdale as president. How did that come about . As we saw later on, he didnt look too good in the vp debate, and i think it was a hindrance im not sure how many votes it cost him, but it certainly didnt make him look good. I just wanted to ask what was the thinking and decision behind selecting admiral stockdale as his vp candidate, and ill take my answer off the air. In 1992 he stock admiral stockdale. Admiral stockdale is one of the greatest americans who ever lived. Hes the most decorated naval officers in u. S. History. And, of course, he had been a p. O. W. In world war in the vietnam war and had organized what they call the alcatraz gang over how to have a p. O. W. Resistance. This guy, i think he won Something Like 26 medals, numerous silver stars, medal after honor winner, later went on to become president of a naval war college. Were dealing with a very serious person in stockdale, and ross perot just admired him slavishly. He thought he was the type of person we needed in government. He chose him as his vp, it was an interesting choice. What people forget in 1992, ross perot did well in the debates. He clearly won the first debate against clinton and bush, and some people would say he won all three, but thats how he got to 19 . Pre h predebates, he was only at about 8 . He got out of the gate wrong by making a comment like, who am i because a lot of people hadnt heard of him before. He actually got a lot of applause when he did the debate with stockdale but the media went to town on him, and he was never really ready for that media frenzy that you have to expect. It made some people question whether perot could be president , because some people didnt think stockdale had the political skills to be president. On the other hand, admiral stockdale is some energetic historian and they should do a biography on this man. They dont come better than admiral stockdale, and i hate to remember his fumbling on a debate question, and the service of admiral stockdale is almost unparalleled. Carolyn barta, spring of 1992 progresses into summer, and the people who are enthusiastic about ross perot begin the work of meeting his challenge, of getting his name on the ballot in all 50 states. Will you describe to our audience Ballot Access in this country and as it existed in 1992 and how big a task they faced . Well, it was a huge task. In order to get on the ballot in any state, you have to meet the laws of that state. So if its a petition that you have to get 100,000 names on a petition, or you pay 1,000. Getting your name on the list is diverse. Its kind of hard because you do have to collect petition names in most cases, and sometimes you have a very narrow window in which to do it. So what happened after larry king live, people started calling the perot headquarters saying they wanted to get in the ring with him, they wanted to do whatever they could do to make him run. And so they set up a phone bank there at his headquarters in dallas and volunteers came in and manned the phone banks, and they were having people call from all over the country. They set up a very sophisticated phone bank where someone would call in, and if they were from a certain state, did they want to work on the petition drive, did they want to volunteer, did they want to know when perot was going to be next on tv, you know, punch, punch, punch, and it would go from wherever to answer the persons question. But then what the perot organization had to do, and perot called people to ask how he had to do this. How do we get on the ballot in 50 states, and had to work with all the people volunteering in each state, find out the laws in that state and start working to do it. It was an enormous task. Once you get on the ballot and if you reach a certain threshold, you establish a ballot position for the future, and perot established a Ballot Access position in 92, 96 so that pat buchanan who ran on the ticket in 2000 had the Ballot Access in all the states. Initially its almost impossible, but, i mean, like i said, he never feared doing the impossible and got his team to work, got leaders in every state to handle the petition drive if that was what was needed in that state. And as the spring moved into summer, ross perot was, in some polls, reaching 39 of public approval ratings, so the two parties were really beginning to take this mans candidacy quite seriously. Bill clinton moving toward his nomination as a new democrat, as you said, and the incumbent president , george bush, probably wondering what was happening here with this challenge from ross perot. Two texans going against one another. Can you talk more about the relationship between the two . First off, bush 41 is really a houston figure, which is about International Companies and its about the oil industry and trading. Ross perot was working with ibm and then with his own Data Services company. They were just in different Texas Industries and different geography. But they got into a terrible feud over the p. O. W. And mia issues. He really accused bush, and particularly the cia in general, of being part of a drug trade in southeast asia, that they were actually doing kind of Slush Fund Money by selling heroin and other opiates we should interject george bush was head of the cia. Exactly. So it became pretty nasty between the two. There is no love loss between George Herbert walker bush and ross perot, but thats politics. So the bigger question in 92, as were talking about this and im thinking, we just heard about this sort of populist campaign of perot, but remember, he put somewhere around 12, 13 million of his own money into the game, maybe more. He was also able to buy these tv time half an hour commercials. One half hour infomercial of ross perot garnered about 1. 5 million viewers. He was following no real rules. Of course, George Herbert walker bush had been head of the Republican Party, and clinton was the darling of the Democratic Party. Perot was filling this vital center and really was trying to champion the middle class everyday American Peoples central interest. He was the antimoney in washington guy, and thats also an issue were talking. He saw that was going to be a doom for us. Lets take a call from indianapolis. Jerry watching us there. Hi, jerry. Caller good morning, maam. Do you have a question for us . Caller i have a question. When ross perot and bill clinton run, try to get neck and neck, Lyndon Johnson and roosevelt, do you think we need to go back and see what we can do about jobs and everything, about kmthe economy, republicans, everything, but the problem started when george bush was in the white house, so president barack obama had to try to get it together for the people in the country. The country is going bad. Thank you, jerry. Jerry actually reflecting the comments that brinkley meant to playing to the middle class of america. Im going to move on to darcell watching in leyland, north carolina. Go ahead. Caller yes, im one who signed up for ross perot and i can definitely say im responsible for 20 of my friends to not vote democratically, to vote for ross perot. So in the hindsight of 20 years, how do you feel about that whole effort for ross perot . Caller first of all, i really appreciate that he went outside the box and one of his most important speeches was chicken and chips. You guys have to bring that tape out. One didnt know anything but chicken and the other one didnt know anything about computer chips. I thought that was one of the most laughable moments, because both president bush and now president clinton had no idea what was going on. They looked sort of dumbfounded. And i was very proud that my Sorority Sister was head of that. She moderated that debate. But i was somewhat concerned about his daughter, and i hope you guys mention something about his daughter was supposed to be assassinated, so they were going to take him off he was going to leave the campaign. That was a curiosity as well as i was not really quite sure his feelings about race. Now, i felt comfortable. He had a very large turnout in flint, michigan at the defunct hyatt regency. There was a lot of excitement about this man because he seemed t to be very sincere. When he was telling some of the volunteers, you need to put some skin in the game, because he wasnt going to put his money in and see it go for naught, but i think he was responsible for any thirdparty candidate to be involved. Perot was also involved with the anderson thing. Thank you so much, its interesting, and im sure well hear from other people involved with the Perot Campaign. Im going to ask Carolyn Barta, but i just want you to ask one aspect of her question and thats ross perots views on race. On race . Yes, thats what she talked about. On race. Oh. Well, he made a speech at the naacp in the course of the campaign. Actually, this was toward shortly before he got out. And things had not been going well in the campaign. The press was determined to put him through a primary because he hadnt been through one. There had been a lot of negative stories about he was conspiratorial, he investigated people, and looking into his business, everything, his family. And, anyway, things were not going well, and he did not he did not like the way the campaign was going at that point. He had agreed to go make this speech at the naacp, and in the course of the speech, he there was a phrase Something Like, you and your people. He used the phrase, you and your people. And for whatever reason, after it was over with, people interpreted it to be racist, that he was making some kind of racist statement. And it really devastated him because he had this image of himself as a great humanitarian who was very, you know, tolerant of racially tolerant and had no animosity or racial prejudices, actually. And he came off sounding like a racist. Not long after that, he did get out. We will pick up the story, because as we mentioned by summer, he was at 39 in the polls. People working on Ballot Access had been successful in about half of the states. Then in july, july 16th, to be exact, 1992, an announcement from ross perot about his campaign. And then just two and a half months later, a second announcement. Well watch a little bit of both right now. We have said among ourselves and publicly that we must win in november. We must win a majority of the electoral votes. As you know, if we cannot win in november, the election will be decided in the house of representatives. And since the house of representatives is made up primarily of democrats and republicans, my chances of winning would be pretty slim. Now that the Democratic Party has revitalized itself, i have concluded that we cannot win in november, and that the election will be decided in the house of representatives. Since the house of representatives does not pick the president until january, the new president will be unable to use the months of november and december to assemble the new government. I believe it would be disruptive for us to continue our Program Since this obviously put it in the house of representatives and be disruptive to the country. Therefore, i will not become a candidate. The volunteers know this is a critical time in our nations history. Neither Political Party has effectively addressed the issues that concern the American People. Theyve asked me to run this campaign on the issues and to assure that the problems that the American People are concerned with will be dealt with after this election is over. I know i hurt many of the volunteers who worked so hard through the spring and summer when i stepped aside in july. I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought both Political Parties would address the problems at face the nation. We gave them a chance. They didnt do it. But the volunteers on their own forged ahead and put me on the ballot in the final 26 states after july the 16th. The day we were on the ballot in all 50 states, the volunteers requested that i come back in because the Political Parties had not responded to their concerns. My decision in july hurt you. I apologize. I thought i was doing the right thing. I made a mistake, i take full responsibility for it. Theres only one issue now starting today, and that is whats good for our country . Looking back wont solve any of our problems. Looking forward, working together, we can fix anything. So, Carolyn Barta, you followed this campaign and you understood the disappointment of the people who were working for perot. What did you come to learn about the reason for him leaving in july and getting back in in october . I think there were several reasons that he decided to get out, and i already mentioned the press was they were doing a lot of investigative stories on him that he didnt like. But another thing was happening in the campaign. He had brought they brought some professionals in to help with the campaign, and the perots had sort of started taking over. It got really out of hand. Ed rawlings well, he already had hand jurden, who was a carter guy who had been a consultant. Then he brought in ed rawlings. Ed rawlings wanted to do slick tv ads, he wanted to do the traditional kind of campaign, press conference every day, and perot didnt want all of that. He wanted a very simple kind of campaign. He wanted to do it differently than anybody had ever done before. He just wanted to talk to the American People when he could on tv. He wanted to do his infomercials where he would buy time and get on tv with his flip charts and explain what he thought was wrong with america and how to fix it. So the perots came in and were trying to build up a different kind of campaign. He thought he had lost control of the campaign, it wasnt fun anymore, and so i think for a variety of reasons, he decided, this is not going anywhere, were not going to win, its grueling, and we might as well cut it off. Then there is another part to the story. A lot of his his volunteers mostly were devastated. They were crying. They were so upset that they had i mean, a lot of these people had put their lives on hold to work for him to get him on the ballot. And then all of a sudden hes pulling the plug like this. But some of them were sort of smart enough to see through that. He urged the volunteers to go ahead and get him on the ballot because that would be their leverage. And some of them thought, you know, i think hell probably come back. And, in fact, he came back and did the kind of campaign he wanted to do all along. He wanted to do a short campaign. He always said he thought campaigns should be no longer than five months, anyway. But he came back, it was a sprint to the finish, he had five weeks when he came back in october, and he did his infomercials, he went on some talk shows, and he finished the Campaign Like he started it. Okay, let me jump in there and take a call from mike watching in minneapolis. Mike, youre on the air. Caller thank you for taking my call. Great program. Ive been watching all the series. I have a question. Mr. Perot in his campaign, he used these demonstrations. He bought these commercials on tv and i vividly remember this as a young person that he was illustrating all the debt that america has and going through all these, and i felt those were really powerful presentations. And ever since then, ive seen the candidates use that powerful presentation. The other thing is that ive heard that mr. Perot has accused the former president george bush 41 of disrupting his daughters wedding, and he wanted to take revenge. And thats one of the reasons he also ran. And in todays elections for 2012, who would mr. Perot be supporting . Thank you. Thank you very much, mike. Mike talked about the infomercials and the charts, then well come back to Doug Brinkley to talk about this use of campaign infomercials and charts to illustrate policy issues. Ross perot, plain talk about jobs, debt and the washington mess. Weve talked about having the American People fully informed so they can make Intelligent Decisions regarding this country. In effect, this is our first town hall. I thought it would be a good idea to take the most important problem first. That problem is our economy and jobs. Heres a picture on our countrys debt. Look at how its grown over the years. Were now up to 4 trillion in debt. That is a staggering load for our country. To help you understand how fast this debt has grown and when it grew, the green is the debt we had in 1980. The red is the debt that has been incurred in the last 12 years. Weve had an Enormous Growth in debt, and we dont have anything to show for it. Okay, heres another headache. Its like the guy that went into the hospital, thought he had a sore arm and found out he had gangrene. But were tough people, we can handle it. All that in the red is debt due and payable in the next five years. They financed longterm problems shortterm to keep the Interest Payments down. Thats suicide in business, thats suicide in your personal life, thats suicide in your government. Doug brinkley, did ross perot begin a trend that politicians would then follow with these charts, or is it uniquely perot . I think its uniquely perot. Others would do it and you see it happening in congress all the time. But this was hitting a very large audience, and whats amazing, its still the issue of our time right now. He was trying to really drive home a point that we were going to go down as a country if we kept racking up debt. He was a business person and a fiscal conservative and believed you had to keep your books balanced. He ran, really, to make that point more than anything else. I read he once said, i grew up as a young man wanting to become a pearl and i ended up becoming an irritant to the oyster, meaning he really wasnt he wanted to wake us up to this what he saw as a very large problem, and the reason maybe ten years ago the debt, particularly after the clinton administration, we were getting a surplus, but in this 201112 environment, this pie chart is frightening, and 4 trillion, when you put that pie chart up to todays 15 trillion in debt, perot was trying to wake us up that this could be the doom of the United States if we didnt address this problem. Carolyn barta, weve had two callers asking about perots accusations of messing with his daughters wedding. In the interest of time, can you briefly tell that story of what his accusations were . Yeah, i dont think he accused bush of doing it, but he thought the republicans were playing dirty tricks, and his daughter was getting married. It was one of the reasons that he did get out. I should have mentioned it before. But i dont know what there was the story was that they were going to put her head on somebody elses body in a photograph and sell it to get the tabloids to use it. You know, he was very concerned about his family, and his family was really special, and his daughters and the daughters wedding, and so he just the thought of that happening was too much for him and was another reason that he did get out. The callers last question for both of you, is there anyone on the National Stage today who would be an heir to mr. Perot . One of the things when youre watching it, ross perot is kind of inventing a new type of thirdparty movement he was running. There had been other thirdparty movements, 1938, or Henry Wallace in the progressive party. 1968, George Wallace and the american party. He was really trying to create a centrist movement, hence why he hired ed rawlings, the great republican strategist to work his campaign, and also the great democrat. He was trying to play it down the middle. You hear sometimes that bloomberg, mayor of new yorks name has been invoked. Donald trump does all these games for his own publicity but doesnt really get in the game and focus on the issues. So one of the things in this Contenders Program and thinking about ross perot was he actually did it. Its one thing to talk about it, but to get on all 50 and get to the point where youre getting 19 of the American People, that perot vote, that 19 , is still the middle class center that both president obama and whoever the republican nominee is fighting for. The working class, blue collar, patriotic, taxpaying american citizens in rustbelt towns or tumbleweed towns in the midwest that are hurting economically, and hes talking about massive reform. Hes most like Theodore Roosevelts Bull Moose Party in 1912, and they were the two most successful third party for votes. Not electoral votes, but popular vote of the 20th century. Carolyn barta, one question we didnt answer from an earlier caller was whether or not mr. Perots strained relationship, well call it, with george bush was one of the animating factors in his campaign. Do you know if that was a factor . Well, i think it was a factor because he going back to the p. O. W. mia days, he thought that when bush was Vice President that the administration was not doing enough to try to get the mias and the p. O. W. S out of north vietnam. Then he thought that he went into the persian gulf war without a declaration of war. And he also thought that bush was too focused on Foreign Affairs and was not addressing the domestic problems of the day. In fact, he thought he didnt understand the domestic problems of the day. And as doug has mentioned, the problems were very much like today. There are so many similarities with the economy and recession, loss of jobs, people feeling like it was no longer a government by, of and for the people, but it was government for the politically powerful and the special interests. So many similarities. I do think that he felt that george w. Bush was not up to the job, and that was one of the reasons that he wanted to to r. But back to the question of whether anybody could do it today, maybe somebody like bloomberg, mayor bloomberg, somebody who does have their own money. But he was really uniquely positioned to run at that particular time, a conservative with a populist touch and i think what happened to the reform party over the years shows the difficulty in maintaining this type of a thirdparty movement. Yes, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 got 27 and 88 electoral votes. Then comes ross perot in 1992 and he got no electoral votes. He got almost 20 million votes, popular votes, no electoral votes i got to jump they were the most successful. Were at the top of an hour with one hour left to go and, doug, you have a quick comment and i have a call. One important quick comment. The viewers really need to understand this. When you show the pie charts of ross perot and hes talking about the deficit and the debt, that could be eric canter today. But how are we going to make up that money . He says, lets tax gasoline. Lets put ten cents a gallon for five years, raise billions to pay that off. The petroleum, the oil lobby of texas does not like this idea of taxing gasoline. If we would have done it back then with this socalled clean, sustainable, Renewable Energy revolution, more people paying more for gas may have triggered that innovation and the left is very much likes that. That pie chart on the one hand, it seems like a conservative pie chart. On the other hand, how to pay it is something that the democrats like. Halfway through our twohour look at ross perot. Gloria, youre on for our two guests. Hello. Caller hello, there. I just loved ross perot. I remember the 1920s and looking i would think, what does ross perot think of the through the political spectrum, down through those years, Franklin Roosevelt and all of the president s and we come to today, total insanity. I watched the house of representatives, the senate and everything has been turned around so that only the certain people with the great deal of money, it appears, are able to turn the elections to their good. So i just i just wish that the good, solid, rocksolid intelligenc intelligen intelligence, sensibility of ross perot could help us today. Colleen is up next. Hi, colleen, youre on. Caller hello, i have a really good question but i want to make a comment. Im glad i came after the woman who the phone call prior, her living in the 20s. I was in my early 20s in the 90s and ross perot was the equivalent of a ron paul. Young people loved ross perot. I used to run home and couldnt wait to watch his pie charts. I learned so much from him. And its almost i almost forget bill clinton in those debates because it really was ross perot really was the rock star for the people in his 20s. He had a huge following. But my question is, he was very good friends with john mccain. And from what i understand, he lost touch with john mccain i think when john left his first wife. But he recently called a reporter from the New York Times when john mccain was running for president and i believe that reporter wrote an article that because ross perot made a personal phone call to him. Thats my question, do you know anything about his falling out with john mccain . Well, he was for mitt romney, ross perot, for the Republican Party nomination the last president ial election, not mccain. Its part of that just feuds that ross perot has weve got to understand, mr. Perot is not something playing right left politics, even whats happening in washington, d. C. Anybody who he thinks is abandoning principles on doing away with pacs or superpacs, and, you know, you can see that the mccain was willing to start compromising on a lot of his integrity and principles and so perot, you know, abandoned him at that point. But the also, i just want to say. The side of ross perot is about action. Its whatever it takes to fix the problem. Hes not really about talk. I think theres a famous quote thats in their family or one of his favorite things is, i dont want to hear about people that say the river is dirty. I want people that are going to clean the river, get out there and do things. And his hes enigmatic in certain ways. You cant pigeon hole him. Hes a texan who wants strict gun control. Hes pro choice yet hes tough on issues about Corporate America and outsourcing of jobs. Hes tough on the war on drugs. You can go around, what you get is sort of an oldstyle cando american who believes in american exceptionalism but feels were losing our edge. Somehow, after world war ii, americans got lazy and weve got to not the every day working people america, but weve stopped everybody is looking for leisure time and perks inside of kind of fixing the country. Country comes before corporation to ross perot and i think hes diagnosing in 92 and 96 that politics is broken, the Financial System is broken, the military is not broken. Hes questioning, how do we fix the other two. Im sure he still feels that way today. That caller mentioned as a young person watching the debates and cheering on mr. Perot. Were going to do a montage from 2 of the 3 president ial debates that happened that year. These young people, when they get out of this wonderful university, will have difficulty finding a job. Weve got to clean this mess up, leave this country in good shape and pass on the American Dream to them. Weve got to collect the taxes to do it. If theres a fairer way, im all ears. [ laughter ] but, but see, let me make it very clear. If people dont have the stomach to fix these problems, i think its a good time to face it in november. If they do, they will have heard the harsh reality of what we have to do. Im not playing Lawrence Welk music tonight. They have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and youre going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country right at a time when we need the tax base to pay down the debt and the interest down on the debt. Who can give themselves a 23 pay raise except congress. I dont have a free reserve parking place, why should my servants. I dont have a place where i can make free tv to send to my constituents to try to elect me the next time. And im paying for all that for those guys. Three moments from the debates. For george w. Bush, there was a tough moment in those debates. Youll recall he was captured looking at his watch during the one of the debates. That became emblematic. We have a photograph of it, of what . Do you remember that moment. Of course, i remember the moment. George Herbert Walker bush has a tough year. He sort of felt this was getting beneath him. We forget that debates havent been always there. 1960 we had the Kennedy Nixon debates but we didnt have president ial debates all the way until 1976. And there was a feeling that debates were a waste of time, it was about owning a sound bite and it wasnt about what running the country was about. But i didnt help president bush to glance at his watch and i think it cost him in his election. Perot and clinton did better in the debates than bush. How did ross perot fair in the debates in the eyes of the public . Oh, i thought, you know i agreed with doug he probably won the debates. When george bush looked at his watch, it reinforced the idea that people had that he was not really engaged in the campaign. The debates were critical for perot and when the debates were over with, he had risen back up to 21 . In 96 he was not in the debates. And it made a big difference. He i think he only got, maybe, 8 in 96. Going back to the question, could anybody else do it today, the problem might be getting on the debates because now the commission on president ial debates has such stringent requirements. Somebody would have to meet a 15 threshold on i think maybe five different polls before they would be allowed to be in the general election debates. So the debates were critical for perot the success that he had for getting his message out. Carolyn barta joining us from dallas. A longtime texas reporter. Lets take our next call for Doug Brinkley and Carolyn Barta. Gregory, youre on the air. Caller good evening. I had a couple of quick questions. Besides having the most popular vote since t. R. , what similarities do you see with mr. Perot and ted doudy rooseve and who were some of the role models for mr. Perot . He seems to have followed the mantra of William Jennings brian, the buck stops here. What do you think of that . Doug brinkley has written a biography on Teddy Roosevelt. When i talked to mr. Perot, his here, Winston Churchill. Both of them were considered a cowboy when roosevelt became president. Mckinley was assassinated and they doesnt trust t. R. He was considered an individualist and its that whole cowboy notion. Ross perot grew up in texarkana. They went to cattle auctions, considered himself a bit of a texas cowboy. Everything about Theodore Roosevelt impressed ross perot and i think gave him courage. If t. R. Can do it, why cant i run in 92. Anybody who loves freedom and democracy and grit and courage, when i know st Winston Churchill is your figure. In his office, a opposite of George Washington and he talks about the founding fathers. But you know which founding father is like, i thought about this today, patrick henry. We talk about the other founding fathers, the ones who become president. But this is about the contenders. How do you have an American Revolution without that figure like patrick henry. Those are the types of people that ross perot admires. Next is a call from ron watching us in everett, washington. Were talking about ross perot. Hi, ron. Caller good evening. I would like to challenge dr. Brinkley a little bit. I think the comparison with t. R. Is heavily overdrawn. You mentioned just a few mention ago that if i understood correctly, that perot favored a flat tax. I think t. R. Was way out there to the left and the liberal progressive tradition of course obama this week on the 100th anniversary of a t. R. Speech there. I dont even though he may have supported oil tax, i dont think he really was a wilderness warrior no nor is he Winston Churchill. Im not suggesting that. Those were his hero and is people have them. T. R. Is known many sided americans see in Theodore Roosevelt what they want to see in Theodore Roosevelt. But the ability with t. R. And his love of the navy and ross perots devotion to the navys entire life as a graduate, you cant go to the Naval Academy and not admire Theodore Roosevelt in the navy and as i mentioned, the cowboy side of t. R. But when youre getting with the Bull Moose Party platform versus ross perot 92, theres many, many differences and many decades apart. But its the loyal the boy scout part. You mentioned ross perot. Theodore roosevelt is the original champion of the boy scouts. Its harkening to that kind of view of america. But in politics, great differences and i wouldnt compare them in the way youre suggesting to t. R. Or Winston Churchill or anybody. Its the people he admires and collects books on and likes to read about and have inspired him in the same way henry ford and thomas ed son were people who inspired him in business. Ed, are you there . Caller i voted for perot and 92 and i believe thats how clinton got elected and bush didnt seem like he cared whether he got elected or not. Thanks very much. Do you think that ross perot is responsible for the election of bill clinton, Carolyn Barta . I do. And i think there were two impacts, one is, he similar to Teddy Roosevelt, he split the republican vote and that way roosevelt denied taft a second term. Perot split the conservative vote and denied bush a second term. But he did another thing, i think, by getting in the race and beating up on bush all along the way, kind of softened him up for clinton to come in and make the kill. So i think it was sort of a twotiered effect there and i do im not sure how the campaign would have played out without him. But i certainly think that part of the impact of his being in the race was that clinton was elected. Next call is from rick in memphis, tennessee. Youre on the air. Caller glad to be here, folks. Im going to assert the ross perot the last time he ran was exactly what the United States needed and now theres no question much stronger hes exactly what the United States needs. I would like to ask, im not too up on whats going on, why is he not in the 2012 race . And also, why in the world are neither the republican or the democrat candidates making a run in ross perots image . I dont see how anybody like that could help but win . Why have we not heard from mr. Perot this cycle . I think his time is past him. He had all of it that he wanted in 92 and 96 and was a reluctant candidate in 96. And i think that hes, you know, hes older now. I just think hes not interested in getting back in the fray. Ross perot, 81, by our calculation. Born in 1930. Conner, youre on. Caller ross perot have any opinion of Jesse Ventura . I dont know his opinion of him personally, but he did not get behind Jesse Ventura. But ross perot didnt get behind him in his efforts very much. Theres a little bit of a schism there. I think by 1996 ross perot felt like he did want he wanted to do. I stress for people this notion of being an irritant on the he was always trying to make us Pay Attention to issues. I know when we talk about running, youre talking about winning the white house. But i think ross perot more than personally becoming president , you wouldnt pick stock dale if that was his sole intention in 92 to remind people of duty, honor, country, oldstyle American Values and grapple with that debt issue which he has a business person well, he found repulsive. We referenced several times that ross perot won 19 of the popular vote. Lets look on the screen at how the incumbent president george h. W. Bush did and the victor, bill clinton, governor of arkansas did in the finally tally. Youre on judy. Caller one guy that got us all interested in politics back then. He got us with the nafta agreement and we tore that nafta agreement apart and take a chapter home and come back and discuss it. Some day people should read that one day. Can you see anybody around at all in the future that would be anybody like him . Thank you. Thanks very much. Is there anyone in the wings . I think they have to come out of the military. It used to be to be president , you had a military background. Somebody out of an admiral, or a general will come in and run a thirdparty movement. But i dont see anybody out there thats ready to put skin in the game that is taken seriously. Youve got to have i think the money to really do a thirdparty. As previously mentioned, its hard to get into the debates the way the system is set up today. But america always produces unusual people at key moments and im sure there will be sometime in the future a serious thirdparty candidate. Americans seem to have something with a flirtation as Business People as president s. Ross perot, there was talk about herman cain earlier this year, mayor bloomberg was mentioned as a businessman who might solve americas economic issues. We get so far with them but not all the way to the finish line. Can you talk about the kind of people that americans seem to want as leaders . I think thats a wonderful point. We like the idea of somebody who is not party of washington, somebody who is going to do whats right for the country and not be beholden to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party and we like thinking that either people from the military or corporate people, somebody runs a company would know how to run the government. Yet, once you have to start going on all the tv shows and traveling, and every aspect of your life gets investigated, i dont know how many people that want it run anymore. Its become pretty brutal for we have to run for two or three years nonstop. President obama and im sure republican romney or gingrich or whoever it might be, have to raise a billion dollars. I think we need to investigate how we can shorten this nonstop running because the president s have very little time. They get elected and were running another election in this country all the time. I dont see how its helping us. That caller mentioned ross perots involvement in nafta, north American Free trade agreement, which was a hallmark of the clinton administration. Ross perot got involved in the debate about that after his unsuccessful bid for the white house and our next clip is a very wellwatched debate he had about nafta with Vice President al gore, again, on the larry king live program on cnn. I didnt interrupt you. Guys weve got to have a climate in this country where we can create jobs in the good old usa that is one thing that the president and Vice President could do for us and theyre not. Excuse me. I would like to Say Something about that. Thats a direct political threat against anybody who votes for this. Hes a great soldier, but doesnt know anything about business. I dont want to sit here and listen to you just take shots at president clinton if we keep shipping our manufacturing jobs across the border and around the world and deindustrializing our country, we will not be able to defend that great country, and that is a risk we will never take. He started off as head of the united we stand, im afraid hes going to head up united we fall. Everything hes worried about will get worse if nafta is defeated. This is an historic opportunity to do that. Thank you for this historic evening. Carolyn barta, the body language in that clip from larry king live is interesting to watch. Support for nafta was only about 34 and after it went up to 57 among the american public. What was the view of how ross perot faired with this issue . You know, i really cant say. I dont recall. I just remember that he had the debate with gore and i did not realize that he that he lost that debate as divisively as you have just said. I thought a lot of people agreed with his position that the giant sucking sound of the jobs going away, and in fact, i think hes proved to be right about that. Youre on the air, larry. Caller i appreciate the opportunity. I just wanted to ask this t. R. Setup, its not the first, down here in the florida keys to protect birds who were being poached for their feathers. Did that come up in any of the debates that year. Im old but not that old. Do you recall that conservation issues were very much at the forefront in 1992 . No. But ross perot when you hear about that antinafta he was worried about the environmental degradation going on in mexico. He wanted corporations regulated. Proepa. Pelican island was protected and it was our First National wildlife refuge and saved other forests. T. R. Was very much in bird protection and protecting of wild florida. I would not put conservation in that way high on ross perots list. But i put him on the side of being a conservationist. He was simply by in that climate in 92 to be proepa. And many republicans dont like the epa. Ross perot did. He did feel that companies needed to be regulated. In 1994, the gop had a retaking of the house of representatives. Newt gingrich was looked upon as the architect of that, became speaker of the house and set the stage for a huge debate over the size of the debt leading to a Government Shutdown that very much pitted the two men, president clinton and Newt Gingrich against each other. I think it was quite important. I think it started making people worry about the deficit. But, again, remember, ross perots talking about paying for it with a gasoline tax which you dont hear republicans talking about. But it became a big worry of the people by the time of, you know throughout the clinton era. And i might also add when were looking at the famous gore clip. Nafta became popular with democrats and republicans. George Herbert Walker bush republicans were pronafta. It was only labor unions were opposed to it and here you have ross perot probably more right center than left center deeply opposed to it for the reason he said. I think the outsourcing of jobs more than anything else is what perot was focused on in the mid90s. In 1995, ross perot started to organize the reform party. Can you tell us about that effort and how the reform party took shape . Well, the people who had worked on the Perot Campaign in 92 wanted to remain involved. And for a while they were active as shadowing their congressmen, sending letters and so forth. Reform party then was organized to try and create a vehicle that would be a stable political influence, a third party. And then there was in the convention of 1996, perot and dick lamb who had been the governor of california, perot reemerged to lead the ticket. That probably was the high point for the reform party. After that came Jesse Ventura was elected governor of minnesota in 98, i believe, and then 2000, Pat Buchannan was the nominee, the president ial nominee for the party. And buchannan was a firebrand conservative, but also a populist. But he certainly could not, you know, motivate the reform Party People Like perot did and the party was sort of it initially was established with the same kind of priorities that perot had said in his first campaign, reducing the deficit, term limits, some of these issues that ended up being in the contract for america. So i think there was definitely an impact and you saw the Republican Party coop some of those issues, term limits was never passed. But it was part of the contract, gingrichs contract. So i think that with buchannan in 2000, the party was struggling to find its core. What was it all about . And a lot of people thought that perot not perot, buchannan did not really represent them, did not represent their interests very well. And i think whats happened since then, the party really has sort of fizzled. Theres still a few state affiliates that are trying to be active, maybe half a dozen or so, but their president ial candidate got a handful of boats in the last time around. So i think it just shows us that its really very hard i thought that it was going to be a stable political influence and that once established, that it would be a Challenging Party in years to come. But thats not happened. It certainly has just fizzled. And, actually, i think sort of reemerged in the tea party movement. So i think maybe these movements just have a shortterm life. Lets go to texas. Joe is watching us there. Good evening, joe. Caller hello. Yes, sir. Caller i would like to thank cspan because every now and then people call in and say, well, youre on one side or the other. But by and large, i think youre probably the most unbiased media and the greatest asset to being able to understand whats going on in our political situation that we have and really appreciate the way so many people on from both sides and i think its a wonderful, wonderful thing to watch and ask all of these questions. Thanks for your kind words. Do you have a comment about mr. Perot . Caller i do. First of all, im from texas. We got involved when ross perot was running and he said so many things that made so much sense and a lot of people got behind him and first of all, i dont think that the balance budget would have happened had not ross perot been up there having all of those charts and graphs to educate people. But i would like to hear Doug Brinkleys comment on that. One more comment and that would be that when they talk about Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt broke up standard oil in new jersey and i cant imagine ross perot ever being someone that would condone breaking up a large corporation. I would like to hear davids comment on that. Its Doug Brinkley who is our guest tonight. President obama just gave the anniversary in kansas or talked about the new nationalism. But a couple things i would like to mention. Im reflecting on what weve been talking about here. One of the big things to keep in mind with ross perot in 92 is that the you had the soviet union collapse, the cold war ended in 91. And the question, there was a lot of jubilation with that. Weve been fighting the cold war from harry truman on down. Taxpayers had built up this huge deficit to win the cold war. The fact that perot was being this irritant in the 90s worrying about our deficit and everybody was running up deficit all over the world. He seemed a little more erratic than maybe where today we hear these bites and he seems pressing on a lot of things, but he was a fly in the ointment of 92, 93. The buzz word was globalization and political correctness. He was about America First and he was kind of a on many issues. Im not sure we could have done the retrospe retrospect a decad. He would have seen a little more quirky character. But there are those sides to him in his biography. But his central premise of the points he raised are really resonate with people right now. Again, with Theodore Roosevelt, all i want to the point about t. R. Is only one, and thats about service to country. Thats what t. R. Was all about. You dont lie. You tell the truth. You stay loyal to your friends and the service to the country, and thats that its in the american grain, its americanism and thats what spoke to ross perot. Not every issue that t. R. Took and all this, but it was the character of the man. In 1996 the economy was getting pretty robust, the tech bubble was part of our economic fabric. Bill clinton was the incumbent president seeking reelection. The republicans had nominated longtime senator from kansas bob dole and the big differences our guests have said was during the fall campaign, ross perot was not permitted to take part in the debates. On the screen right now are the results on Election Night, 1996 with president clinton achieving 49 of the votes, bob dole 159 electoral sclcollege votes and s perot 0. Just over 8 of the popular vote in the 1996 elections. Our next clip is ross perot on Election Night 1996 talking about the future of the reform party. Were going to keep the pressure on the major issues. I think theyve gotten the word on Campaign Finance reform, dont you . [ cheers and applause ] theyve repented and been reborn. My dream is they will go to heaven because theyll do what they say theyll do. Its done. Its done. But thats got to stop. We have got to get that done and we have got to get Campaign Reform in terms of the campaign and all that done. We must set the highest ethical and moral standards for the people who serve in our government and all of that has got to be changed from rules to laws in the next four years and were going to have to stand at the gate and keep the pressure on and we will. [ cheers and applause ] we will not let our children and grandchildren pay an 82 tax rate which our government forecasts they will. Weve got to have the plan to balance the budget and all of the things that you have fought so hard and for so long for, we have to stand at the gate to make sure that happens if we want to pass on a better, stronger country to our children. We will make the 21st century the best in our countrys history. But you and i have to stay on watch. We have to keep the pressure on and as ive said 1,000 times to both parties, when they say, what does it take to make all of you people go away . And that is do all of this and we dont have anything to talk about, right . Its done. Thank you. Youve worked night and day. Youve done a tremendous job. Take a little break and well climb back in the ring and keep the pressure onto see that everybody keeps those promises, right . Right. [ cheers and applause ] ross perot on Election Night, 1996. Doug brinkley, he talked about the need for the people to keep the pressure on. But without a galvanizing figure, the truth, now our National Debt is three times what it was when ross perot was talking about it in 1992. What happened to the spirit and the energy of the people in that middle who were the perotites or the reform party members. Theyre out there. Many of them are independents. We have a lot of people who are independent and many people who dont want to be associated with the Democratic Party or Republican Party and perots legacy speaks to that. At the outset, you mentioned occupation wall street, people protesting on the left and right, its about grassroots people getting engaged and involved, making themselves heard. So its just not a group of, you know, money people kind of running our democracy. Theres a spirit to ross perot. Ive never been convinced he was dead serious about winning the white house in 92 or 96. I feel what he was trying to do, which we many of these contenders have tried to do, some of the ones just to stir things up. To get people to talk about issues and he succeeded in that record. You dont have to win the white house to make a difference. Its about getting into the arena and he took got beat up some, but picked himself back up and today hes probably the First Citizen of dallas with his business interests and sold dell not recently, a few years back. For a fortune. Some of his Business Innovations and if you cant be in dallas without being touched by his philanthropy and you cant be a veteran of american wars and not have a debt to ross perot too. So hes made a difference and thats why he was sent the Walking Stick of bin laden of our naval s. E. A. L. S. Robert, youre on. Caller i remember the 92 election well. Ross perot was a viable candidate. He seemed to speak commonsense. He was a patriot. He went to the Naval Academy. But he was unelectable because he started a company eds that benefitted from government contracts, he selected james sto stockdale for his Vice President and that debate was a gunfight and his candidate was not prepared for that. He dropped out of the race claiming dirty tricks by the republicans and reentered the race. He had previously opposed the vietnam war memorial and did it in a relatively nasty way. You say that he wasnt a candidate who wasnt really trying to win, but i dont think he could have won. What do you think . I agree with that. Im not sure it was possible to win in 92 or 96 against bill clinton and the democrats. As an incumbent president who had won the gulf war and saw the breakup of the soviet union, german reunification in many other policy issues. So he was, as ive said a few times, somebody trying to raise the consciousness level on issues that he thought were important for the country and the reason hes important in history is some of those issues that he raised in 92 are still ha with us today. So its theres some of these people, you can look at policies of William Jennings brian that later happened in the new deal or something that Charles Evans hughes says that is reflected in the eisenhower error. Perot raised issues that were still grappling with and theres always a reminder that we have a thirdparty option. Maybe there will be a voice from the heartland of america that comes up and strikes a different chord and i worry that the debates make it hard for a thirdparty candidate to get in the mix. Perot may be one of the last to pull Something Like that off. Carolyn barta mentioned that ross perot in the summer of 9 had hired two veteran politicians to be a part of the campaign. He talked about his view of the perot candidacy. We have a clip of that right now. The bottom line, it was that perot was difficult to deal with. It was that perot never wanted to run that kind of campaign. He wanted to run the last 30 days and i think the reality thats all he thought he had to do. He thought, why should i waste all of my money early when it really doesnt matter until the end. He never understood getting defined in a negative way during the summer. Obviously theres the guy has a lot of paranoia, as they always say about paranoia, you only have to be right once to make it worthwhile. [ laughter ] but the bottom line is, he didnt understand the political system. Had a disdain for it. That made it more and more difficult when we were trying to argue what you had to do, had he dealt with the media, how you had to define yourself. He saw that as traditional politics and he was against traditional politics. In the end, he ran a shortlived Traditional Campaign in which he ended up getting very negative in the end and won 19 of the vote. If he had run a real campaign, there was a serious chance of this man being a very viable candidate for president , drawing a lot of support from both george bush and bill clinton. Carolyn barta, do you have anything there that you agree or disagree with in his summation . Well, yeah. I think that at one point, perot was a very viable candidate. But i think that he was as the caller said before, he was quirky. He was mecurial and people questioned whether or not he was temperamentally suited to be in the white house. And im not sure even that perot thought that he was suited to be in the white house. And perhaps, you know, the sentiment that has been expressed that he didnt really want to be president , he wanted to stir up the American People, he wanted to be the nations, you know, civics teacher, he wanted to make democracy work again for the people. So i think that he resisted traditional politics in many ways for good reason. He thought that the way that political campaigns are run today are really silly. Flying around from place to place trying to get a sound bite on network tv, a plane of press following you around, essentially in a bubble, listening to the same speech over and over again. What are they going to learn . He thought that the press should be out talking to the people. What are the concerns of the people and how are the candidates dressing those concerns . So i think rawlings wanted to run a Traditional Campaign and perot didnt and for good reason in his mind. He thought Traditional Campaigns are out of date and are not working for the American People and i must say, i think that weve seen in Election Campaign since then that the media had just grown more and more powerful and dominant in some of the campaigns. As carolyns talking, i was thinking about perotisms and all of his phrases in the age of twitter. Thats true. He would have probably been able to use twitter quite well. Thats he wanted to get words out there, ideas out there to the people. We talked about innovating the half an hour for the, larry king was free media. But buying these just keep in mind hes its hard to create another ross perot. Hes a maverick. Hes an iconic figure and a billionaire and he had the money to be able to do what he did. But i think he would have enjoyed being president but i dont think his heart was in it in 92 or 96. It was really about getting the democracy and the people back theres at his core, he disdains lobbyists and washington is a town filled with lobbyists. Ross perot not only took advantage of paid media, but benefitted from the Popular Culture coverage of his campaign. Next is a series of clips from saturday night live whose regular program on saturday nights took great advantage of the ross perot candidacy in 1929. Because we had abc feel it is important for you to hear his views, ross perot is with us from houston. Mr. Perot. Do you feel that you have been blackballed by the two major Political Parties. Its like this, the other two candidates, theyre not addressing the issues thank you, mr. Perot. My reform party is going to have a convention and if the volunteers want me, thats fine. But this is not about me. Its about the American People, plain and impel. What about this commercial that aired last week . Vote for me. Im ross perot. Im running for president. Vote for me, please. Would you vote for me please, please, please . [ cheers and applause ] [ laughter ] [ applause ] this whole thing fascinates me, really. See, you dont have to be a ph. D. At harvard to know that our kids are going to inherit a deficit. I know the American People [ laughter ] your country must take it back. Clips from saturday night live in both 92 and 96. And all but the first was dana carvey portraying ross perot. We have 20 minutes left of discussion. Lets take our next phone call for our two guests. Tony, youre on the air. Caller good evening, susan. How are you . Great, thanks. Caller when ross perot in the spring of 92, when ross perot was at about 32 , they had already been three books written about ross perot before most people even knew him. One was you mentioned wings of eagles there was an autobiography about a dallas reporter and the best of the three was irreconcile differences ross perot versus General Motors. In may after he had announced and he was at 32 , i watched Sam Donaldson on this week with David Brinkley make a statement about ross perot, the conversation around the round table was basically, this guy is at 32 , do you think he can win . And donaldson made a statement, something to the effect of, what do we know about this guy . He came out of nowhere. At that time, the three books were in print already. Donaldson noted for being a big mouth covering the white house making probably 500,000 a year to make a Statement Like that about ross perot had not even read the books probably to make a statement. What do you think about abc news allowing Sam Donaldson to make a Statement Like that and not following it up . Well, theres also a book by ken gross if anybody wants to read a fine book. He was a new york journalist. Its an excellent book on perot. I dont know the moment youre talking about. Sam donaldson i thought was a great and exciting commentator during the reagan years. He was always sticking the questions to president reagan and they ended up becoming great friends. Hes a journalistic legend, Sam Donaldson. I cant see the context of what youre talking about. But the spirit of it i understand youre making a good point. Sometimes the washington media people think that nobody is accomplished if theyre not part of a new york, washington, boston axis and here is ross perot, a legend at that time in texas, which everybody in texas knew quite a bit about because he had worked on education reform and most well known person in the state of texas. It seems to me donaldson if the spirit of it is what youre saying, just screwed up. Carolyn barta, from 1996 after he lost the second time, how visible and involved in issues was ross perot . Did he exit from the National Stage or did he stay involved . Pretty much exited i think. He was not particularly involved in the issues or the reform party after that. 92 was the unique time because of the sense of alienation that people had with government, the dissatisfaction with government, the economic problems and then 96, as you said earlier, when things started to come back, the same Political Climate didnt exist anymore. So really he did not he wanted his the people to stay active and involved, but the climate didnt exist for the kind of perot phenomenon to happen again as it did in 92. And i think that was sort of his swan song. He got out after that. Sacramento, hello to jason as we talk about ross perot. Youre on. Caller yeah. I just want to ask, how do you feel perot would do in the 2013 election if he was on the same wavelength he was on in 92. I believe we said 19 of the votes or something to that effect, i recall it being in the millions, i forget the number. But i know it wasnt too far behind for a twoparty. There you go. Thank you very much. How is it possible that he didnt win one electoral vote . I know its i know how the electoral process works. But i find it amazing that not one vote, not one state he had a majority in. Not even a small state. Its amazing to me with the numbers he has. Its very shocking and it was shocking in 92 when i voted for him and it was shocking to look at the numbers again now. Jason, your first question about how he would do in the 2012 election, mr. Perot is in his early 80s, are you interested into bringing him back into the process at this point. Not now. If he was the same as 92, would that how would he do now . If you can take ross perot of that period and drop him into our current time frame, how would he do . He came in second in 1992 in utah and maine. Did not win a state. And it just tells you that where his support was. Its very hard for a thirdparty candidate to track against the Democratic Party and the apparatus when you have at any given time half of congress and half of the senate on your side, were a twoparty system. Once in a while a thirdparty Movement Comes in and its a slap in the face to the other two parties. The seminal question which we cant answer, that historians can debate, but well never have a definitive answer, is who did perot help and hurt in 92 . If he did not run, could George Herbert walker bush beat bill clinton . Did he serve as a spoiler for president bush or his support came from liberals and conservatives and it kind of was a wash in a way that 19 wasnt that relevant because he drew he was so centeroriented in many ways, radically centered, if you like, but took from both right and left. And we cant really clearly answer that question. But most people would say he hurt George Herbert walker bush. That he was more conservative, he came from texas and that challenge hurt bush a lot because he was the incumbent. Bill clinton was helped by perot in 92. Some analysis of the numbers, 70 of the provoters had voted for george bush in 1998. 88. 1988, excuse me. We have a couple of minutes left. To the second caller, the callers second question, i want to play a clip. This is about our last one for the evening. This is one from ross perots infomercials that he purchased before the 92 election. The 30minute commercial in october, the first one he did, and he looks ahead from 1992 to the year 2020. Lets listen. Lets look at the growth of federal spending and see if theres a trend here. Go back to 1950. Theres obviously a trend here. Weve got up to 25 of our gross domestic product. Thats excessive. Hold on to your hat. If you and i dont take action now as owners of this country, the forecast shows by the year 2020, federal spending will be 41 of the gross domestic product. We cant take 25 . We certainly cant take 41 . This is like having willy sutton in charge of the bank, folks. He was a famous bank robber. He was asked, why does he rob money, and he says, because thats where the money is. Ross perot in his 92 campaign. When i saw that pie chart, remember, its preinternet, even, preemailing. By the time clinton left office, there were a billion emails an hour going around the world. But at the end, ross perot made a difference. He reminded people of American Values, he reinvigorated the notion that a thirdparty candidate can get into the mix. Ralph nader made a difference in 2000. Hes a legend in the thirdparty movement and a person who is rightly part of the contenders. Carolyn barta, did ross perot make a difference . Absolutely. I think he was a wakeup call. He put issues on the agenda and the deficit ended up being a surplus, the budget was balanced during the clinton years. So now maybe, you know, the Tea Party People think that we need another wakeup call. Yes, he definitely had an impact. As we close out our contenders series, a special thank you to our Guiding Light for all 14 of these programs throughout the fall and to president ial historian Richard Norton smith who has been our consultant in this project and really the brain child behind it when we first got started. Thanks to both of you for all of your hard work. We close our ross perot Contenders Program with a look at his theme song and this is Election Night 1992 as hes greeting his supporters. Having said that, you got to play our Campaign Theme song crazy. Crazy for feeling to lonely crazy everybody, what are we . Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, a look at past Vice President ial debates starting with Vice President george h. W. Bush and representative Geraldine Ferraro they debated a variety of issues including abortion and the u. S. Economy. That starts at 8 00 eastern. Join American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3. Exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. On the civil war, a look at how historical interpretation has changed over the years at appomattox courthouse and at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on reel america, on the 75th anniversary of the united nations, well feature four films San Francisco 1945. On sunday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern, the first president ial debate between president george h. W. Bush, bill clinton, and texas businessman ross perot. At 2 00 p. M. Eastern, the first president ial debate between president bill clinton and senator bob dole. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts a discussion about the Jim Crow Museum at fares State University in michigan and why the offensive artifacts are being used as teaching tools to promote conversation and understanding. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Up next on American History tv, the first of three 1992 president ial debates between president george bush, bill clinton, and independent candidate ross perot. Here now is mr. Ross perot. [ applause ] good to see you. Good