Debates october 15, 1992. Talking about his favorite issue, the u. S. Debt. He won 19 of the popular vote, the largest vote for an independent candidate since Theodore Roosevelt. He ran his second independent campaign in 1996 and tonight he is our focus on the contenders. Thanks for being with us. We are doing this series is a way to look at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who fail to rest for the white house but had an impact on American History. Final choice our of 14 people we are profiling in the series. Douglas brinkley joins us. A person was done a number of biographers on 20th century figures, what interest ross perot is to Mark Brinkley he had the pioneer spirit. He harks back to people like henry ford or Thomas Edison. He is not politics as usual. He really cares about the country. Patriotism has become kind of a cheap word to talk about. Ross perot was really a super patriot. He was less interested in money and politics that he was from doing what was right for the country. This comes out of his Naval Academy background and his Constant Service to our country. Looking for pows and mias during vietnam and constantly supporting our special forces. The clip you just ran tells you that in 1992 perot focused on the central issue of our upcoming residential election, the National Debt. I think we were at 3 trillion in debt. Today we are at 15 trillion. When he was talking about the great sucking sound of jobs leaving america due to nafta, outsourcing. It is probably on the left the issue that most stirs middleclass americans the jobs and gone overseas. People in the midwest and south are languishing. The issues that ross perot it were talking about in his campaign are still around today. The tea party, the occupy wall street people. Brickley yes he is a centrist. You can look at ross perot through the paradigm of typical people. He is something out of an older american tradition. Wagon trains out west. World war ii or korean war heroes. Inventors. That is what ross perot was really about. Hes entering in 1992 was not about politics but public service. He put his considerable amount of money where his mouth was. And every season we have people flirting with thirdparty runs but ross perot did it. It is quite extraordinary to get 19 of the most. It is kind of unprecedented. Middleclass people all over america voted for him. Its interesting to reflect on the united we stand movement. He ran with the reform party in 1996. Is there a ross perot that might enter the mix in 2012 . Inyou look at his platform 1992 he seems to been right on a lot of the key issues including border problems, drugs, the need for Public School education. He had very controversial things like adding to the gasoline tax. All these issues and these legacy really invigorates our current debate. Americans mention any two was their introduction to ross perot. Hed been on the National Stage for a while. In the late 1980s he began seeking out speaking out about these issues that he was concerned about. We looked at our Video Library of ross perot was back in 1987. Here he is speaking for the american bankers association. Ross perot lets take off the rose colored glasses. Weve had enough dr. Feel good. We are tough enough to take bad news. Lets look at the facts. We got a 3 trillion debt. Our debt is being 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 every 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. Were losing in the International Business competition. Some of our banks have problems. Savings and loans of serious problems. Wall street is bouncing all over the place. Our personal spending habits are as bleak as our federal spending habits. Our people spend everything they make all they can borrow and they your savings. , and except for upping the numbers and the fact now reelingns are from the crisis all of these arguments could be the same. Brinkley thats correct. At startupnius operations. He understood the corporate world. In 1962 he created Electronic Data Systems and a few years before that speech he sold it to General Motors and became arguably the richest person in texas. He got on the cover of fortune magazine. He knows what hes talking about in terms of how to start a business. He was at the forefront of what we would call the internet revolution. He was at the forefront of data collection. He even invested in apple. He worked for ibm when he was a young man. He really wanted the United States to be the great country that it was in his childhood. Fdr brought us to the Great Depression and world war ii. That feels him up. The fact that we were losing in the 80s to japan. See the problem is competing with china. With sony people in congress the lobbying in washington and getting rid of lobbyists was at the core of the perot message. Is a callin program and you make it very interesting. A few minutes we will put our phone number so the screens you can be a part of the conversation about ross perot and the issues he was involved in them and his legacy in our politics today. Published s book was perot and for people disrupting the balance of power. The author is joining us from her home in texas. As texasross perot journalist long before Many Americans met him. Can you tell us about his roots in texarkana and his upbringing and what shape the man we knew on the National Stage . Perot was from texarkana and he had a very average texas childhood. He lived in a strong stable middleclass family. As a boy he broke horses and traded horses. He was an eagle scout. Even in later life i think he kept all the traits of the eager scout. He would set goals for himself and try to pursue those goals. He was very much in the texas tradition of his day. Academyinto the naval and then started his own businesses. Cando spirit the of texas. His vision was big in the state was big. There was boundless opportunity. He really played into the texas mythology with texas politicians who are largerthanlife. Very successful businessmen who made a fortune here. They were risktakers and they were not afraid to fail. That was the sort of spirit that he had. I think that got him into this thing. Its worth noting that the Naval Academy he showed leadership traits and the ability to galvanize people under his leadership. Just a quick overview of his business career. Lets take a look at after the Naval Academy, he went to business into ibm as a salesman. He quickly became the top salesman for the company. That was in 1957. By 1962 he founded his own company which is Electronic Data Systems. In 1984 he sold the company to General Motors for 2. 4 billion and then stayed on the board for a number of years. In 1988 he founded Perot Systems and in 2009 he sold the company to dell for 3. 9 billion. He and his family are known as philanthropist. Can you talk about that side of mr. Perot. Carolyn theyve given a fortune to all sorts of charities here in dallas and mr. Perot himself has made many anonymous contributions in small ways. Without people even knowing about it. Theres a hospital here named for marco perot, his wife. Hes given a lot of money to the boy scouts. You mentioned his involvement with the amount of uws. This created a divide between him and later president. Brinkley he graduated from annapolis as the president of his class. He was the sort of person who believed you are only as good as the guy left behind. He was a great leader and during those years he was in the navy he sometimes would have to go and get people who were on leave or got drunk or went into town and get them back on the ship. It became hallmarks of his life that you never leave anybody behind. He was very upset during the vietnam war rightfully so that the United States didnt push the pow mia issue enough. Ross perot stepped into that fight in a very dramatic way. It was through back channel negotiations to get pows home. He said we want everyone of our guys back. Hero of the u. S. Military veterans organizations. Because of his constant concern about his soldiers and our troops. I give a talk for veterans day in dallas. School daughters and world war ii. There were hundreds of world war ii vets there. I got to talk to ross perot over dinner one night and one of the most Amazing Stories was that recently when our team killed Osama Bin Laden they shipped him the walking staff of bin laden. He subsequently went to fort pierce florida to the seal museum which people should deftly go visit if you are in florida. Seals this year should be the time magazines people of the year. That was a tribute to how conscientious he is about getting jobs for storm former servicepeople, helping veterans whenever he can. Especially the special forces which he thinks represents the best of the best of the american spirit. Host we visited his boyhood home in texarkana. I would like carolyn to talk about his involvement with the texas governors on issues such as education reform and the war on drugs in his home state. Carolyn he was appointed to a couple of task forces. One by former governor bill clements. Another one by former governor mark white. Clements was a republican, white was a democrat. But they both asked processes serve. One was on education reform and i think it points out how perot was always one to speak his mind. He was never afraid to say what he thought. In the Public Schools there should be special classes for challenged kids. Parents in texas and madehat is elitism we dont want that are from schools. Perot very sarcastically said ok, lets put all the fat girls on the drill team and lets have everybody be the quarterback. It was an example of how he only spoke his mind. Never reluctance to take a job that he was asked to do for a couple of governors. Bothrats and republicans like him. Name has been mentioned as a potential candidate for something in texas. Because he was a leader. Ofwas also in the tradition alltime texas politicians like sam rayburn and going back to sam houston. That kind of a charismatic leader. Sam rayburn, lbj, john connolly, governor clement who certainly spoke his mind. , and richards. He was so much like some of these older texans who would just tell it like it is. They didnt mind doing the hard work. He thought it would help the country he didnt mind doing the hard work to do it. Host one more bit of the perot biography that we will put on the screen before we get to his number ofn 1992 and eds workers were held hostage in iran. Perot was personally involved in the rescue. It was captured in a book by ken follett called on wings of eagles that became a National Bestseller and later a movie on television. Thisou talk about how builds the personal biography. This is ankley amazing story. Jimmy carter was president , you have the beginnings of the iranian revolution. Some of the workers for his company had been held captive and he wanted them sprung. Former and hired a special forces pursued to go in and find a way to get them loose. Using an antikhomeini rallied to go in and spring them not just the two americans is to employees but about 10,000. 0 prisoners as well. They had a rendezvous and it was they weregerous trip smuggled out through turkey. This was a highly successful extraction to get in there and get the people out. If you are loyal to him and his company, he will do anything for you. If you listen to people who know him well that is his number one trait. Personal loyalty. Host we have a great photographs of ross perot with actor Richard Crenna who played him in the movie. It was shown on network television. 1992, setinning of thestage for us about george bush candidacy and his bid for reelection. Bush had a very impressive record in Foreign Affairs. He oversaw the berlin wall coming down. The apprehension of noriega in panama. The breakup of the soviet union and the cold war. And in 1991 gulf war which most people thought was a great success. Ousting Saddam Hussein from kuwait. The economy was stagnant. Pat buchanan was going after president bush for having a silver spoon in his mouth and being elitist and out of touch. It was a populist revolt within the Republican Party. He had another insurgent jerry andn coming in to try to you have the new Democrat Bill clinton and george bush and suddenly ross perot is on larry king on cnn and he says i am going to run as an independent if i can be on the ballot in all 50 states. If undrafted. Im not going to out to run the city typical campaign. If the people want my ideas security about balancing the budget and stopping the outsourcing of jobs. He said special forces should have gone in and kill Saddam Hussein. He started rising in the polls and became the darling of the spring of 1992. Host lets show that larry king live. Interview20th 1992 where ross perot announces his willingness to run. Ross perot lets go down to grassroots america. There are many saying why are we in this mess. If you look at the mirror. We are the owners of this country. We dont act like the owners. We act like white rabbits that get frightened by messages coming out of washington. Larry king is there any scenario in which he would run for president . Ross perot if you that serious, you register me and 50 states and if youre not willing to organize and do that then this is all just talk. Im talking to the ordinary folks. If you get serious. I want to see some sweat. I want you in the rain. Let me ask you about how much of a surprise that was. Carolyn i guess its price most people but the truth of the matter was that he had been out on the trail making speeches for several years and particularly leading up to larry king live interview he had in fact just a couple of weeks before that he was in tennessee to speak to a Business Group there. He was interviewed by a reporter there. He told him virtually the same thing. If he saw some skin in the game and people would get him on the ballot that he would think about doing this. Nothing much came of that was published. Perot was talking to a man in tennessee and another one in florida who were activists inclined to draft him to run. Was sort of a flamboyant businessman who kept calling him and talking to him and tried to get him to run. Where heto the point was seeing where should i announce. He gave them some traditional sources. New york times l. A. Times wall street journal. He went on larry king live. He enjoyed going on talk shows where he could talk and get his message out. Color of the tennessean, the editor and publisher there, called larry king live and im not sure whether he set up or just all the best question. Perot said that he was going on larry king live to talk about the economy. He made an impulsive statement and he never thought would go anywhere. But he had just thinking about this for quite a long time. Even three months before, he made a speech in tampa to a group called throw the and aitical rascals out man down there and check was trying to do a draft campaign. There were signs of abhisit draft perot. He was curious about it. Have you get on 50 ballots . He asked some of his staff people to do some research about how to get on the ballot. It had been in his head for a long while. I think hed been thinking about it for a good while. Posts his challenge to his supporters to get on that ballot and 50 states. That became the subject of carolyn spoke. Which is all about the people that followed ross perot and how they were galvanized to move outside of the conventional tea Party Two Party system. To support issues. Two more clips. They give you a sense of the flavor of ross perot was very , hiscal of president bush prosecution of the first gulf war. We will hear about that in an interview he gave to cspan in march 1982. Also in the spring of 1992, you will hear a clip from the very wellknown texas journalist molly ivins who is now dead. She was asked to talk about this texas politician that she knew so well. Ross perot they should understand why we went to war. It was four months before the white house could figure out why were doing it. Finally they got together as we had to get rid of Nuclear Chemical bacteriological weapon in iraq. But guess what we still got . Nuclear chemical cap bacteriological weapons with Saddam Hussein. If im not in your door and satellite of our your son for the middle east he can have a strong back and probably get that. Molly ivins i made a serious mistake about ross perot. They abolish the progressive income tax and put in the twotier income tax. If you make more than 17,500 a year you will be in the same tax bracket with a trust perot. My High School Teacher told me to write balanced sentences. So i said ross perot makes more than a Million Dollars a year. I did not check it. He had a reputation for being rich and i thought it was plain. But that business desk call them and said h ross perot makes a Million Dollars a day. [laughter] i said this is going to be an embarrassing correction. The editor said ross perot was calling collect for molly ivins. We accept the charges . [laughter] he was so clearly incorrect. He was difficult to dislike. There is a lot to like there. Guys who have made a lot of money and business tend to have a hard time working in a system of checks and balances. People called him slightly paranoid which is a bit like being slightly pregnant. This is the contenders focusing on th