Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/080392/0803640.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 6KB | 130 lines

                                                                                ESSAY, Page 78

Memorandum to Perot Supporters


Frankly, my heart doesn't bleed for you. You should have
known better.

By Henry Grunwald


    You should have known not only that Ross Perot, for all
his verbal machismo, has always walked away from fights once
they got too tough; that he seemed to have delusions of
grandeur, fed by our curious habit of treating successful
entrepreneurs as geniuses; that in politics he was both
amazingly naive and obnoxiously arrogant; that he promised to
fix everything without spelling out what he would do and how.

    You were his dupes. To be charitable, perhaps he was his
own dupe.

    There was something else, much more important, you should
have known: that in a democracy, crises aren't resolved by men
on horseback, even if they are from Texas and carry PCs in
their saddlebags. Often the cry for leadership is an excuse for
civic laziness, for not taking responsibility.

    All this still matters, despite Perot's exit. As they are
all saying now, including George Bush and Bill Clinton, your
anger over our national mess is a source of political energy
that should be harnessed, a message that must be heard.

    But is your anger aimed at the proper targets? The
Washington gridlock you so rightly condemn isn't only the fault
of greedy, comfortably entrenched politicians. It is also your
fault, if you have ever deliberately voted for one party in the
White House and for the other in Congress in order to dilute
their powers. Your complaint that politicians don't listen to
the people is wrong; they listen too much. They are only too
aware that you won't stand for unpopular and painful programs,
that you won't reward politicians for courage, if it hurts.

    Perot has bequeathed you an economic program that would
hurt. Some of it is good; none of it is new. Its elements have
long been advocated by experts and by politicians he reviled.
He may yet help sell parts of it from the sidelines. But how
many of you would have continued to back him so
enthusiastically if he had unveiled that program before rather
than after pulling out?

    Sure, we must have presidential leadership. But some of
the greatest changes in our country were not originated by
Presidents; they came about as a result of popular drives that
Presidents joined, more or less, to lead. That was true of the
antitrust and pure-food revolutions, of the union movement,
environmental protection, auto safety, the tax revolt, civil
rights, women's rights, gay rights (whatever you may think of
them).

    So what you need, if you want to change the status quo, is
not one Perot but many.

    Perots without his megalomania and glibness but with some
of his energy, determination and salesmanship. Perots who are
willing and able to focus on specific issues and solutions --
some perhaps from his own experts' program.

    Find yourselves a Perot to lead a crusade to control
entitlements (which Ross himself advocates). That will mean
taking on the well-to-do elderly, the most self-centered
special-interest group in the country, and persuading them that
only by curbing some of their benefits will we reduce the
deficit and that this is ultimately in their own interest.

    Find a Perot to do battle against the scandal of farm
subsidies. Find a Perot to lead a great march against PACS and
the legalized corruption that is our present system of campaign
financing. Find a Perot to battle the deadly, dug-in educational
establishment, to set up tough, general standards, discipline
for a longer school year (throw in apprenticeships and national
service for good measure).

    Find a Perot to lead a campaign against government
bureaucracy, which has destroyed more great nations than the
fire and sword of invading enemies. Don't accept Ross's implicit
message that government can be run like a business. It can't.
But it can and must become more decentralized, more productive,
more accountable, judged by results.

    That should do for openers.

    Such separate, targeted movements would not work the
instant magic you hoped for. But they could give Presidents, and
Congress, a badly needed push and the necessary platforms from
which to lead. Change would be painfully slow. But, short of
truly major crises like war or the Great Depression (and our
problems have not nearly approached those dimensions), that is
the way change happens in America. No President can be expected
to transform the country single-handed. Not even a tyrant could.
It will take patience that Perot didn't have. Do you have it?

    In the end, don't blame Ross for bugging out. It may be
the best and smartest thing he has done since he casually
started his strange game. Don't yearn for him to come back,
either. It was probably useful that he stirred up the country,
but he was dangerous, not because he wanted to be a dictator,
although he does seem to have those instincts, but because he
spread bad ideas. The notion, for instance, that we can run our
affairs by instant electronic plebiscite. We can't without
wrecking democracy. Or the notion that, because many candidates
don't stick to them anyway, programs don't matter. They do if
we want any rational basis for choosing. Or the notion that our
problems will be solved easily ("It's simple"). They won't, as
his own program demonstrates.

    The significant and troubling fact about the Perot
phenomenon is that for months you treated him as a savior, not
because he had a plan but because he exuded a can-do spirit and
little else. So wave goodbye to Ross, and stop waiting for Mr.
Goodwrench to fix America. Find and, by all means, goad other,
responsible leaders to fix it. And help fix it yourself.