TIME - Man of the Year/CompactPublishing-TimeMagazine-TimeManOfTheYear-Win31MSDOS.iso/moy/071392/07139921.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 10.5 KB | 209 lines

                                                                                U.S. CAMPAIGN, Page 24

Dallas on The Line


As Perot's Texas headquarters attempts to win control of the
crusade, many of the candidate's early supporters feel pushed
aside

By DAVID ELLIS

Reported by Sally B. Donnelly/Los Angeles and Richard
Woodbury/Dallas


    Ross Perot is fond of condemning Washington as "a town
filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers and media stunt
men." His disdain for politics-as-usual propels his
anti-campaign. Yet Perot has turned over management of his
crusade to a bipartisan corps of political pros who exemplify
everything Perot says he opposes. Their efforts to transform
Perot's volunteer army into a more traditional campaign brigade
have sown widespread resentment and anger among his early
enlistees.

    In a sense, Perot was only fulfilling his promise to
provide his supporters with "a world-class campaign" when he
recruited Republican Ed Rollins and Democrat Hamilton Jordan to
guide his effort. They, in turn, have signed experienced
operatives from both parties to lend the crusade an air of
professionalism. In conjunction with several of Perot's former
business associates, the team will determine campaign strategy,
look for a running mate and help shape the candidate's stands
on at least a few major issues. But the transition from
grass-roots petition drives to a high-tech political offensive
has run into some bumps. Some of the revved-up volunteers who
have placed him on 20 state ballots so far are complaining about
being edged out of the process by handlers dispatched from the
tightly organized Perot headquarters in Dallas.

    Many grass-roots supporters fear that the brain trust will
turn Perot's maverick run into a mainstream bid for the White
House. They are convinced that the candidate is in danger of
being packaged by a group of slick operators more interested in
returning to power than in revolutionizing government. That
argument is reminiscent of the "Let Reagan be Reagan" true
believers who accused Washington insiders of badly serving the
former President's interests whenever he veered away from the
conservative creed.


    "People are calling me from all over the country; there's
a lot of disenchantment," says Jack Gargan, an early Perot
backer from Florida who has begun to feel shut out. "They're
trying to put a saddle on him." Gargan, a term-limit proponent
and founder of THRO (Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out!),
invited Perot to give the keynote speech next week at a Texas
convention advocating the defeat of congressional incumbents.
Rollins and others in the campaign reportedly advised Perot
against attending the convocation, lest he alienate influential
senior members of Congress who will survive the November
election. But Perot overruled the staff and called Gargan
personally to confirm that he would show up.

    Even among Perot insiders, there is disagreement on
strategy, and the high command has still not identified which
voters to target. Press spokesman Jim Squires points to polls
indicating a low number of undecided voters to back up his
assertion that Perot must chip away at the supporters of both
Clinton and Bush to win. "The task left now is to take the other
guys' votes," he says. But Morton Meyerson, the chief executive
of Perot's computer company, who is serving as a senior adviser
to the campaign, advocates a broader appeal. "We're not going
after anybody," claims Meyerson. "We'll offer up a program and
invite people who find it attractive to come in and help us."

    Disagreement also arises over how to publicize the Perot
message. San Francisco adman Hal Riney, who helped create
Reagan's effective "It's Morning Again in America" television
campaign in 1984, has signed on to devise the Texan's television
ads. Rollins and Jordan want to launch a full-scale media effort
almost immediately, but other aides favor more of the unadorned,
direct appeals that have proved so effective in building
support. Several key assistants were ecstatic over Perot's
performance on an abc town meeting last week. Although the
candidate was typically discursive and vague when responding to
questions, the ratings were impressive, an indication that his
appeal is still strong. At the moment, the team plans to roll
out a modest, paid media effort by the end of the month.

    Although the exact message to voters is still being
fashioned, an organized effort to build support is taking shape.
Republican advanceman Joe Canzeri has been making sure that
crowds at Perot rallies have been plentiful and telegenic. Tim
Kraft, who handled Jimmy Carter's field forces in 1976, will
deploy 30 operatives across the country. Each coordinator will
be charged with setting up offices in three or four states and
zeroing in on voters within each congressional district. Most
of the $4 million raised by the campaign so far ($3.2 million
of it from Perot's pocket) has been spent on establishing this
structure. Under orders from Dallas, volunteers seeking
donations and handing out campaign buttons are strictly
prohibited from accepting anything larger than $5, Perot's
stated limit for personal contributions. There is a fear that
a "supporter" who hands over a $10 bill and says "Keep the
change" just might be a reporter or opposition mole trying to
test whether the cap is truly being heeded.

    The insiders advising Perot have decided that they must
wrest management responsibility away from the volunteers, who
are considered less reliable and certainly less pliable. "If
you've got paid people working for you, you can come out with
a plan and expect that it will be followed. If you have
volunteers, you must meet with their approval, or they won't do
it," says Meyerson.

    So far, however, the volunteers have performed remarkably
well. In New York part-timers have established two separate
structures: one to overcome the state's byzantine electoral laws
and assure Perot a spot on the ballot, and another to cultivate
grass-roots activities through November. One petition-drive
worker in New York City who attended an orientation meeting
received four follow-up phone calls confirming that she would
actually hit the streets with a clipboard. Other statewide
groups have been equally effective in marshaling support and
finding their way through the legal thicket. Perot's California
organization, which colmore than 1 million signatures to place
him on the ballot, has drawn up a 26-page strategy manual on how
to deploy volunteers and sent a copy to the main office urging
its adoption nationwide. Some Perot partisans contend that paid
political consultants contracted by the main office are simply
moving in and completing a process the volunteers started months
ago on their own time.

    The frictions are most acute in Oklahoma, Colorado and
Illinois, where hotshot pros have shoved aside older volunteers
who have labored for months to get their man on the ballot. In
some instances the acrimony has led to legal battles. In Tulsa
organizer Pat Clancy says a Dallas-based team took over his
group's bank account when they consolidated operations in
Oklahoma City. When Clancy balked at being shut out, the World
War II veteran was told he was a "security risk." According to
Cliff Arnebeck, a Perot volunteer in Ohio, the Dallas-based
advisers "squelch and humiliate" grass-roots workers. If a local
organizer is at the center of a controversy over tactics or
long-range strategy, the professionals "put out the fire by
jettisoning those under attack."

    In some cases the professionals are attempting to channel
the energies of the petition workers elsewhere. In many regions
Perot's paid staff members are trying to set up in 100 days the
kind of support network that has been in place for the major
parties for years. One idea: enlist volunteers in an
adopt-a-voter program, in which each draws up a list of 25 other
potential Perot supporters, ensures that they are registered and
monitors the level of their enthusiasm right up to Election Day.
Although Perot has criticized both parties for kowtowing to
special interests, his campaign has a "coalitions" section that
will craft specific appeals to blacks, Hispanics and veterans.
More than 100 Perot youth clubs have sprung up, and strategists
want to attract a major portion of the 26.4 million Americans
in the 18-to-24-year-old age group worried about finding their
first jobs in the troubled economy.

    Perot seems content to let the pros run the campaign. He
never attends the daily 8 a.m. tactical sessions and rarely
involves himself in the debate over how to set up and maintain
operations in each state. Perot has also kept hands off in the
research-and-development area of the campaign. Issues chief John
White, a Deputy Budget Director in the Carter Administration,
is developing positions for Perot on the economy, crime
prevention and foreign affairs. White has hired 12 young policy
analysts to interview experts on various subjects, some of whom
have been flown to the Dallas headquarters for skull sessions
at the candidate's expense. "It's an enormous task," admits
White. "We could be here a year and not get the job finished.
Unlike a conventional campaign, we can't call up a staffer on
the House Budget Committee and say, `Give us all your stuff.'
"

    That hands-off attitude is an apparent change from Perot's
behavior in the business world. Former aides note that when
Perot headed Electronic Data Systems, he exercised tight control
over major policy decisions and had a penchant for cutting top
aides out of the loop and playing one man against another. While
he has allowed the political experts to plan among themselves,
some in the campaign are worried that Perot might blow his
stack if things begin to go wrong. In April he dressed down
campaign chairman Tom Luce for not providing adequate briefing
data during the taping of an interview. "Ross can only hold
himself so long," predicts an ex-employee. "He'll nail someone
on national television, and the public will be aghast."

    Some of the campaign's top lieutenants believe that no
matter how much they plan, simple destiny -- tied to a broad
willingness to accept a third-party candidacy -- will dictate
whether Perot makes it through to November. "This is either a
unique time in American history or it is not," declares Luce.
"If it is, Ross Perot is going to be elected President." If a
Perot Administration comes to pass, there will be no shortage
of people claiming credit for the coup.