Revisit V.F.'s 1992 coverage of Ross Perot's presidential campaign—and its final, nastier days VFArchive
Paranoia and second-guessing, electronic passkeys, shredders— not a recipe for a happy presidential campaign. And as the end neared for Ross Perot, it got even nastierfew moments after Ed Rollins told his staff he had resigned as campaign director for Ross Perot's short, weird race for the presidency, the central work area of Perot's national headquarters in Dallas filled with security people.
By the first days of July, there were two distinct philosophical camps in the office, the political professionals and"the Dallas white shirts," as volunteers around the country nicknamed the Perot loyalists—some of whom were former military men—who had come out of the tightly controlled world of Perot's computer-services companies, Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems.
Rollins could not believe what he was hearing. Did Perot actually think that he, Ed Rollins, was a spy from the White House? Once, in an effort to keep the mood bright, Leonard took Jordan into Ed Rollins's office."Look at the blackboard, Hamilton," Leonard said he told him. There, scrawled large in Rollins's handwriting, was a new message: FORT ALAMO! In case Jordan might not know his Texas history, Leonard explained:"There was no back door at the Alamo either! And it was in Texas, too.
Another theory, advanced by top Republicans, was that Perot's entire presidential effort was really a vendetta against George Bush, whom he had reportedly despised since Bush told him off years ago. According to this theory, having had the satisfaction of surpassing Bush in the polls, Perot felt he could bow out.
"It was like a dust storm that was just at the beginning," Bob Barkin said. On another occasion, he said,"It was well known in the office that Perot was very upset. ' ' As the story gained force through repetition, it sounded more and more threatening: Perot either had or hadn't had his daughter's boyfriend checked up on. The professor, who was reportedly divorced, either did or did not have a baby.
Meanwhile, in Dallas and New York, ABC News had seven reporters assigned to Perot. According to Isham, they were prepared to go on the air onthe Thursday Perot withdrew with a story that had the potential to be far more damning than a gossipy did-he-or-didn't-he piece about Perot's unhappiness over his daughter's alleged beau.
ABC had discovered that an EDS employee named Bobby Joe King had been summarily fired after being hospitalized with an H.I.V.-related pneumonia. Joseph Monge, the former chairman of the Bradford executive committee, said on the telephone from his summer home near Montreal that he felt the need to speak out"when I learned that Perot was running for president. I felt that justice had been done in such a way that it cast a shadow on the character of the man who wants to be president." ABC's Morton Dean also spoke with Monge for a report that never aired because of Perot's abrupt withdrawal.
"Perot would often spend hours trying to track down the sources on pieces that galled him," said Rollinsew Yorkers are often suckers for hillbilly accents. It quickly became fashionable for New York writers to compare Perot to former Texas governor Coke Stevenson,"Mr. Texas," invoking the descriptions of the frontier politician from Robert A. Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson.
Early in the campaign, Meyerson invited Rollins, Charlie Leonard, and Joe Canzeri to an impromptu dinner at his house. Perot was at his highest point in the polls; pundits all over the country were predicting that he would be the next president. Ed Rollins asked Meyerson,"So what do you think of all this?" Meyerson stood in his vast modern kitchen, which looked out onto a Japanese garden."I don't," he said as he tossed a salad in a bowl.
Perot started his morning each day reading the papers."It would put the guy in a spin all day long," said one member of the staff."Whenever there was a comment [from one of us] in the paper, he would call up and say, 'This is how you should have said it! This is how you should have done it differently!'"He was particularly enraged one day at what Ed Rollins had said about Jesse Jackson on a TV appearance.
For the most urgent press calls, Squires's assistant had to paste a note on his chair to get his attention."I'm paraphrasing him, but Squires would say, 'These fuckers are going to write anything they want, so why call them back?'"Bob Barkin said. Barkin had once been deputy managing editor ofWashington bureau and sometimes on"Who ever heard of a hometown paper that wasn't cheering on the favorite son?" he asked Barkin.
By the end of June, Perot was upset about his press coverage. He began to be an object of caricature:saw him as a loony Alfred E. Neuman; cartoonists rendered his large nose and protruding ears as a monster mask."Perot would often spend hours trying to track down the sources on pieces that particularly galled him," said Rollins.
About the same time, ardent supporters began to turn against him. In late June, one campaign-staff member sent a directive to Luce, Meyerson, Rollins, and Jordan:afford to lose Katharine Hepburn on our National Advisory Committee! It would make headlines everywhere. I felt you should hear her comments, because she is a person with her finger on the pulse of New York City.—Perot is going down the drain here.—It's disappointing, horrible and shocking.—The commercials should be out by now.
By the last week of June, the professionals knew that the campaign was in desperate trouble. The atmosphere in the office had soured."The only thing that was going right was that the lights were going on every day," Charlie Leonard said."I used to say, 'I wish I could get to noon without getting depressed,'"Tony Marsh said. All political campaigns border on mania as the professionals jockey with one another, but the Perot campaign was singular.
On Saturday night, the campaign staff gathered in front of the big TV screen in the large carpeted lounge where the employees took their breaks."Everyone was watching the speech together," a staff member recalled."It was like a morgue. When he said the first 'you people'.. .afterwards everyone said, 'That was awful. How could he have said that?' Squires said, 'I didn't have anything to do with that speech.
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