The Power of Ross Perot

...When asked by David Frost during a television interview for a few details on what he would do as the man in the Oval Office, he deftly replied that he was not yet a candidate because his name was not yet on the ballot in all 50 states, and he thought it inappropriate for a noncandidate to reveal his platform...

...Moreover, since the procedure is contained in legislation enacted by Congress, it can be amended, repealed or superseded by an Act of Congress...

...Yet even if the House is controlled by Democrats with a clear majority, and even if all of them remain loyal to the party, a Democrat may not be the choice...

...That law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the ground that any limitation was an inhibition on the First Amendment guarantee of free speech...

...That finding seems counterintuitive, since one would expect Perot, the entrepreneur epitomized, to have a natural attraction for the business-minded people who have traditionally been the mainstay of the Republican Party...

...Both Roosevelt and Lincoln, in other words, were rooted in social movements...

...All thanks to the unprecedented candidacy of Ross Perot, the joker in the political deck...

...At one time, a fairly well-to-do Whig candidate for President, William Henry Harrison, felt his best strategy would be to paint himself as a log-cabin boy and portray his Democratic opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a pampered fancy-pants...

...The answer was no answer...

...Although known as the "Lame Duck Amendment," because it changed the inaugural date from March 4 to January 20, it contains several significant clauses on the subject of how the President is to be elected if the House fails to settle the issue immediately...

...The Republicans seem to be fully aware of the stakes...

...Their strategy may actually give them a majority in one or both houses of Congress...

...O mores...

...But right now, he is a strong competitor, able to run ahead of both Bush and Clinton in California and Colorado polls...

...For the many voters who favor "none of the above," Perot is the positive expression of their negative feelings...

...In that event, we could have a President who owes his victory to the ill-begotten gerrymander...

...Consequently, the November elections for Congress—House and Senate—may be more decisive in terms of who the next President and Vice President will be than the popular vote for President...

...On the other hand, Perot's populist image is appealing to the kind of people who ordinarily vote Democratic...

...Who will pick the Vice President...

...As the Dixiecrat candidate for President, Thurmond stood for all those Democrats who rejected the civil rights plank of the party's 1948 platform...

...But if the pro-Perot mood in some states is very strong, their members in the House may feel compelled to support him, and the outcome could once more be that no candidate is able to get a majority...

...Even money and media accessibility, though, would not have sufficed to make Perot a serious White House contender if there were not a widespread malaise in the country, a deep discontent with politics and politicians...

...His future, naturally, will depend on how the voters finally feel about President Bush's bumbling presence and Clinton's checkered past, plus his own ability to make loud noises without sounding like an empty barrel...

...The boob tube elevates images above ideas, looks above logic, the messenger above the message...

...In an age where values count less than a valuable bank account, Perot's wealth is a powerful political advantage...

...Abraham Lincoln, running against the established Democrats and Whigs in 1861, was elected on a third party line—the young Republican Party...

...What accounts for the unprecedented response to Ross Perot...

...At present, that comes to 270 votes out of a total of 538—the sum being equal to the total number of Representatives and Senators, plus three electors from the District of Columbia...

...Just who Perot will end up hurting most may never be known...

...In such an endgame Perot would seem likely to count for nothing, because he is a loner without a party and therefore without partisans in Congress...

...The polls also suggest that Perot draws more votes away from Clinton than from Bush...

...act as President...

...two invaluable assets for a Presidential campaign: fame and footworkers...

...In two decisive respects, however, the candidacies of Roosevelt and Lincoln differed significantly from that of Perot...

...Here is the 20th Amendment's answer: "The Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a Presidentelect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified...

...In fact, his refusal to take a stand was seen as a virtue, as the mark of a man who wanted time to "listen" to the voice of the people before making it his voice...

...Should the Republicans have a majority and so wish it, they could name George Bush or Dan Quayle as acting President...

...This peculiar procedure means Bernie Sanders, the Socialist-minded Representative from Vermont, would have as much say in picking the President as the entire California delegation...

...It is contained in the Presidential Succession Act, which specifies that "then the Speaker of the House shall...

...Some years ago, legislation was enacted setting ceilings on political expenditures in Federal elections...

...Perot, again in sharp contrast, represents no party, no movement, no set of ideas...

...Nor is he the only such candidate to be considered a potential winner...

...His fortune has brought him (bought him...

...In fact, in 1948 Congress did "set up a procedure" for selecting a person to serve as President in the event of a House and Senate deadlock...

...Without the kind of money that Perot possesses, his kind of candidacy would be impossible...

...His continuing presence in the race may well produce an outcome that will startle an electorate largely unschooled in the intricacies of our political system...

...Yet somehow, although the others would have been derided, Perot was applauded by millions of voters who sent in contributions, signed his petitions and opted for him in straw polls...

...Who the Speaker of the House will be when Congress convenes on January 3, 1993, will of course depend on the results of the Congressional election this November...

...He (she) would merely be the acting President, and would have to step down to the number two position should the House, after soul-searching and deal-making, eventually select a President...

...What if the House cannot choose a President and the Senate's effort to choose a Vice President ends up in a tie vote...

...The party's name—Progressive —proclaimed its purpose...

...So it is possible that in an election where George Bush is the frontrunner, albeit without a majority of the electoral votes, Dan Quayle (or some Vice Presidential candidate on the Democratic or Perot slate) will move into the Oval Office...

...The critical point is that thanks to our archaic and anachronistic method of electing a Chief Executive, Perot's impact could lead to complications that go far beyond simply knocking out one of the major party standard-bearers...

...Nevertheless, to cite just the '92 toss-ers—George Bush, Patrick J. Buchanan, Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown, Paul Tson-gas, Tom Harkin, Robert Kerrey, and Douglas Wilder—all have felt called upon to address the issues they consider important...

...He is sui generis: a self-made billionaire out to make himself a self-made President...

...For one thing, the Vice President would not become the true President, "as in the case of the President's death or disability" (12th Amendment...

...The Republican Party of Lincoln was a composite of forces that sought to break the grip of the Southern slavocracy on Washington...

...To begin with, they were established political figures: Roosevelt had been President...

...All that would be required is a majority of Congress and the approval of the sitting President—who, until January 20, will be George Bush...

...He needed a way to reach millions of citizens in quick time...

...Lincoln had been a tall figure in Congress...

...While Perot's ploy to buy the White House is not illegal, it might be expected that his brazen abuse of the First Amendment would be widely seen as immoral, or at least un-American...

...The media, specifically television, provided the means...

...Indeed, Perot cannot even be compared with lesser third party candidates of our lifetime, such as Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, George C. Wallace of Alabama or John Anderson of Illinois...

...John Anderson was a Republican long active in the upper echelons of his party who, like TR in 1912 and Wisconsin's Senator Robert M. Lafollette in 1924, could no longer stomach the GOP's stick-in-the-mud conservatism by 1980...

...In doing what he is doing, Perot is not violating any law—regrettably...

...Perot of Texas fits none of these models...

...Should that happen, according to Amendment 12 of the Constitution the selection of a President would devolve upon the House of Representatives, which is charged with making a choice from the top three candidates—presumably Bush, Clinton and Perot...

...O tempora...

...It not only may perpetuate a deadlock by making sure that no President is chosen in the House and no Vice President in the Senate...

...Virtually every stage of the Byzantine situation offers ample opportunity for playing politics to an extent the nation has perhaps never before witnessed...

...And Harrison succeeded in winning the hearts of a people born and bred in the egalitarian ethos...

...Under our system, the candidate who gets the most votes for President is not automatically the President...

...In that case, says the 12th Amendment, the Vice President shall "act" as the President, "as in the case of the Pres-ident's death or disability...

...Had any of the above dared to declare that he was not ready to reveal his program because he was not technically a candidate, he would have been dismissed as a phoney, a disingenuous dodger...

...So Perot may now enter the political marketplace with a $100 million bullhorn and drown out—really stifle—some rival's natural voice in the name of fostering "free speech...

...How well, then, will Perot do this November...

...They are looking for someone in whom they can put their faith and, in their anxiety, they are ready to endow a Perot with imagined principles he has not—or certainly not yet—displayed...

...But money alone is not responsible for Perot's meteoric rise...

...George Wallace, in 1968, spoke for redneck resistance to the limousine-liberalism of the North...

...The $100 million dollars that Perot pledged to his own effort is an investment in still another business: buying the White House...

...For the 12th Amendment provides that the vote for President is to be counted state by state, with each state entitled to one—only one—vote...

...At the minimum, the eerie scenario casts Congress in a new role...

...And this happens to be the year the states are engaged in massive redistricting to reflect the findings of the 1990 census...

...Perot, in sharp contrast, has no record of political involvement?a fact that he flourishes as his forte...

...Thus, when neither a President nor a Vice President "have qualified" under the 12th Amendment, Congress may pick an acting President of its own liking, or it may set up a procedure of its own making for naming an acting Chief Executive who will serve until such time as the House picks a President or the Senate picks a Vice President...

...Where a state has a split delegation, its single vote is to be determined by a poll of its Representatives...

...Theodore Roosevelt, running on the Progressive Party line in 1912, posed a genuine threat to both the Republican and Democratic candidates?William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson...

...TR spoke for a "New Nationalism" that called upon the Federal government to play an active role in achieving economic justice for the have-nots of the soil and the city...

...After all, the United States is a democracy, not a plutocracy...

...In a few minutes, he—or any others whose fame and fortune will assure them air time—can reach more people than a candidate of yesteryear could reach in a hundred crosscountry whistle stops...

...The short answer, in three words, is: money, media and malaise...

...it may go on to choose the acting Chief Executive...

...Today, a Ross Perot flaunts his affluence with impunity...

...If Perot carries California and a few other states, he might deprive both Bush and Clinton of the required Electoral College majority...

...At the moment we may assume that Dan Quayle will be one of them...

...Technically, no one who aspires to the Presidency is a "candidate'' until nominated by a party...

...Perot is not, of course, the first Presidential candidate to challenge the two major parties...

...He (or she) needs a majority of the Electoral College...

...Gus Tyler, a frequent contributor, is Assistant President of the ilgwu...

...Prior to that moment, those who have thrown their hat into the ring remain merely aspirants...

...Second, the Roosevelt and Lincoln candidacies were based less on a person than on parties that represented a body of principles expressing identifiable social currents of their particular time...

...Each of those men stood for something, usually a position they and others had passionately pursued over a fair amount of time...

...For a candidate like Perot, who prefers drama to detail, the TV age is a perfect stage...

...Television is also exactly the right medium for Perot...

...In the opening days of his campaign, Perot suavely avoided mention of any program...

...If the newly elected House conforms to the mold of almost every House since 1932, it will be dominated by the Democratic Party...

...He is rooted in himself...

...It favors showmanship over statesmanship, as Ronald Reagan proved conclusively...

...The choice is to be made from the top two, not three, candidates...

...The whole process is further refined (or muddied) in the 20th Amendment to the Constitution...

...At least they are using pivotal posts in the Justice Department and in the Federal courts to inflate their Congressional presence by the flagrant use of the gerrymander...

...he is autogenic...

...Historians and political scientists are still arguing over whether in 1912 Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for a split of the GOP that resulted in the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson, or whether TR's "progressive" appeal actually weakened the ultimately victorious Wilson...

...The chore is assigned to the Senate, with each Senator having a vote...