The Perotistas have been chastised by some critics for displaying an enthusiasm too close to blind faith. Perhaps even more than traditional politicians, Perot has been maddeningly vague on key issues, including the deficit, the economy and the environment. But his supporters profess not to care much. As our recent sampling suggests, they have flocked to him for pretty much the same reasons that many other people choose their candidates: a little substance, a lot of style, and a hunch.
For one novice, a quick education in campaign tactics, and rapid promotion
If Perot fails to carry Michigan, it won't be because Judy Werner didn't give her all. Each morning, often as early as 5:30 A.M., she leaves her $400,000 house in the exclusive Detroit suburb of Grosse He and drives 20 miles to the Royce Hotel in working-class Romulus, southwest of the city. There she presides over 5,000 other statewide volunteers as the chairwoman of Perot's Michigan petition effort. On an average day Werner, 54, who has never met or spoken to Perot, puts in about eight hours, phoning supporters, addressing fund-raisers and giving radio and television interviews. Her schedule is so hectic that she has gained 10 lbs. from lack of exercise and has hardly seen her husband, Richard. So far about the only thing she won't do in support of Perot is put one of his bumper stickers on her black $55,000 Jaguar Vanden Plas. "How would you get it off?" she asks.
As is the case with many Perot supporters, this is Werner's first foray into organized politics. In past elections she ping-ponged between the Republicans and Democrats, voting for JFK, Nixon (whom she still describes as "a very honest man"), Carter, Reagan and Dukakis. But this year she decided she'd had enough of the major parties, mainly because of what she sees as their lassitude in confronting the country's economic problems. She and her husband run Solar Machine Products, an auto-supply company in Romulus that makes transmission and engine parts. Battered by the recession, the company now has only 125 employees, half the number it had in 1981. "I may be politically naive, but I don't like what I'm seeing in this country," she says. "We're not moving ahead."
After watching Perot on Larry King Live, she immediately sent him the $5 contribution he had requested, along with a letter volunteering to head the Michigan campaign. Two weeks later a producer from NBC's Today show called and mentioned that Perot's people in Dallas had provided her name as the state chairwoman. It was the first response she'd gotten from her earlier offer, but she quickly jump-started the statewide operation, which in the space of 14 weeks rounded up some 120,000 petition signatures, far more than the 25,646 needed to put Perot on the ballot in Michigan.
Despite her sense of accomplishment, Werner acknowledges that her efforts have created a few problems in her life. For one thing, her husband, though a Perot supporter himself, is not nearly so ardent and is not entirely happy about the disruption of the Werners' home and their business. "It means I don't make dinner five times a week, and I get behind in the office and social life," she says. And there are other concerns. Now that she is in the public eye, she has found she needs to stock her purse with extra panty hose, a toothbrush and a can of hair spray. "I never needed all this stuff before," she says. "But when I don't have it, for sure I get a run, or my hair flops before a TV interview."
Out of work, but not out of enthusiasm for his candidate
When he first took over as the Perot committee's press liaison in Los Angeles County, Mike Ruppert was working full-time as a sales representative for a private investigation firm. But holding down two jobs quickly became too much. In one 3½-hour period he received 31 Perot-related calls at his office. His boss told him he had to choose between his job or his political work. Ruppert, 41, chose Perot. "I fell bad and guilty, but this was more important," he says. "I've been waiting 15 years for this movement to come along, whether it was Ross Perot or somebody else. It may sound corny, but I lost my job for my country."
As a jury-rigged operation, the unannounced Perot campaign must often depend more on the enthusiasm of volunteers than the soundness of their judgment. Ruppert, who is unmarried, has no savings. To make matters worse, his wisdom teeth are infected. An unpaid volunteer for Perot, he is receiving unemployment compensation of $176 a week.
For Ruppert, this is not the first time his life has intersected with Perot's. A former narcotics officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, he claims that in the course of investigations in the mid-'70s he came across evidence that the CIA was trading drugs in order to fund covert operations in the Middle East. Disillusioned, he says, he left the force in 1978 and tried to expose the scandal, supporting himself by working for private security outfits and as a freelance writer.
Ruppert says that twice in recent years he wrote to Perot, who has raised a few conspiracy scenarios himself. He says Perot called him back to offer encouragement. But at the moment, Ruppert says his main objective is to see that the country gets a leader worthy of its people. Even for Ross Perot, those will be big shoes to fill.
Reaching back to the Founding Fathers for inspiration
As a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, Laurence Williams might be expected to know something about launching a grass-roots rebellion. In fact Williams, 49, a hotel consultant who lives in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod, tends to see Perot as the living embodiment of his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's legacy. "In both men the patriotism is tremendous," he says. "The leadership is there, and don't forget the versatility." A former Republican, Williams became ripe for a conversion to Perotism after last year's controversy over congressional pay raises. "I knew then both parties were in cahoots," he says. "They'd point to each other like crazy but then make deals with each other. That sealed it for me."
Inside Williams's four-bedroom home the phone rings day and night. As one of the nine members of the Massachusetts state steering committee for Perot, Williams has been putting in about 30 hours a week chatting up potential supporters and brainstorming with other organizers. His wife, Marie, 47, who usually votes Republican, hasn't objected so far to the time and distractions and in fact has decided that she will go for Perot in November as well. Meanwhile, Williams insists that whether it is successful or not, the campaign should be seen as a noble effort, both on the part of supporters and of Perot himself. "It's not an ego trip," he says. "It's a stewardship thing, like Franklin talks about. The exciting thing is watching people take responsibility."
At a sidewalk petition station, a healthy dose of hope
For the past six years Nancy Carter has been in and out of hospitals, undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for cancer. The ravages of the disease, and the treatment, forced Carter, 69, to stop eating solid food a year ago. As a result she must spend 10 hours a night hooked up to a device that supplies her body with a fluid that contains essential vitamins and minerals. And yet Carter has spent precious hours at a table outside a San Diego supermarket encouraging passersby to sign a petition to put Perot on the California ballot; more recently she has been working the phone on Perot's behalf. It is a sacrifice she is delighted to make. "I get a little tired," she says. "I'm expending a lot of energy, but I'm also doing something I believe in, so that gives me a little pick-me-up."
A longtime Republican, Carter thinks Perot is the ideal candidate to deal with such issues as industrial decline, the budget deficit and the continuing fallout from the savings-and-loan scandal. But what really caught her attention is his interest in education. A teacher who spent 20 years instructing fifth graders in the Chula Vista, Calif., school system, Carter notes that in 1984 Perot headed a Texas commission on education reform that tackled the states cherished pastime—high school football—and won, mandating that only students who passed all their courses would be eligible to play. "He took on the bureaucracy and de-emphasized sports," she says.
Carter is so enthusiastic about Perot that she spent $50 of her own money to make copies of articles about him for distribution. Divorced, with no children and two dogs, Carter devotes almost all her waking hours to her medical needs and her newfound political cause. As she sat outside the supermarket recently, a middle-aged man wandered up, paused, and blurted, "Who's Ross Perot? Is he going to be our next President?" Beaming, Carter retorted. "You bet!"
A Vietnam vet who sees a way out of the political quagmire
Ask Meal Pollack where he grew up and he answers, "Saigon." In fact he was raised in Chicago, but he regards his 21-month Army tour in Vietnam, including action during the 1968 Tet Offensive, as the time he truly came of age. Now 46 and a jewelry maker outside Carbondale, Colo., Pollack is a hard-core vet. His 1973 Plymouth station wagon carries a bumper sticker that reads, BOYCOTT JANE FONDA...AMERICAN TRAITOR B——.
He is an even more emphatic Perot supporter. He admits that he is not entirely clear on the particulars of Perot's agenda. But what Pollack thinks he docs know is that Perot won't back down from what he believes. He is impressed by Perot's concern for veterans' issues, and he is enthralled by the billionaires taste for derring-do. as evidenced by Perot's rescue in 1979 of two employees held captive in Iran. "I remember thinking, "What a stud, what an hombre,' " says Pollack. "Here's how a guy's supposed to act, none of this hiding behind rules and regulations."
Each day, Pollack, a self-employed goldsmith who creates expensive custom jewelry, leaves his wife, Jean, and their 11-acre ranch and heads into Carbondale (pop. 3,000) to check the mailbox and round up potential Perot supporters. At this point, backers in Colorado have more than enough signatures to get Perot on the ballot; the real aim is to line up people to vote for their candidate in November. Mulling the prospect of an administration headed by a man with scant political experience, Pollack has no qualms. "I know it's going to be different," he says. "I don't know it will be better. But there's no way he could make the country worse."
A paramedic who believes that rescue for the country is at hand
Ross Perot may be short on height (5'6"), but as far as Fred Dosch is concerned, he lacks nothing in stature. Dosch, 38, a paramedic for the emergency services unit of the Riviera Beach, Fla., fire department, regards Perot as nothing less than one of the century's giants. "Perot is like Walt Disney or Winston Churchill," says Dosch. "He is a leader who believes in idealism and people's ability to make things happen. He sees America is at a crossroads, and he seems to offer the only path."
But like any messiah, Perot needs a hardy band of disciples to spread the faith, which is where Dosch and those like him come in. After gathering signatures for the petitions that got Perot on the ballot in Florida last month, Dosch has continued to drum up support, even using his beloved short-wave radio at home to spread the word. "My grandfather fought in World War I, my father in World War II, both to make life better for their children," says Dosch, who has a pregnant wife, Peggy, 33, and a son, Brandon 5. "I am spending 12 hours a week doing the same for my kid. I owe it to him."
Indeed, his obsession with Perot has become a family affair. Peggy, who runs a discount specialty store in Jupiter, is a supporter, and even young Brandon has caught the bug. "He picks out Ross on the television news," says his proud father. "He points out his face in the newspaper."
BILL HEWITT
ANITA LIENERT in Detroit, LYNDON STAMBLER in Los Angeles, TOM MORONEY in Chatham, LORENZO BENET in San Diego, VICKIE BANE in Carbondale and LINDA MARX in Jupiter
- Contributors:
- Anita Lienert,
- Lyndon Stambler,
- Tom Moroney,
- Lorenzo Benet,
- Vickie Bane,
- Linda Marx.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
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