30 United States The EconomistJuly 13th 2019
S
andwiched between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush on the
presidential debate platform in 1992, Ross Perot looked like a
grizzled man-child. At five feet five inches tall, he was almost a foot
shorter than the thoroughbred Republican president and Demo-
cratic governor. He had to stand—while they slouched on their bar
stools—to look them in the eye. A lesser man, running in a differ-
ent year, might have appeared ridiculous. Yet the Texan billionaire,
whose death this week recalls one of America’s strangest and most
fateful political careers, thrived on the contrast.
America was in the economic doldrums and, after 12 years of
Republican rule, aching for a change that slick Mr Clinton was not
quite trusted to deliver. This created an opportunity for an outsid-
er that Mr Perot, pint-size, scrappy and quivering with contempt
for both parties (as well as hostility towards the president—a Yan-
kee interloper to his beloved state), seized with hyperactive brio.
He had two major policy impulses, a phobia of debt, on which
he blamed most of America’s economic troubles, and an embrace
of protectionism. “You implement that nafta”, he warned his op-
ponents, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs
being pulled out of this country.” But his overarching message—
the basis for the most successful third-party run in a century—was
his vow to tear into Washington, dc, and shake things up.
He was not the first to make that promise—indeed his pugnaci-
ty recalled two of the most successful third-party candidates be-
fore him, Theodore Roosevelt and George Wallace. Yet as the first
billionaire populist candidate, Mr Perot had novel credentials and
other advantages. At a time when the downturn and Bush’s spend-
ing had raised doubts about the Reaganite consensus, his epic suc-
cess, as a pioneer of the computer-services industry, suggested he
might actually know what to do about the economy.
He was also able to cover his campaign costs; he spent $65m in- He retained his eye for economies, though. He generated
publicity by appearing on tvchat-shows—he announced his run
on Larry King Live—where his folksy, sometimes perplexing, lan-
guage (“Life is like a cobweb, not an organisation chart!”) and love
of high jinks made him popular. In 1979 he launched a paramilitary
operation to spring two employees from an Iranian jail. They were
freed by a mob, not Mr Perot’s daredevilry, but that did not spoil the
story—or the thriller by Ken Follett and subsequent tvminiseries.
He was a genius salesman. And like many men who tell tales for
a living, his grip on reality could be strained. He was a sucker for
conspiracy theories—his belief that hundreds of American prison-
ers of wars remained in Vietnamese jails was an enduring fantasy.
His company headquarters resembled a prison camp, with barbed-
wire fences, armed guards and strict dress and behavioural codes.
Facial hair and short skirts were banned—but when an employee
needed help with a sick child no expense was spared. He was a ty-
coon from another age, a paternalist with an eccentric edge; more
Lord Leverhulme than Bill Gates.
That blend of outlandish achievement and disruptive idiosyn-
crasy was central to his appeal. Americans wanted to get back to
winning and, in the absence of fresh thinking from either party,
were open to suggestions. After leading in early polling, Mr Perot
eventually persuaded one in five to vote for him. That was despite
his bizarre decision to call off his campaign for two months after
the Democratic convention—because, he variously suggested, the
security of his daughter’s wedding was threatened, or he had been
blackmailed, or the Democrats had impressed him.
The similarities with another paranoid billionaire populist are
obvious. James Carville, Mr Clinton’s former strategist, called Mr
Perot “John the Baptist” to the “disenchanted, displaced, non-col-
lege white voter”, to whom Donald Trump appeals. It really is hard
to imagine the president without Mr Perot; his protectionist rheto-
ric is almost verbatim. Yet the comparison shows, too, how much
has changed in American politics, mostly not for the better. It may
also, more positively, suggest how worse can avoided.
Mr Perot’s success, unlike Mr Trump’s, was based on appealing
across the parties (a myth on the right that he cost Bush the elec-
tion has been serially debunked). That reflected the many more in-
dependent voters who were then available; by contrast, the only
way a charismatic independent could hope to win power in 2016
was by capturing one of the party’s nominations, as Mr Trump did.
Mr Perot therefore pitched for votes in the centre. When not grand-
standing on trade, he offered heterodox and mostly worthy ideas:
he backed higher spending on education, abortion rights and
modest gun control; as well deregulation and a strong defence.
This made him influential in both parties. Before the advent of
Mr Trump, his most enduring effect was to have pushed the Demo-
crats—under Mr Clinton then Barack Obama—to embrace fiscal re-
straint. Indeed, it might not be obvious, given that the national
debt has almost doubled as a share of output since 1992, but they
overlearned that lesson. The Obama administration’s failure to ap-
ply a bigger stimulus in the depths of 2009 reflected its caution as
well as Republican opposition. That should now serve as a warn-
ing to both parties as, in an effort to assuage the populist passions
Mr Trump has aroused, they rush to embrace Mr Perot’s other,
more damaging, big idea: protectionism.A mixed blessing
The anti-establishment tendency in American politics, its so-
called “paranoid style”, which Mr Perot and Mr Trump represent, is
rooted in subversive sentiment, not policy ideas. More spasmodic
than linear, it has always been hard to manage, but mostly short-
lived—as, with cooler heads in both parties the current outbreak
could be. If only it could expire as graciously as Mr Perot. Asked in
his last interview what he wanted to be remembered for, he said:
“Aw, I don’t worry about that.” His political legacy is a mixed bag.
Yet his record of good-humoured public service was great. 7Lexington Remembering Ross Perot
The Texan billionaire’s influence went well beyond his protectionism