Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence

3. The Rise & Fall of Ross Perot & the Reform Party, 1992-2000

III The Rise & Fall ifRoss Perot & the Reform Party) 1992-2000 dip Ross PEROT'S 1992 POPULAR-VOTE share represented a major success in the annals ofAmerican third parties. Furthermore, it set in motion a series of events that eventually changed the political landscape ill far-reaching and long-lasting ways. Although the ingredients for thirdparty success and the dynamics ofmajor-party response reflect in this case the broad theory outlined in chapter 2, it is important that we situate our analysis in the specifics of the Perot movement. In this chapter, we outline the conditions for success that existed in 1992 and the major ways the Perot movement took advantage of these opportunities.We also provide a brief account of the movement through its decline in 1996 and its ultimate demise in 2000. Observers of elections in the United States and abroad saw 1992 as a remarkable presidential election year. President George H. W Bush experienced an unprecedented decline in popularity, and Bill Clinton, a Southern governor from a small state, embroiled in charges about his personal behavior, emerged as the Democratic nominee and eventual winner. But the most unusual aspect of 1992 was the meteoric rise of Ross Perot-a Texas billionaire running as an independent candidatewho ultimately received a larger vote share than any third-party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. 47 48 THREE'S A CROWD BACKGROUND TO THE 1YY2 PEROT CAND IDAC Y Successful third parties are rare in American political history, perhaps because their fate is almost never in their own hands. As the push-pull model suggests, third parties need the push of major-party failure before there can be an opening for them. In their comprehensive survey of American third parties, Rosenstone, Behr, and Lazarus (10 C. E Gl c: :::> 3 The Rise & Fall of Ross Perot 5I T 100 Presidential 80 50 Unemployme'lt I , 30 JUI-89 Jan-90 Jul-90 Jan-91 JUI-91 I Jan-92 ~ 20 JUI-92 Fig. 3.I. Percentage unelllployment and presidential approval rating (January 198 .I!! 15 c ::> 'o'! ., 10 :0 f 0 > 5 III !::. ~ :c 0 f 0 > '" II. -5 ., z -10 -15 The Rise & Fall of Ross Perot 53 • - Perot ---• ,/ .. .. .. .. ... , , Bush '. l ....... • ..... -- . - / ='- / "'- --- _ .. 3/29/1992 4/12/1992 5/20/1992 6/14/1992 7/111992 7/8/1992 Date Fig. 3.2. Comparative candidate favorability ratings before Perot dropped out, 1992. (Data from Callup PolL) Clinton, there was a significant push away trom both the Democratic and Republican parties in the months leading up to the major-party national conventions. Stepping into the breach, Ross Perot, a plainspoken and independent-minded self-made lexas billionaire, who called on the American people to "take their country back," was seen by some as the right man to challenge the political establishment in 1992. The triumph of his maverick approach was epitomized in his orchestration of a 1979 rescue of his Electronic Data Systems employees trom km, which stood ill marked contrast to the U.S. govcrnment's failure to secure the release of American hostages held in its cmbassy in Tehran. Perot's entrance into the 1992 presidential race can be traced to the tenacity of the first two Perot "volunteers":John Jay Hooker, publisher of the Nashville 1('1111cSSCal1 and former Democratic congressional candidate, and Jack Gargan, retired Florida businessman and political gadfly. Hooker phoned Perot out of the blue in November 1991 to ask him to run t()r 54 THREE'S A CRown president. In spite of Perot's refusal, Hooker continued to call persistently and by December was speaking with Perot as frequently as three or four times a week (Goldman et al. I994, 415). The timing of the first call was fortuitous, since Perot had just spoken to a rally of anti-Congress activists assembled by Jack Gargan. Unbeknownst to Hooker, Gargan had already been pushing the idea of a Perot candidacy for six months. Gargan was a retired businessman who, in June I990, had spent forty-five thousand dollars ofhis personal savings on a series of newspaper ads calling tor the defeat of all incumbent members of Congress. Gargan's ads for his group THRO (Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out) exhorted readers to replace incumbents in response to congressional scandals, their failure to deal with the federal deficit, and their willingness to give themselves pay raises. The ad struck a chord, as readers sent in...