Two Bush outriders, House Minority Leader Bob Michel and presidential Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, launched this attack. Declaring that there was a “sinister” aspect to Perot’s appeal, Michel claimed last week that Perot was a “mountebank” who raised the specter of “authoritarianism.” Fitzwater called Perot a “dangerous and destructive personality,” adding that voters may ask “what kind of monster are we buying here?” It’s a standard, well-known incumbent’s charge against a challenger-only in especially vituperative form. Bush, for better or worse, is a known quantity who still gets high marks from voters for a sense of decency.
With Clinton at his side in Atlanta, former president Jimmy Carter launched the most strident Democratic attack against the Texas billionaire so far–even as Clinton himself continued to praise Perot. “He can’t hide all the way through the season,” said Carter, standing beside a man who’s been accused of having too many specifics. “He’s been evasive so far, and deliberately so … He either doesn’t have ideas clearly in mind now or he is ashamed and doesn’t want to share his ideas with the public.” For weeks, Clinton spinmaster James Carville has been urging a tougher line on Perot. “So far all we know about Ross Perot is that he is for abortion and against social security,” said Carville. Not quite: Perot only favors limiting the benefits of the well-to-do.
Bush and Clinton allies are pushing the notion that Perot’s long obsession with the POW-MIA issue has turned him into the foreign-policy equivalent of Oliver Stone–a man not to be trusted managing American interests abroad. Perot’s lobbying trips to the Hill are depicted in unsettling terms. “When you listen to him for the first hour he sounds like a normal person on the topic,” said one former Senate intelligence staffer. “By the third hour you begin to wonder if the man is crazy.” George Shipley, a prominent Democratic consultant in Texas, predicts the GOP message: “He’s a cowboy, can’t be trusted, has no real experience, precisely the kind of trigger finger that can lead us into armed intervention.”
An ironic charge coming from supporters of a president who’s vowed to do “whatever it takes” to get re-elected. Sen. Warren Rudman last week charged that a private detective, claiming to be working for Perot, had been investigating Rudman’s background in New Hampshire. A Republican who is retiring from the Senate, Rudman had been mentioned as a possible Perot running mate. Rudman accepted Perot’s denials of any involvement, but said he remains concerned about methods used by someone claiming to speak on his behalf. “If you’re investigating somebody in that situation, you tell them about it,” said Rudman.
This is Clinton’s own chief argument. Clinton is happy to let Perot attack Bush; his aides are willing to let Perot join in any presidential debates. “I agree with most of what he says,” Clinton said last week. “I agree with the indictment he’s made of the administration and the political system. I just think I’ve got a stronger record and a stronger program for the future.” To prove that, Clinton may have to overcome his reluctance to form an alliance with congressional Democrats.
With Perot gnawing at Bush’s base in Texas and elsewhere, Bush advisers such as Charles Black are gearing up to selectively blast Perot for his “liberal” positions. “We’re going to stress that he’s for gun control, that he supported a state income tax in Texas and that he’s pro-abortion,” said Black. It’s not an argument the Bushies will use everywhere, since those are positions many moderate Republican voters support. And it’s not quite accurate. Perot has never championed higher taxes.
Perot, fielding calls late last week in his Dallas office, professed a mixture of annoyance and amusement at the fuss he’d finally kicked up. “I sit down here in wonderment that this is the process through which we select a president,” he deadpanned to NEWSWEEK. “The point is, it’s so ludicrous. It’s a variation of Willie Horton: ‘he’s a monster’.” Perhaps Fitzwater was thinking of Cookie Monster, he joked. If so, there suddenly are plenty of Democrats and Republicans eager to play the role of Oscar the Grouch.
