The Perot phenomenon

WHATEVER one thinks of Ross Perot, it's inconceivable that he would have run against Ronald Reagan. And it's hard to believe he would have run against George Bush, if Mr. Bush had acted like Reagan's successor.

But on taxes, quotas, environmentalism, and even Murphy Brown, Mr. Bush has let the media and the Beltway opinionators bluff him into running away from winning positions. Each time he has lost ground. Yet he never seems to learn. Ordinary people panic from weakness. Mr. Bush has a unique way of panicking from strength.

He has also surpassed every politician in recorded history in demolishing his own base. Just a year ago one poll gave him an amazing 92 per cent approval rating. Now he barely peers above 40 per cent. He took conservative support for granted, reasoning from the dogma of the two-party system that disaffected conservatives had "nowhere else to go." And failing to take disaffection in his own party seriously, he was caught flat-footed by Pat Buchanan's primary challenge. He would be in a far worse position today if the Democrats had not been alienating their own supporters consistently over twenty years. Just as Mr. Bush has depressed conservatives (and, it must be conceded, pro-choice Republicans), so the radical liberalism of Democratic presidential candidates--frank in the case of Walter Mondale, disguised in the case of Bill Clinton--has driven out the "Reagan Democrats." This dual disaffection is the cause of the Ross Perot phenomenon.

It's odd for so decisive a character to be all things to all men. But Ross Perot is partly himself and partly what people seek, or fear.

To the political establishment, Republicans and Democrats alike, he was at first a joke--a dilettante who thought all you needed to break into the political elite was a few ideas and a lot of money. Over the last four months, they may not have come to respect Perot, but they have certainly come to fear him. Side-by-side headlines in last Sunday's New York Times tell the story: "Pressure Is Growing on President to Bring Baker In for Campaign / Aides See Perot as a Threat to Bush's Re-election" and "Bush and Clinton Staggering to End of Primary Season / Perot Stealing Spotlight."

To large numbers of the American people the point of Perot is precisely that he is not part of that establishment. As WFB points out in his column (see p. 62), a candidate cannot go on forever appealing equally to liberals and to conservatives; but for now, each side is delighted to listen to someone who will tell them that the purveyors of political expertise have done the country no good.

Can conservatives back him? Maybe not; but let's see how he develops. He talks refreshing sense about too much taxation and government spending--but as a big recipient of government funds he comes with a tainted record. He believes in Christian morality--but he also believes abortion is "the woman's decision" and, for no good reason, he found the Senate's treatment of Anita Hill "reprehensible." He wants to cut through the web of congressional wheeling and dealing--but he seems weak on the difference between congressional customs and constitutional imperatives. In foreign affairs, he is capable of trenchant action--everyone mentions the hostage rescue--but on specifics of foreign policy he is an unknown quantity.

Conservatives have to be suspicious of someone with such a piebald and random philosophy. But suspicion and opposition are not the same thing. We do not, after all, enjoy the luxury of a presidential candidate who shares our outlook in quite the whole-hearted way that Ronald Reagan did. Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Perot are in their different ways unsatisfactory standard-bearers. We still think it likely that, in the final analysis, we will grit our teeth and vote for Mr. Bush in November. But Mr. Perot should not despair of winning the conservative vote; and Mr. Bush should not take it for granted.

We have somewhere else to go.

COPYRIGHT 1992 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning