OXFORD — He’s a little too old, turning 86 before the general election, but otherwise it’s too bad Ross Perot isn’t in this year’s race for president. He’d fit right in with the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, populists who are playing to the disenchanted on both ends of the political spectrum.
As an independent candidate in 1992 and a Reform Party candidate in 1996, Perot parroted some of the same themes that are working for Trump and Sanders, perhaps the most familiar being criticism of U.S. trade policies.
Perot was an outspoken opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), urging voters to listen for the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs heading south to Mexico should NAFTA be ratified.
To some extent, Perot was correct. Much of Mississippi has lost textile industry jobs, among others — if not to Mexico, to other Central and South American countries and to Asia. Currently, Nabisco, maker of Oreo cookies, is under fire from Trump and Sanders for plans to outsource production of what the company calls “America’s favorite cookie” to Mexico.
The other side to that coin is the argument that prices for clothing, furniture and other consumer goods would be higher if it weren’t for relaxing import restrictions.
As for Congress and its perceived inaction, Perot, in a speech in Washington, D.C., said during one of his campaigns that “this city has become a town filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don’t ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city.”
Trump could use that line today. Or has he?
Perot, in his 1992 independent bid, received 18.9 percent of the popular vote, making him the most successful third-party presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. He possibly could have done better except for some bizarre behavior, including withdrawing from the race and then re-entering it. At one point in June of that year he was leading the Gallup Poll over then President George H.W. Bush and the eventual winner Bill Clinton. One theory is that Perot took enough votes away from Bush to elect Clinton, but an analysis of voting demographics revealed that Perot’s support drew heavily from across the political spectrum and he took an equal number of votes away from both the Republican and Democratic nominees.
Perot, unlike Trump who is going after the Republican nomination instead of running a third party or independent campaign, never had much chance of winning, but he did help shape a bizarre campaign in 1992 which saw a sitting president defeated.
But it wasn’t as bizarre as this year’s where a thrice-married, casino-owning, cussing billionaire is supported by a number of Baptists on the Republican side and a Socialist is pushing the Democratic party even farther to the left.
On second thought, Perot probably couldn’t add much to the present mix even if he were 20 years younger.
Dunagin, who lives in Oxford, is a retired longtime Mississippi newspaperman.
