RIP Ross Perot, the man and the myth

A conservative billionaire decided that his business acumen qualified him to run for president. His signature issue became opposing free trade deals and contrasting free and "fair" trade. As part of that, he was an economic nationalist, not worried about how trade deals affected workers elsewhere. He believed that traditional heavy industrial manufacturing was key to America.

He also promised to balance the federal budget, including by cutting Social Security.

He was an ardent hyper-patriot in the sense of confusing support for military missions with patriotism. Along with that, he was originally anti-gun control, though he moved leftward.

And, he was, and remained, an ardent War on Drugs cold warrior.

And, he did much better than mainstream media punditry expected.

The year was 1992 and the man was Ross Perot.

Other than not sexually assaulting women, and not pandering to a Religious Right that was not as powerful or self-conceited as today, there's really not that much to distinguish Perot from Donald Trump now, is there?

And, that all IS Ross Perot.

He became a billionaire through EDS getting government Medicare processing contracts. And, as National Review notes, was also a hypocrite on lobbying and carve-outs related to that. And, as Gerald Posner notes in "Citizen Perot," he also was getting inflated profit margins, technically working for Blue Cross — a Medicare contractor — while also running EDS at the Medicare start-up time, ie, a big conflict of interest, not disclosing contract details, and other huge lacks of business ethics, big hypocrisy in a man so morally prudish on sex and drinking in the Navy, at EDS and beyond.

To the best of my knowledge, he never talked about how American Big Ag, via NAFTA, drove many small Mexican farmers out of business, leaving them little recourse but trying to cross the border.

He was a conspiracy theorist on POW-MIA issues, believing Vietnam had a secret stash of them squirreled away, even while grifting to be its "business ambassador" to the US. Vox notes he beleived in other conspiracies; who can forget the "Bush is spying on me" claim? That's not to mention the actual fact that he spied on the Bushes in the 1980s and flip-flopped on some issues in the 1992 campaign.

NAFTA was halfway like a blind hog finding an acorn for him.

And yet, Bernie Sanders (or staff running his @SenSanders Twitter account) can still fellate "Ross is Boss."

Or maybe Bernie's doing this deliberately, as a semi-dogwhistle.

In any case, the divergence between man and myth on Sanders in 2019/20 sometimes is not much different than 2015/16.

I will give Perot credit for his take on the Constitution. He noted it was written in an era far different than today. At the same time, he never indicated he would challenge originalist judicial interpretations. He was pro-choice and supported gay rights — eventually.

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In Texas, his influence was much bigger, and generally better.

No-pass, no-play was huge. It partially knocked the props out from under "football is god" parents and coaches. His backing for other educational reforms was also important, above all the 22-1 student-teacher ratio in elementary schools, though he later stood by when it was largely gutted. And, the national newspaper of Texas, the Texas Trib, failed to mention both.

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I offer more yet from my re-reading review of Citizen Perot.

Citizen Perot: His Life and Times by Gerald Posner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Call him H. Ross Hypocrite, and an even bigger hypocrite than I realized.

Perot railed against federal budget deficits in particular, and the federal government in general, during his 1992 presidential run.

But, not only had he become a billionaire off EDS getting major Medicare processing contracts, which I knew, but Posner shows how he was actually working for Blue Cross at the time, a no-no, but was taking unacceptable profit margins, and also fought hard against revealing anything in those contracts.

That leads to H. Ross Hypocrite part 2. The man was no more a straight shooter than the mythical Schmuck Talk Express, John McCain, nor than more typical career politicians. Like Donald Trump, though, versus those politicians, he lied more bluntly and perhaps while batting even fewer eyelashes.

H. Ross Hypocrite part 3 is about his biography vs reality. This lover of all things military tried to get out of his mandatory naval service early because he was a moral prude to the point of being a prig. He then tried to cover up that attempted opt-out history.

H. Ross Hypocrite part 4 gets back to why he ran in 1992. Current (of then) and former EDS staff told the "pros" like Jordan and Rollins that this man who was attacking budget deficits didn't even understand budgets that well in the business world.

Beyond that, one other issue stands out more. That's Perot's being a sucker for a wide variety of conspiracy theories, and con men and grifters promoting them.

Beyond the scope of this book, could he have gotten elected in 1992 if he hadn't done his initial drop-out, or even with it, if he hadn't done his nutty "Bush is spying on me" late October 1992 interview?

Quite possibly. And, as an independent, not a party candidate, might have been even worse in some ways than Trump.



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