Ross for Boss: Have Rhymes, Need Reasons

H ey, hey, Ross Perot/

You say you want to lead, but where we gonna go?

Who cares?

Hitching a ride on the Ross Perot bandwagon and worrying about details is like strapping yourself into the roller-coaster and worrying about the principles of aerodynamics--maybe you should worry but why ruin the fun?

And at least for now, Perot and his supporters are having a blast.

Come to think of it, it’s been one big picnic, which is what they had Thursday at Lion Country in Irvine for Perot’s California volunteers. The Man Himself dropped in for a highly visible salute to the volunteers, and in so doing threw down the gauntlet in what’s supposed to be the heart of Bush-Quayle territory. He spoke for nearly 30 minutes, invoking the spirit of the American pioneers, the Three Musketeers, Winston Churchill and Polish leader Lech Walesa.

It was an all-day rally right out of the populist textbook. You know you’re at a different kind of political event when a loudspeaker announcement in the background says: “The big watermelon-eating contest starts in five minutes.”

Remember when placards had boring slogans like “Nixon’s the One” or “All the Way With LBJ” or the ever-imaginative “Reagan-Bush”?

At a Perot rally, you get signs like “Sweep Out the Barn.”

Wherever the Perot candidacy eventually goes, he undoubtedly will become the most rhymed-and-versed presidential candidate in recent times. At one point Thursday, the crowd listened to someone croon,

“Hey, Ross Perot/

We saw you on the Donahue show/

You’re up from the grass roots growing like a tall oak tree.

Hey, Ross Perot/

We’re tired of the status quo/

Your tough love is just what America needs.”

Later on, sponsors handed out sheet music to “Way to Go, Ross Perot,” with new lyrics but sung to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

But if the mood was frivolous, the message is not. “This is the biggest country in the world and the biggest business in the world,” said Bill Eade, a volunteer from San Diego County. “Politicians can’t run a business.”

Tom Lyon, a 78-year-old Leisure World resident in Seal Beach, said he doesn’t share the wariness some others have about Perot. “How many rich people do you know who just sit on their ass, clip coupons, play golf or fiddle around? What I see is that nobody owns him. He doesn’t owe anything to anybody, and we’ve never had anybody (in high office) in that position. Even the local pipsqueaks in county and city government owe something to someone by the time they get where they are.”

Teddy Crownover, a middle-aged woman from Palm Springs and a Republican, said Perot “is about taking our country back.”

“We’re going to hire him for one dollar,” Crownover said. “We’re fortunate to have him running, because No. 1 he’s a problem-solver and No. 2, he’s analytical. I don’t want him having answers off the top of his head. If he had answers off the top of his head, that means he’d be just like everybody else. Do you know we have kids graduating from high school who can’t read? Look at Dan Quayle, he can’t spell.”

Unlike Ronald Reagan’s appeal to a dispirited country of 12 years ago, Perot seems to be calling for action that will involve sacrifice. He asked his supporters if they’d “stay in the ring with me” when he asked them for personal sacrifices. He made a specific appeal for tolerance of the country’s ethnic diversity, calling it a strength and not a weakness.

“I work in preschool and part of my training was in the ghetto,” said Mimi Rohwer of San Diego County. “Perot is so aware of that fact that if you don’t get to young children and help them be as good as they can be, you really won’t have a country left.”

It is current conventional wisdom that Perot’s support will waver when he starts attaching either price tags or strings to his broad themes.

I’m still running hot and cold on Perot, but my reservations about him were somewhat offset by talking to some of his supporters at the rally. These aren’t people turning their backs on government; these are people wanting government to work better.

You get the feeling that they’re putting an awful lot of blind faith in Perot. “We’re a nation at risk,” Teddy Crownover said. “This is our last chance to take our nation back.”

We have all summer and the early fall to see if Ross Perot is who they’re looking for, to see if he turns out to be an answer or just a guy with some Texas jokes whose name was easy to rhyme.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.