name big school and can't get a job. they are starting to say, wait a minute. something is wrong. they are really concerned about making sure we don't drop the $4 trillion burden on them. and as all you question why we have to have fair shared sacrifice across this country, please recognize, it is because we spent our children's money. and please understand, won't it be neat if we were $4 trillion down but everything was perfect. they would say, well we're $4 trillion in debt but we have the industrial base for the world and the finest schools and we've got no crime and we have alabaster cities on agreement with human tears and unfortunately with the bottom of the world in public education and most crime in the industrialized world our cities are in decay, and our public schools rank at the bottom of the industrialized world and we owe $4 trillion. this is going to be a tough pull to fix it. now, why am i so blunt about it and nobody else is? because the american people are ready to address it and fix it and both of the other parties say it is political suicide to talk about it.

well, my objective is not to commit political suicide but i do understand that the american people are ready to deal with this and every day is precious. if you delay, it is delaying once you know you have cancer. it is like going through a period where you -- denial, you refuse to accept it. it is pretty important to get treatment quick. we're at this point, we need to do it while we're still strong. >> ten minutes ago you said you were quitting the race because you didn't want to be a spoiler and didn't want to be disruptive. now you say you're back to win this thing. >> yes. >> isn't your strategy to disrupt george bush's vote in a number of key states, including this one, texas? >> absolutely not. that is press myth number 615. wait just a minute. wait a minute. let me finish. absolutely not. absolutely not. now, i love you guys. [ laughter ] he has called me every name in the book.

all i've ever said, fine man and fine family. the only thing i ever criticized is his mistakes in office. that's it. we're talking about performance here, not personality. see, i'm everything from a monster to crazy, coming from them, right? nobody ever says, boy, you must really dislike that guy, because you keep saying those things. i show up here and you say, you don't like george bush. when you create these fairy tales and pass them on, get together sometime in the evening and say is there any basis for this stuff? there is no basis for that. i wouldn't spend 10 minutes because of personal dislike. i certainly wouldn't spend the money i'm having to spend on this. i'm doing it for the reasons i gave in this speech. very simple. take one more. >> mr. perot -- >> sir -- >> i'm green and inexperienced. let me ask -- i'm going to ask the nice quiet gentleman -- i'll

recognize you and we'll try it, yes. >> mr. perot in your book you have an outline, your economic plan. on monday you held the most extraordinary political meeting here where their economic agenda was also discussed. but from what i understand, what most of us understand, there was similarity and commonalities and differences, but since then and now when you begin your campaign, do you think that you will be changing your economic agenda or altering them or making -- or any kind of adequate changes or will they still remain exactly as you outlined. >> any plan -- any plan should not be static. any plan should be dynamic. let's assume somebody has a better idea tomorrow. we should think about it. we should discuss it. we should debate it and do it. if you ask for me for 25 words or less for the reason for my business success, i don't get

locked into a blue print. we start out with what everybody is all excited about as a good plan. and then as we start down the road to implement it, we have a thousand better ideas. our government doesn't do that. we pass laws, freeze things in concrete and people cannot fine tune and optimize. so i'm a great believer in fine tuning and optimizing and certainly every step of the way we would want to say, wait a minute, as we go along, is there a better way to do it. what is the goal? to serve the american people. what is the goal? to get the biggest bang for your buck. and that is the reason health care is a mess. it is frozen. there are people all over the place, if they could take a screwdriver and fine tune it, but you can't. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> what's your tame on that take on that? >> number one, your question is did i know that? no. number two, let's look -- because i now have checked to find out what was going on. number -- here is what happened.

people -- we had 50 states, offices all over 50 states, manned by self-selected volunteers and someone would call dallas and say charlie is stealing money. in order to comply with the federal election rules, we would check it out and it was just false signal. and then we would have a situation, saying gee, we have a fellow out here in a county in an obscure area that your county coordinator that has done three terms in jail. well, we would have to check that out. 90% of the contact for that firm, most of the effort with that firm was providing security people and offices that needed security. we would rent security people by the hour from them. now, let's stop and think about this for a minute. i would urge someone to say, well how many people do you have in dirty tricks or opposition research? don't have any and never are

any. isn't it fascinating that everybody goes bonkers on the front day of the page the day i am going to make this acceptance on the issue and ignores both parties who are in absolute overdrive and overload trying to destroy one another personally. step two, really now, if there is any balance and fairness in what you do, give the same attention to their investigative capability that you've created out of thin air about our nonexistent capability. find out how many full time investigators they have checking everything is breathing and i think you'll conclude there is paranoia, at least in one place. so i realize it is a tough game and i realize nobody has to -- there are rules and i don't care. but i find it silly to the point of ridiculous that if you write a nonstory just because it gives you something hot, that you don't take the time to say, well

what about these other two guys? listen, we are not even in the game when it comes to investigation. in terms of what they're doing. and we don't -- all we try to do, if somebody said somebody is stealing, we check it out, we're entitled to under the federal election commission, not to allow people to steal money. now if that upsets you, i'm sorry. now that is it. now on that happy note, i'll take one more. >> mr. perot? you said -- let me just take you up -- >> i can't hear, you sir. >> mr. perot, have you ever been approached by the clinton campaign on any of their representatives and have they offered you any sort of a cabinet post? >> no. >> in the white house? >> no. nothing like that. and again, i guess, on a slow day -- of course not. >> i would like to -- i would like to. >> with all due respect.

>> think the american people are tired of the type of campaigns that have been run. at the same time, the american public went through a traumatic experience when nixon was president many years ago. how much of a right do the american people have to know about your character? is it fair for someone who might vote for you to wonder about your character and ask questions and how much should we be allowed to investigate your past? >> of course, now. let me ask you a question. is it unfair for me to wonder why you don't write a balanced presentation. let's assume you find -- well here is the good, the bad, the beautiful, the indifferent. are you trying to present a balanced picture of a candidate, leave me out of it or are you trying to play gotcha journalism? i'll rest my case. i'll take any balanced piece that comes out. i don't claim to be perfect. nobody -- look, i don't care what you do. just have fun. get raises and bonuses. play gotcha. i don't care. but the point is, i want you to

know that what i'm about is what i just said and i care about this country and i care about the american people and i love them and i will do whatever i can to serve them and they've asked me to do this and i will do it for them. and with that -- you've been -- i'm going to take this gentleman and then i have to go to work, i have to make a living and have to pay for this. >> you just said ask the question and why don't we go after the other two candidates. >> no, i said only on the investigate issue. >> and you said that you've had several quotes about how they use investigators and they investigate everything breathing. do you have chapter and verse about their use of investigators? do they investigate you or the american people? >> i don't feed the press. >> you made the accusation. >> i don't give you a feed every morning -- anybody here ever get a nasty feed from me? rest my case.

good luck to you. and good luck to you and thanks for being to pleasant and positive at my -- good way to open it up. [ applause ] tonight, you've been watching some of our american history tv programming in prime time. you'll find us here every weekend on c-span 3. we'll take you live to conferences, symposiums and historical sites. on american artifacts, go behind the scenes with us to museums and archives and travel with us to the nation's classrooms where you'll hear from college and university professors on lectures in history. as the 2016 campaign continues, watch past presidential campaigns on road to the white house rewind. and journey with us through the 20th century on real america which showcases documentaries and other archive films. over the next few weeks, watch for our airings of portions from the 1975 church committee hearings, investigating the intelligence activities of the cia, fbi, irs and nsa.

look for all of our programming every weekend on c-span 3. you're watching american history tv in prime time. each week until the 2016 election, road to the white house rewind brings you archival coverage of presidential races. up next, the 1988 campaign of candidate gary hart. we begin with the former colorado senator announcing his campaign in a ten-minute speech in denver. the senator finished a close second to mondale in the race for the 1984 democratic nomination and was considered by many observers to be the front-runner going into 1988. but within weeks of his announcement, the senator faced allegations of an extramarital affair which led him to withdraw from the race. massachusetts governor michael dukakis lost to george h.w. bush in the general election.