>> thank you, governor clinton. ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the debate sponsored by the bipartisan commission on presidential debates. we would like to thank our audience of 209 uncommitted v t voters, hopefully they'll go to the polls like everyone else november 3rd and vote. join us on the 3rd and final presidential debate next monday, october 19th, from the campus of michigan state university in eastern lansing, michigan. i'm carol timpson. good night. [ applause ] you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past.

c-span3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. we're $4 trillion in debt. we're going into debt on an additional $1 billion every working day of the year. as we sit here tonight, we will go into debt an additional $50 million in an hour and a half. it's not the republicans' fault, of course, and it's not the democrats' fault, and what i'm looking for is who did it. now, they're the two folks involved, so maybe if you put them together, they did it. the facts are, we have to fix it. somewhere out there there is an extraterrestrial doing this to us, i guess. everybody said they will take responsibility. someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. >> that was independent candidate ross perot during three separate debates in 1992 talking about one of his

favorite issues, the u.s. debt. in that election the texas businessman won 90% of the popular vote, the largest vote for an independent candidate since. thanks for being with us. we're doing this series as a way of looking at american history through the lens of presidential candidates who failed in the white house but had an influence on american history. ross perot is the final of 14 people we're featuring in this series. joining us now, ross perot's biographer doug brinkley. as a person who has done biographies on history, what interests you about ross perot? >> he has a pioneer spirit in him. he harkens back to the 19th, early 20th century, more like

henry ford or thomas edison. he cares about the country. patriotism has become a kind of a cheap word. ross perot is sort of a superpatriot. he's less interested in money and politics than he is in doing what's right for our country. this comes, i believe, from his navial academy background, his constant service to our country, looking for pows and mias during vietnam. and constantly supporting our special forces. but the clip you just ran tells you that in 1992, perot talked about the center issue of the upcoming presidential election, the national debt. when we gave that clip, we were at $3 trillion. today we're at $15 trillion. when he was talking about the sucking sound of jobs leaving america due to nafta outsourcing, it's probably on the left the issue that the most disturbed zone of

middle class americans is that jobs had gone overseas and many towns in the midwest or south are languishing right now. >> so the issues ross perot talked about in his campaigns are being echoed today by the tea party on the right and on the left the occupy wall street people. is that what you're saying? >> he's a centrist. you cannot look at ross in the paradigm of typical politics. we often want to label people right, left. he's something out of an older american fiber of the wagon trains out west or of the world war ii or created war heroes, soldiers, explorers, inventors. that's what ross perot is really about. her entering in '92 was not about politics as much as it was public service. you have to say this about ross perot in '92 and aye 96, he put a considerable amount of money where his mouth was. he ran -- every season we have people flirting with third-party runs, but ross perot did it, and

it's quite extraordinary to get about 19% of a vote. it's kind of unprecedented, and it came from middle class people all over america. so it's interesting to reflect now on this whole united we stand movement that ross perot ran in '92 and with the reform party in '96, and wondering, is there going to be a third-party person? is there a ross perot that might enter the nixon 2012? if you look at his platform in '92, he seems to be right on with the key issues including border problems, drugs, violence on the texas border, the need for public education. he has very controversial things such as putting a gasoline tax on. but all of these issues -- we look at ross perot and he -- his legacy invigorates our current debate. >> for many americans outside

texas, 1992 was perhaps their introduction to ross perot. in fact, he had been on the national stage for a while. in the late '80s he began speaking about these issues he was concerned about. we looked at our video library and our first coverage of ross perot was back in 1987. here he was speaking to the american bankers association that year. >> let's take a look at where we are and let's take the rose-colored glasses off. all these people are saying, the fundamentals are sound. i think we've had enough dr. feel good. i think we're tough enough to take bad news and i think it's time we look at the facts. we've got a $3 trillion debt by 1988. our debt is being significantly funded by foreign nations at this point. the greatest nation in the history of man doesn't even have the will to pass a national budget. we continue to pass continuing resolutions that put us ever deeper into debt, and we've

given up trying to live within our means as a country. there is no correlation between taxes paid in and money spent. we are losing an international business competition. some of our banks have problems, savings and loans have serious problems, wall street is bouncing all over the place. our personal spending habits of our people are as bleak as our federal spending habits. our people spend everything they make, all it can borrow and they have no savings. >> 1987, 24 years ago, and except for upping the numbers and the fact that americans are now saving because of the 2008 crisis, almost every one of these issues could be talked about with the same words today. >> that's absolutely correct. remember why ross perot could give that speech. he was a genius, really, at start-up operations. he understood the corporate world. in 1962 he created electronic data systems and ended up selling it a few years before

that speech, i believe, in 1984 to general motors and became arguably the richest person in texas and was getting on the cover of "fortune" magazine, so he knows what he's talking about how to take a start-up business, and he understood the importance of data collection for companies. he even at one point invested in apple with steve jobs at one point. he worked, of course, for ibm when he was a young man. so he really wanted the united states in his adult life to be the great country it was of his childhood, the country that fdr brought us through in the great depression and world war ii, that can-do spirit that just fills him up. and the fact that we were losing in the '80s to japan a lot, and of course today our problem is competing with china, and the fact that so many people in congress seemed to be bought and paid for, the lobbying in

washington, in getting rid of lobbyists and corrupt politicians was at the core of the perot message. >> this is a call-in program, and you make it very interesting. we will, in a few minutes, put our phone numbers on the screen so you can be involved in the conversation about ross perot, the issues he was involved in then and the legacy today. in 1993, this book was published, "perot and his people, disrupting the balance of people." carolyn barta joins us from her home in texas. can you tell us about him and what shaped the man we knew on the national stage? >> well, perot was from texarkana. he had a very average texas childhood. he lived in a strong, stable middle class family.

as a boy, he broke horses, he traded horses, he was an eagle scout. even in later life, i think that he kept all the traits of the eagle scout. he would set objectives for himself, goals, and then try to pursue those goals. you know, he was very much in the texas tradition of the day, and as he grew, went to the naval academy and then started his own businesses, he sort of represented, as doug said, the can-do spirit of texas. his vision was big, the state was big, there was boundless opportunity here, the sky was the limit sort of thing. he really sort of played into what was sort of the texas mythology with texas politicians who were larger than life, very successful businessmen who made a fortune here. they were risk takers, they were not afraid to fail.

and that was the sort of spirit that he had that i think got him into this thing. >> it's worth noting that at the naval academy, ross perot was president of his class the last two years, so early on showed leadership traits and the ability to galvanize people under his leadership that we would see later in life. just a quick overview of his business career. let's take a look at after the naval academy, he left the navy after four years and went to business, as we mentioned, into ibm as a salesman where he quickly became the top salesman of the company. that was 1957. by 1962, he had founded his own company which is electronic data systems. in 1984 he sold eds to general motors for $2.4 billion and then stayed on the board for a number of years afterwards. in 1988 he founded perot systems, and in 2009 sold that company to dell computers for

$3.9 billion, the source of his great wealth. but carolyn barta, he and his family were philanthropists. can you talk about that side of his family? >> they've given a fortune to all sorts of charities here in dallas, and mr. perot himself has made many anonymous contributions in small ways, has helped individuals and -- without people even knowing about it. there is a hospital here named for margo perot, his wife. he's given a whole lot of money to the boy scouts. it's just endless, their philanthropy. >> doug, you mentioned earlier his involvement with the p.o.w.s. can you tell more about that issue and how it created a divide between him and a later president. >> we mentioned he graduated from the naval academy in annapolis as the president.

that was a big deal. he was the sort of person in the navy that believed you're only as good as the guy left behind. he was a greater leader. during those years when he was in the navy, he sometimes would have to go and get soldiers that were on leave or got drunk in a foreign town and get them back on the ship. it became sort of a hallmark of his life. you never leave anybody behind. and he was very upset during the vietnam war, rightfully so, that the united states -- we didn't push the p.o.w./mia mission or issue enough. ross perot stepped into that fray. it went to back channel negotiations with vietnam to say we want every one of our guys back. and he's become, really, a hero of the u.s. military veterans for his constant concern about our soldiers and our troops.

recently i gave a talk down in dallas for veterans day, and there was a group called daughters of world war ii. these are the daughters of our world war ii veterans. there were hundreds of world war ii vets there. i got to talk with ross perot over dinner one night, and one of the most amazing stories he told me was recently when our s.e.a.l.s team killed osama bin laden, they shipped him -- they thought so much of him or special forces that they staffed the walking cain of bin laden. and he went to the s.e.a.l.s museum in florida, which everyone should visit, because i think our s.e.a.l.s should be "time's" people of the year. that was just a tribute to how

conscientious he is for getting jobs for our service people. helping veterans whenever he can. particularly with the special forces which he thinks represent the best of the best of the american spirit. >> we visited his boyhood home in texarkana. we're going to show you that. as we're looking at that, i would like carolyn barta to talk about his involvement at the behest of texas governors, and some issues, including the war on drugs and education reform in his home state. >> well, he was appointed to a couple of task forces, one by former governor bill clements, and then another one by former governor mark white, so clements was a republican, white succeeded him as a democrat. they both tapped perot and asked him to serve. one was on education reform, and i think it just kind of points out how mr. perot was always one to speak his mind. he was never afraid to say what

he thought. and he thought that in the public schools there should be special classes for talented kids, and the brightest kids should go to better classes. some of the parents, texas parents, thought, well, that's elitism and maybe we don't want that in our public schools. and so perot just very sarcastically said, okay, let's put all the fat girls on the drill team, let's put -- have everybody be the quarterback. it was just sort of an example of how he always spoke his mind. but he was never reluctant to take on a job if he was asked to do a job like that for a couple of governors that showed that the democrats and republicans both liked him. and for years his name had been mentioned as a potential candidate for something in

texas, because he was a leader. and he was also sort of in the tradition of old-time texas politicians. you know, people like speaker sam rayburn -- well, even going back to sam houston, doug, in the republic of texas, that kind of charismatic leader. speaker sam rayburn, lbj, governor john conley, governor clements who was certainly one to speak his mind, governor ann richards who was in a class by herself as well. he was so much like some of these older texans who would just tell it like it is and didn't mind doing the hard work to -- if he thought it would help the state or help the country, he didn't mind doing the hard work to do it. >> carolyn, let me jump in at that point. one more bit of the perot biography building i want to put on the screen before we get to his campaign in '92.

in iran, a number of eds workers were held hostage and mr. perot was personally involved in the rescue of those, something that was later captured in a book by ken follett called "on wings of eagles." it became a national best-seller and later a movie on television. can you talk about how this -- and you've watched a lot of politicians -- building the personal biography through the telling of stories like this and how he did it effectively. >> this was an amazing story. in 1979, jimmy carter was president. you had the beginnings of the iranian revolution, and two of his workers for his company, for electronic data systems, had been held captive. he wanted them sprung free. he went and hired a former special forces people to go in and find a way to get them loose. he ended up -- they ended up --

using an anti -- an ayatollah khomenei rally were not just two americans or his two employees were released. but about 10,000 political prisoners got released. they had a rendezvous and were -- they had a very dangerous trip, a sort of cloak and dagger story, but they were later able to get smuggled out through turkey. this was a highly successful maneuver of getting in there and getting his guys back. it gets back earlier to what i said about the p.o.w.s and mias. ross perot believes in loyalty first and foremost. if you worked for him and you were loyal to his company, he would do anything for you. if you listened to people who knew him well, that's the number one trait, personal loyalty to people he believes in. >> we have a great photograph of that period of ross perot with richard crenna who played ross

perot in the movie that was shown nationally on network television. it's the beginning of 1992. set the stage about the george h.w. bush candidacy and how the public was feeling about him. >> we know george walker bush, or president 41 as he's referred to now, he saw the wall coming down, the am hengs -- apprehension of noriwega in panama, and in 1991, the gulf war, which most people thought was a great success of ousting saddam hussein from kuwait. in early 1992, pat buchanan was going after president bush as having a silver spoon in his mouth and was an elite, out of touch -- there was a populist revolt within the republican party. also that spring you had another

insurgent, jerry brown, coming in and trying to reattract them, and then bill clinton gets the nomination. so you have the democrat bill clinton and george herbert walker bush, and suddenly ross perot goes on larry king on cnn and says, look, i'm going to run as an independent if i can be on the ballot in all 50 states, if i'm drafted. i'm not going to run the typical campaign, the -- but the people want my ideas. once we talked about it at the outset, particularly balancing the budget and the stopping of outsourcing of jobs. also, he was opposed to the gulf war in iraq, because he thought that it was going to be a mistake. and that special forces should have gone in and killed saddam hussein. he launched this amazing third party run. he started soaring in the polls and became the darling in the summer of '92, and then we'll pick up the rest of the story in a little bit.

>> let's show that "larry king live" february 22, 1992 interview wen ross perot announces his willingness to run. >> let's go to grassroots, america where people are hurting and saying, why are we in this mess? first of all, look in the mirror. we're the owners of this country. we don't act like the owners. we act like white rabbits that get programmed by messages coming out of washington. we own this place. >> is there any scenario in which you would run for president? can you give me a scenario in which you would say, okay, i'm in? >> number one, i don't want to. >> but is there a scenario? >> number two, if you're that serious, you, the people, are that serious, you register me in 50 states. and if you're not willing to organize and do that, then this is all just talk. >> wait, wait, wait. are you saying -- >> i'm playing to the ordinary folks. if you're dead serious, i want

to see some sweat. why do i want to see some sweat? i said it earlier, i want you in the ring. >> carolyn barta, let me ask you how much of a surprise that announcement was by the time it was made in february of '92. >> well, i guess it surprised most people, but the truth of the matter was that he had been out making speeches for several years, and particularly leading up to the "larry king live" interview. in fact, just a couple weeks before that, he was in tennessee to speak to a business group and he was interviewed by a reporter there, and he told him virtually the same thing, that if he saw some skin in the game, if people

got in the ring and put him on the ballot, he would think of doing it. it was published. nothing much came of it, and perot was talking to a man in tennessee and another one in florida who were sort of activists and trying to draft him to run, and john j. hooker in tennessee, sort of a flamboyant businessman, kept calling him, talking to him and trying to get him to run. and it got to the point where they started talking about, well, where would we -- where should i announce? and they considered conventional sources, "new york times," "l.a. times," "wall street journal," and he liked "larry king live." throughout the campaign he liked going on talk shows where he could talk and get his message out. so, anyway, as i was told the story, john sigenthaller of "the tennesseean," the editor there

formerly, called "larry king live," and i'm not sure whether he set it up or just told him to ask the question. perot said that he was going on "larry king live" to talk about the economy. and he made an impulsive statement. he never thought it would go anywhere. but the truth of the matter was he had been thinking about this for quite a long time. and even three months before he made a speech in tampa to a group called throw the hypocritical rascals out. a man down there, jack gargan, was trying to do a draft campaign. there were signs, draft perot. there were a thousand, 2,000 people listening to him speak down there. he was curious about it. how do you get on 50 ballots? and, in fact, asked some of his staffpeople to do some research to see, how do you get on the ballot? so he had been mulling it over in his head for a good while.

it was a surprise to most of the country, but i think that he had been thinking about it for a good while. >> and his challenge to his supporters to get him on the ballot in 50 states really became the subject of carolyn barta's book which she contends is really about the people who followed ross perot and how they were galvanized to move outside of the conventional two-party system in support of issues and this figure leading those issues. we'll talk a lot more about that as the program continues. two clips and then we're going to start taking calls. these are back-to-back clips. just to give you a sense of flavor, doug brinkley mentioned earlier that ross perot was very critical of george h.w. bush's prosecution of the first gulf war. we'll hear about that in an interview he gave to c-span in march of 1992. and then immediately after that, also, in the spring of 1992, you'll hear a clip from a very well-known texas journalist, molly ivans, who is now past,

but very well known in texas politics, and she was asked in the spring to talk about this texas politician she knew so well. we'll show you both of those clips and come back and take your calls. >> they should understand why we're going to war. let's take the example you gave me. it was four months before the white house could figure out why we were doing it. one time it was jobs, the next time it was oil. finally they got it together and they had to get rid of nuclear, chemical, bacteriological and hussein. if i knocked on your door and said, i would like to borrow your son to go to the middle east so this dude with 70 wives, who has a minister for sex to find a virgin every thursday night can have his throne back, you would probably hit me right in the mouth. >> one night i made a mistake about ross perot in my column.

i was writing about that. i wrote about how they abolished the income tax and i was writing in my column about why it was a bad idea. i closed by saying, you see, if you make more than $17,500 a year, you will now be in the exact same tax bracket as ross perot. and because my english teacher taught me to write complete sentences, i wrote, comma, who makes more than a million dollars a year. i wanted to show the despaispar between your $17,500. but i did not check. i thought it was a safe claim but i did not check. the guys at our business desk in dallas called and they're just laughing their asses off. they said, ivans, ross perot makes a million dollars a day.

i'm sitting there thinking, boy, this is going to be an embarrassing correction when the phone rang and an operator said, ross perot calling collect for molly ivans. he really is funny. i like the guy. and i was sorry about that because i'm sure he is politically incorrect to an extent that would make people's teeth hurt around here. but, in fact, i do like ross perot. he's a damn hard guy to dislike. there is a lot to like there. the down side is that basically guys who have made a lot of money in business tend to have a very hard time of working on a system of checks and balances. the other downside is the man is slightly paranoid which is a bit like being slightly pregnant. >> this is "the contenders" focusing on the presidential campaign of h. ross perot in 1992 and 1996.

our west here in washington, d.c. we have douglas brinkley, author, and carolyn barta who wrote a book about the perot campaign. let's begin your telephone calls on "the contenders" starting with ralph watching us in chicago. ralph, you're on the air. >> caller: thank you, susan, awesome. didn't mr. perot pass on distinguishing himself from his two rivals who were heavily compromised in the war on drugs by not calling for a road map to peace on drugs? as successful contenders, harrison and cleveland used opium along with benjamin franklin, and jfk with speed and lincoln used medical marijuana, and each of our last three successful contenders used both grass and coke medically as preventatively and recreationally?

thank you. >> what we're really getting at is the so-called war on drugs which became a popular phrase in the 1980s in the united states. the problem was all these urban centers had whole generations of kids that were getting addicted to different types of narcotics. ross perot, his whole life he had been a champion of education. in fact, working for public schools in particular. and in were public schools where drug gangs had taken over, including in dallas, which was a very rough city people forget back in the '80s and '90s. perot took a pretty hard line cracking down on drugs, and we have the crack epidemic that hit the united states after that. he was tough on that issue. so if you are somebody who is a libertarian and believes that

drugs should be legal in the united states, perot would not be on your side. >> matt is watching us in plano, texas and you're on. good morning, matt. >> caller: good evening. i'm glad you're having this discussion on h. ross perot. i want to make a comment and a question. he's had a profound impact here in plano. he ended up moving his headquarters here, and because of that i believe dr. pepper and a few other corporations decided to move here as well, and later on he ended up founding perot systems as well. he's had a huge impact where i live, and i thank him for that. but my question is about his choice for stockdale as president. how did that come about? as we saw later on, he didn't look too good in the vp debate, and i think it was a hindrance -- i'm not sure how many votes it cost him, but it certainly didn't make him look good. i just wanted to ask what was the thinking and decision behind selecting admiral stockdale as

his vp candidate, and i'll take my answer off the air. >> in 1992, he chose admiral stockdale. >> admiral stockdale is one of the greatest americans who ever lived. he's the most decorated naval officers in u.s. history. and, of course, he had been a p.o.w. in world war -- in the vietnam war and had organized what they call the alcatraz gang of how to have a p.o.w. resistance. this guy, i think he won something like 26 medals, numerous silver stars, medal of honor winner, later went on to become president of a naval war college. we're dealing with a very serious person in stockdale, and ross perot just admired him slavishly. he thought he was the type of person we needed in government. he chose him as his vp, it was an interesting choice.

what people forget in 1992, ross perot did well in the debates. he clearly won the first debate against clinton and bush, and some people would say he won all three, but that's how he got to 19%. pre-debates, he was only at about 8%. post debates he hit up to 19%. stockdale struggled. he only had about a week to prepare. with debating with dan quayle and al gore. he got out of the gate wrong by making a comment like, who am i because a lot of people hadn't heard of him before. he actually got a lot of applause when he did the debate but the media went to town on him. never really ready for that media frenzy that you have to expect. it made some people question whether perot could be president, because some people didn't think stockdale had the political skills to be president. on the other hand, admiral

stockdale is some energetic u.s. military historian working on a biography of this man. they don't come better than admiral stockdale, and i hate to remember his fumbling on a debate question and not remembering what an extraordinary -- the service of admiral stockdale is almost unparalleled. >> carolyn barta, spring of 1992 progresses into summer, and the people who are enthusiastic about ross perot begin the work of meeting his challenge, of getting his name on the ballot in all 50 states. will you describe to our audience ballot access in this country and as it existed in 1992 and how big a task they faced? >> well, it was a huge task. in order to get on the ballot in any state, you have to meet the laws of that state. so if it's a petition that you

have to get 100,000 names on a petition, or you pay $1,000. getting your name on the list is diverse. in most cases it's hard because you do have to collect all those petition names. in most cases, and sometimes you have a very narrow window in which to do it. so what happened after "larry king live," people started calling the perot headquarters saying they wanted to get in the ring with him, they wanted to do whatever they could do to make him run. and so they set up a phone bank there at his headquarters in dallas and volunteers came in and manned the phone banks, and they were having people call from all over the country. they set up a very sophisticated phone bank where someone would call in, and if they were from a

certain state, did they want to work on the petition drive, did they want to volunteer, did they want to know when perot was going to be next on tv, you know, punch, punch, punch, and it would go from wherever to answer the person's question. but then what the perot organization had to do, and perot called in six people from his company and asked them to figure out how to do this. how do we get on the ballot in 50 states, and had to work with all the people volunteering in all these states to find out what the law is in that state and to start working to do it. it was an enormous task. once you get on the ballot and if you reach a certain threshold, you establish a ballot position for the future,

and perot established a ballot access position in '92, '96 so that pat buchanan who ran on the reform party ticket in 2000 had the ballot access in all the states. initially it's almost impossible, but, i mean, like i said, he never feared doing the impossible and got his team to work, got leaders in every state to handle the petition drive if that was what was needed in that state. >> and as the spring moved into summer, ross perot was, in some polls, reaching 39% of public approval ratings, so the two parties were really beginning to take this man's candidacy quite seriously. bill clinton moving toward his

nomination as a new democrat, as you said, and the incumbent president, george bush, probably wondering what was happening here with this challenge from ross perot. two texans going against one another. can you talk more about the relationship between the two? >> first off, bush 41 is really a houston figure, which is about international companies and it's about the oil industry and trading. ross perot was working with ibm and then with his own data services company. they were just in different texas industries and different geography. but they got into a terrible feud over the p.o.w. and mia issues. he really accused bush, and particularly the cia in general, of being part of a drug trade in southeast asia, that they were actually doing kind of slush fund money by selling heroin and other opiates -- >> we should interject george bush was head of the cia. >> exactly.

so it became pretty nasty between the two. there is no love loss between george herbert walker bush and ross perot, but that's politics. so the bigger question in '92, as we're talking about this and i'm thinking, we just heard about this sort of populist campaign of perot, but remember, he put somewhere around 12, $13 million of his own money into the game, maybe more. he was also able to buy these tv time half an hour commercials. one half hour infomercial of ross perot garnered about 1.5 million viewers. he was following no real rules. of course, george herbert walker bush had been head of the republican party, and clinton was the darling of the democratic party. perot was filling this vital center and really was trying to

champion the middle class everyday american people's central interest. he was the anti-money in washington guy, and that's also an issue we're talking. he saw that was going to be a doom for us. >> let's take a call from indianapolis. jerry watching us there. hi, jerry. >> caller: good morning, ma'am. >> do you have a question for us? >> caller: i have a question. when ross perot and bill clinton run, try to get neck and neck, lyndon johnson and roosevelt, do you think we need to go back and see what we can do about jobs and everything, about the economy, republicans, the problem came when the republicans started when george bush was in the white house. so you can't put the problem on president barack obama. we need to come together to help the people and give the people

what they want in the country. >> thank you, jerry. jerry actually reflecting the comments that brinkley meant to playing to the middle class of america. i'm going to move on to darcell watching in leyland, north carolina. go ahead. >> caller: yes, i'm one who signed up for ross perot and i can definitely say i'm responsible for more than 20 of my friends who i convinced not to vote democratically, to vote for ross perot. >> so looking back now with the hind sight of 20 years, how did you feel about that whole effort for mr. perot? >> caller: first of all, i really appreciate that he went outside the box and one of his most important speeches was "chicken and chips." you guys have to bring that tape out. one didn't know anything but chicken and the other one didn't know anything about computer chips.

i thought that was one of the most laughable moments, because both president bush and now president clinton had no idea what was going on. they looked sort of dumbfounded. and i was very proud that my sorority sister was head of that. she moderated that debate. but i was somewhat concerned about his daughter, and i hope you guys mention something about his daughter was supposed to be assassinated, so they were going to take him off -- he was going to leave the campaign. that was a curiosity as well as i was not really quite sure his feelings about race. now, i felt comfortable. he had a very large turnout in flint, michigan at the defunct hyatt regency.

there was all kind of uaw people there. there was a lot of excitement about this man because he seemed to be very sincere. when he was telling some of the volunteers, you need to put some skin in the game, because he wasn't going to put his money in and see it go for naught, but i think he was responsible for any third-party candidate to be involved. perot was also involved with the anderson thing. >> let me jump in. thank you to much. interesting, and i'm sure we'll hear from other people involved with the perot campaign. i'm going to ask carolyn barta, she raised a couple of issues, but i just want you to ask one aspect of her question and that's ross perot's views on race. >> on race? >> yes, that's what she talked about. >> on race. oh. well, he made a speech at the naacp in the course of the

campaign. actually, this was toward -- shortly before he got out. and things had not been going well in the campaign. campaign. the press was determined to put him through a primary because he had not been through one. there had been a lot of negative stories about, you know, he was conspiratorial, investigated people, and looking into his business and everything and his family. anyway, things were not going well. he did not like the way the campaign was going at that point. he had agreed to go make this speech at the naacp. and in the course of the speech, there was a phrase, something like, you and your people, he used the phrase you and your people, and ... for whatever reason, after it was over with,

people interpret it to be racist. that he was making some kind of racist statement. and it really devastated him because he had this image of himself as a great humanitarian who was very, you know, tolerant of racially tolerant and had no animosity or racial present -- prejudices actually. and he came off sounding like a racist. not long after that, he did get out. >> well, we will pick up the story because, as we mentioned, some of you he was 39% in the polls. people who worked ballot access were successful in about half of the states. and then on july 16th 1992, an announcement from ross perot about his campaign. and then just two and a half months later, a second announcement. we will watch a little bit of both right now.

>> we have said among ourselves and politically, that we must win in november. we must win a majority of electoral votes. as you know, if we cannot win in november, the election will be decided in the house of representatives. and since the house of representatives is made up a majority of democrats and republicans, our chance of winning it would be pretty slim. now that the democratic party has revitalized itself, i have concluded that we cannot win in november and that the election will be decided in the house of representatives. since the house of representatives does not take the president until january, the new president will be unable to use the months of november and december to assemble a new government. i believe it would be disruptive for us to continue

our program since this would obviously put it in the house of representatives and be disrupted to the country. therefore, i will not become a candidate. >> the volunteers know that this is a critical time in our nation's history. neither political party has effectively address the issues that concern the american people. they've asked me to run this campaign on the issues and to assure that the problems that the american people are concerned with will be dealt with after this election is over. i know i heard many of the volunteers who worked so hard through the spring and summer when i step decide in july. i thought it was the right thing to do. i thought that both political parties would address the problems that face the nation. we gave them a chance, they didn't do it. but the volunteers, on their own, forged ahead and put me on the ballot in the final 26 states after july the 16th.

the day we were on the ballot in all 50 states, the volunteers requested that i come back in because political parties had not responded to their concerns. my decision in july hurt you, i apologize. i thought i was doing the right thing. i made a mistake, i take full responsibility for it. there's only one issue now starting today and that's what is good for our country. looking back won't solve any of our problems. looking forward, working together, we can fix anything. >> so, caroline b.a.r.d.a., you follow this campaign and you understood the disappointment of the people who were working for perot. what did you come to learn about the reasons for him leaving in july and getting back in october? >> i think there were several reasons that he decided to get out. i already mentioned the press

... they were doing a lot of investigative stories on him that he didn't like. but another thing that was happening in the campaign. they bought some professionals in to help with the campaign. and the pros had in fact started taking over. it got kind of out of hand. ed rollins wanted to do a slick tv ad. he wanted to do the traditional kind of campaign press conference every day. perot did not want all of that. he wanted the very simple kind of campaign. he wanted to do it differently than anybody had ever done before. he just wanted to talk to the american people when he could on tv. he wanted to do his infomercials where he would buy

time and get on tv with his flip charts and explain what he thought was wrong with america and how to fix it. and so the pros came in, they were trying to build up a different kind of campaign. he thought he had lost control of the campaign. it was not fun anymore. and so i think for a variety of reasons, he decided this is not going anywhere. we're not going to win. it's grueling. we might as well cut it off. then, there's another part of the story. his volunteers were mostly devastated. they were crying. they were so ... upset. i mean, a lot of these people had put their lives on hold to work for him to get him on the ballot. then all of the sudden, he's pulling the blood -- plug like this. some of them were smarter to see through that. he urged the volunteers to go ahead and get him on the ballot because that would be their

leverage. and some of them thought, you know, i think he will probably come back. and in fact, he came back and did the kind of campaign he wanted to do all along. he wanted to do a short campaign. he always said he thought campaigns should be no longer than five months anyway. but he came back and it was a sprint to the finish. he had five weeks when he came back in october. he did his infomercials. he went on some talk shows and he finished the campaign likely started it. >> let me jump in there and take a call from mike watching us in minneapolis. like, you are on the air. >> great program. i've been watching all the series. i have a question. mr. perot during his campaign, he bought these commercials on tv and i remember this as a young person that he was

illustrating all the debts that america had and going through all these. i thought those were really powerful presentations. ivory since then, i've seen a candidate use that powerful presentation. the other thing is that i've heard that mr. perot has accused the former president, george bush 41, have disrupting his daughter's wedding. he wanted to take revenge. that is one of the reasons he also ran. and today's elections for 2012, who would mr. perot be supporting? >> okay, thank you so much, mike. >> mike talked about the infomercial and the charts. we will go to that and come back to doug brinkley to talk about this use of campaign infomercials and charts to illustrate national policy issues. let's watch. >> tonight, ross perot, plain talk about jobs, debt and the washington mess. >> good evening, we've talked a lot about the importance of having the american people fully informed so that they can make intelligent decisions as owners of this country.

in effect, this is our first tone hall. i thought it would be a good idea to make the -- take the most important problem first. that problem is our economy and jobs. here's the picture on our countries debt. look at how it has grown over the years. we are now up to four trillion dollars in debt. that is a staggering load for our country. they help you understand how fast this debt has grown and how it grew, the green is the debt we had in 1980. the red is the debt that has been incurred in the last 12 years. we've had an enormous growth in debt and we don't have anything to show for it. here's another headache. it's like the guy who went into the hospital and thought he had a sore arm and found out he had

gangrene. but here we are. we are tough people and we can handle it. look at this red. 70% of that for trillion dollar debt is payable in the next five years. folks in washington financed long term problems in short term to keep the interest rates down. that is suicide in business. that is suicide and your personal life. that is soliciting a government. >> doug brinkley, did ross perot begin a trend the politicians with and follow with these tracks? was this uniquely perot? i think it's uniquely perot. you guys it c-span covers capitol hill. you see it happening congress all the time. but this was hitting a very large audience and what is amazing is it's still the issue of our time right now. he was trying to really drive home a point that we were going to go hole down as a country if we were going to keep racking update. he was a business person. he believed he had to keep the books balanced. and he ran to really make that point more than anything else. i read that he once said i grew up as a young man wanting to become a pearl and i ended up

becoming an irritant to the oyster. meaning he wanted to wake us up to what he saw as a very large problem. the reason maybe ten years ago was the debt, and particularly after the clinton administration, we were getting a surplus. but in this 2012 environment, this pie chart is frightening. as i said earlier, four trillion when you put the chart up to today's 15 trillion in debt. he was trying to wake us up, like a paul revere figure, that this could be our doom of the united states if we did not address this problem. >> carolyn barta, we've had two callers who have asked about ross perot's accusations that their work dirty tricks concerning his daughter's wedding. that is one of the issues he talked about with his departure in july. in the interest of time, can you briefly tell that story of what his accusations were?

>> well, yeah. i don't think he accused bush of doing it, but he thought the republicans were playing dirty tricks. his daughter was getting married. it was one of the reasons that he did get out. i should have mentioned it before. but i don't know, ... the story was that they were going to put her head on somebody else his body in a photograph and sell it to ... get the tabloids to use it. he was very concerned about his family. his family was really special and his daughters and the daughter's wedding. and so he just, the thought of that happening was too much for him.

it was another reason that he did get out. >> the colors last question for both of you is there anyone on the national stage today who would be in air to mr. perot? >> well, you know, one of the things when you're watching ross perot, he's kind of inventing a new kind of third-party movement that he was running. there have been other since world war ii third-party movements. 1948, strong thurman and the dixie crafts or henry wallace and the progressive party. 1968, george wallace and the american party. but he was really trying to create a centrist movement. hence why he hired ed rollins, the great republican strategist, to work his campaign. he was trying to play it down the middle. i don't think we have somebody willing to get in the game like that. you hear some people mention bloomberg, he is name has been invoked. donald trump does all of these games for his own publicity, but does not really get into the game and focus on the issues. so i think one of the things in

this contenders program and thinking about ross perot is that he actually did it. it is one thing to talk about it, but to get to the point where you are getting 19% of the american people, that perot vote, that 19%, is still the middle class center that both president obama and whoever the republican nominee is fighting for. the working class, blue-collar, patriotic, a tax paying american citizens in rust belt towns or tumbleweed towns in the west that are hurting economically. and he's talking about a massive reform. he's most like theodore roosevelt's bull moose party in 1912. they were the two most successful third party for votes, not electoral votes, but popular vote, of the 20th century. >> carolyn barta, one question we did not answer from an earlier caller is whether or not mr. perot's strained relationship, we will call it, with george bush was one of the

animating factors in his campaign. do you know if that was a factor? >> well, i think it was a factor because iraq ... on, going back to the p.o.w. mia days. he thought that when bush was president that the administration was not doing enough to try to get the mia and p.o.w.'s out of north vietnam. then he thought that he went to the persian gulf war without a declaration of war. he also thought that bush was too focused on foreign affairs. he was not addressing the domestic problems of the day. in fact, he thought he did not understand the domestic problems of the day. as john has mentioned, the problems were very much like today. there are so many similarities with the economy and recession and the loss of jobs.

people feeling like it was no longer a government buy, of and for the people, but it was government for the politically powerful and the special interests. so many similarities. i do think that he felt the george w. bush was not up to the job and that was one of the reasons that he wanted to run. but back to the question of whether anybody could do it today. maybe somebody like bloomberg, mayor bloomberg, somebody who does have their own money and who can do a similar campaign like him. but he was really uniquely positioned to run at that particular time. a conservative with a populist touch. i think what happened to the reform party over the years shows the difficulty in

maintaining this kind of a third party movement. yes, teddy roosevelt, in 1912, got 27% and 88 electoral votes. then comes ross perot in 1992 and he got no electoral votes. he got almost 20 million votes, popular votes, no electoral votes. they were the most successful. >> we have to jump in. we are at the top of the hour with one hour left to go. doug, you have a quick comment. >> one very important quick comment. i think the viewers really need to understand this. we saw the pie charts of ross perot and he's talking about this deficit in the debt. that could be eric canter today. what you also need to know, what makes him a more complex and different centrist figure is how are we going to make up that money. he says, ross perot, let's tax gasoline. let's put ten cents a gallon

for five years, raise billions to pay that off. well, the petroleum lobby, the oil lobby of texas, does not like this idea of tax on gasoline. but if we would have done it back then, the so-called clean, sustainable, renewable energy revolution, more people paying more for gas, it may have triggered the new kind of innovation. and of course, the left is very much liking that. so that pie chart, on the one hand, it seems like a conservative pie chart. on the other hand, how to put it is something that the democrats like. it makes perot a true centrist. >> halfway through our to our look at the contender ross perot of the 1992 in 1996 elections. our next phone call is from granted false washington. gloria, you are on for our two guests. hello, gloria. >> hello, i just loved ross perot. now i remember the 1920s. what does ross perot thank ...

all through the political spectrum down through those years. franklin roosevelt and all of the presidents and we come to today. a total insanity. i watched the house of representatives. i watch this sentiment. everything has been turned around so only the certain people with a great deal of money, it appears, or able to turn the elections to they are good. so i just wish that the good solid, rock-solid, intelligence and sensibility of ross perot could do anything to help us today. >> thanks very much, gloria. calling is up next in rutherford, new jersey. hi, colleen. you are on. >> hello, i have a really good question, but i just want to make a comment, and i'm glad i came after the woman in the

phone call prior, her living in the 20s. because i was in my early twenties in the nineties. and ross perot was the equivalent of a ron paul. young people loved ross perot. i used to run home and couldn't wait to watch as pie chart. i learned so much from him. i almost forget bill clinton in those debates because it really was, ross perot really was the rock star for the people in their twenties. he had a huge following. i went to go see him. but my question is, he was very good friends with john mccain. and from what i understand, he lost touch with john mccain i think when john left his first wife. he recently called a reporter at the new york times and john mccain was running for president. i believe that reporter wrote an article, because ross perot made a personal phone call to

him, that is my question. do you know anything about his polling out with john mccain? he was for mitt romney, ross perot, for the republican nomination the last presidential election. not mccain. it's part of those feuds that ross perot has. we have to really understand. mr. perot is not somebody right -- playing right or left politics. he is not what we get on our cable talk shows. even with what is happening in washington d.c.. and so anybody who he thinks is abandoning the principles of america, the super pacs, you can see mccain was willing to start compromising on a lot of those integrity and its -- principles. so perot abandoned him at that point. ross perot is about action.

it's whatever it takes to fix the problem. he's not really about talked. i think there is a famous quote that's in the family, or one of his favorite things is, i don't want to hear about people who say the river is 30. i want people who are going to clean the river. get out and do things. he's enigmatic. he's mercurial. you cannot pigeonhole him. for a texan that wants to strict gun control. he's pro environmental protection agency. he is pro-choice. he's tough on corporate america and outsourcing of jobs. he's tough on the war on drugs. you can go around. what you get is sort of a old style can do american who believes in the american exceptionalism. somehow, after american -- world war ii, americans got lazy. not the everyday working

american, but everybody is working for leisure time and breaks instead of kind of fixing the country. country comes before corporation to ross perot and i think he's diagnosing in 92 and 96 that american politics are broken and the financial system is broken. the military is not broken and he's questioning how do we fix the other two. he still feels that way today. >> that caller mentioned as a young person in her twenties and cheering on ross perot. in our next set of clips, we will do a montage of two of the three presidential debates that happened that year. >> these young people. when they get out of the university they will have a difficulty finding a job. we have to clean this mess up and leave this country in good shape and pass on the american dream to them. we have to collect the taxes to do it. if there is a fairway, i'm all ears. if there is a more their way, i am all ears.

but, let me make it very clear. if people don't have the stomach to fix these problems, i think it's a good time to face it in november. if they do, then they will have heard the harsh reality of what we have to do. i'm not playing large music tonight. >> nafta, the mexican trade agreement where they pay people a dollar an hour, they have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls. etc, it's federal, etc, and you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of job being pulled out of this country right at a time when we need the tax base to pay the debt and pay down the interest on the debt and get our house back in order. who can give themselves a pay raise -- 220% pay raise in the set congress? we would have airplanes worth two billion dollars a year justify round year. i don't have a free reserve parking place a national port, why should my servants? i don't have an indoor gymnasium and an indoor tennis

court and indoor everything they can think of. i don't have a place where i can go make for tv dissent to my constituents to try to blame washington to elect me the next time. i'm paying for all of that for those guys. ross perot and three moments in the fall of 1992. for the incumbent george h. w. bush, there was a tough moment in those debates. you will recall he was captured looking at his watch during one of the debates. that became emblematic. >> george herbert walker bush had a tough year in 1992. everything was going wrong. remember when james coralville said it's the economy stupid. he sort of thought this was getting beneath him. but we forget the debates of not always been there. 1960, we had the kennedy and nixon debates, but we did not have presidential debates all the way till 1976.

it was all about owning a soundbite. it was not about building an organization running the country was about. it did not help president bush to be glancing at his watch in that regard. i think it cost him in the election. perot and clinton did better in these debates than bush. >> carolyn barta, how did ross perot fare in the debates in the eyes of the public? i thought, you know, i agree with doug, that he probably won the debates. when george bush looked at his watch, it's sort of reinforced the idea that people had that he was not really engaged in the campaign. the debates were critical for perot. when the debates were over, he had risen back up to maybe 21%. in 96, he was not in the debates. it made a big difference.

i think he only got maybe 8% and 96. so i think, you know, going back to the question that could anybody else do it today, the problem might be getting on the debates. because now the commission on presidential debates as such stringent requirements. somebody would have to meet a 15% threshold on ... and, i think maybe five different poles, before they would be allowed to be in the general election debates. so, the debates were very critical for the success that he had, perot. for getting his message out. >> carolyn barta joining us from dallas, a longtime journalist who wrote a book about ross perot's 1992 campaign and the people who helped him get on the ballot in all 50 states. let's take our next call. it's from houston, texas. gregory, you are on the air. >> hi, good evening. i had a couple of quick

questions. first was, besides having the most popular vote since t.r., what similarity do you see between mr. perot and teddy roosevelt between their views, their outlook and their politics? and second, who were some of the role models for mr. perot? he seems to have gone ... he seems to have followed the mantra of william jennings brian, william as truman, the buck stops here. >> well, recently when i got to talk with mr. perot, his two evergreen heroes in politics is theodore roosevelt and winston churchill. he takes a lot from ... we forget now that both of them were considered cowboys. when theodore roosevelt became president, mckinley was assassinated in the republican party of mark hanna and bill mckinley did not trust t.r.. he was considered an iconoclast

and individualists. particularly, it's the whole cowboy notion. ross perot grew up in texarkana. his father was a cotton broker, but also was broke horses and went to cattle auctions. he considered himself a bit of a texas cowboy. so everything about the roosevelt impressed ross perot. i think it gave him courage. if t.r. can do a bull most party, why can't i run in 92. and churchill, it goes without saying, anyone who loves freedom and democracy and courage and grit, winston churchill is your figure. those are the two people that i think in my most. i thought about this today, patrick henry. we talk about the other founding fathers and the ones that become president, but this is about the contenders. how do you have an american revolution without that figure like patrick henry? those are the types of people

that ross perot admires. next is a call from ron watching us in everett, washington. hey, ron. >> good evening, i would like to challenge doctor brinkley a little bit. i think the comparison with t.r., even though perot may have idolized him, is heavily overdrawn. you mentioned just a few minutes ago, if i understood correctly, that perot favored a flat tax, and of course, that's the antithesis of progressivism. i think jr was way out there to the left in the liberal progressive tradition, and of course even, obama this week, we're speaking on the 100th anniversary of a t.r. speech there. even though he may have supported oil tax, i don't think he really was a wilderness warrior the way you depict him. >> no, nor is winston churchill. i'm not suggesting that. those were his heroes and people have them t.r., a lot of

people see him theodore roosevelt what they want to see him theodore roosevelt. but disability wig t.r. and his love of the navy and wrote a volume on the war of 1812. ross perot's devotion to the navy as a naval academy graduate. you cannot go to the naval academy and not in my or theodore roosevelt in the navy. also, as i mentioned, the cowboys signed fdr. but when you are getting with the bull moose party platform versus ross perot in 92, there is many differences and many decades apart. it's the boy scouts part. you mentioned ross perot's eagle scout. theodore roosevelt is the original champing at the boy scout. it's harkening back to that kind of view of america. but in politics, great differences and i would not compare him in the way you are suggesting to winston churchill or t.r. or anybody.

it was just sort of the people he admired and collects books on and likes to read about. they have inspired him in the same way henry ford and thomas edison were people that inspired him in business. >> and in taylor's ville, illinois. ed, are you there? >> yes. i voted in perot in 92 and i believe that's how clinton got elected. bush did not seem like he got -- like he cared if he got elected or not. >> thanks very much. do you think ross perot is responsible for the election of bill clinton, carolyn barta? >> i do. similar to teddy roosevelt, he split the republican vote and,

in that way, roosevelt deny taft a second term. perot split the conservative vote and denied bush a second term. but he did another thing by getting in the race and beating up on bush all along the way. he kind of softened him up for clinton to come in and make the kill. so i think it was sort of a two tiered effect there. i'm not sure how the campaign would've played out without him. part of his impact being in the race was that clinton was elected. >> next call is from rick in memphis, tennessee. hi, you are on the air. >> glad to be here, folks. i'm going to assert that ross perot, last time he ran, was exactly what the united states needed. and now, there is no question, he's more of what the united

states needs. i'd like to ask, i'm not too well up on what is going on, why is he not in the 2012 race? and also, why in the world are neither the republican or the democrat candidates making a run in ross perot's image? i don't see how anybody running like that could help but win? >> carolyn barta, why have we not heard from mr. ross perot is cycle? >> i think his time is past him. i think he got all of it that he wanted. he was sort of a reluctant candidate in 96. a i just think he's not interested in getting back in the fray. ross perot, 81 by our calculations, one 1930. >> does ross perot have any opinion on fellow reform party member jesse ventura?

>> i don't know his opinion of him personally, but he did not get behind jesse ventura, who was a little surprising because venus -- ventura being a navy seal, and of course, a reform governor of minnesota. but ross perot did not get behind him in his efforts very much. so there is a bit of a schism there. i against dress for people, this notion of being an irritant. he was always trying to make us pay attention to issues. i know when you talk about running, you talk about winning the white house. if you want to become president, he would not have picked stockdale if that was his whole attention. it was to remind people of duty, honor, country, old style american values and to grapple with that did issue, which she,

as a business person, he found repulsive. a bad road for america to take. we referenced several times that ross perot won 19% of the popular vote with no electoral votes. let's take a look at how the incumbent -- president and the victor did in the final tally. as we look at it, we are going to listen to judy in utah. you are on, judy. >> the one guy that got us all interested in politics back then. got us with the nafta agreement. we used to go with his meetings. we tour that nafta agreement apart and take a chapter home and read it, come back and discuss it. boy, people ought to read that sunday and see the fiasco they did on us. what i was wondering is, can you see anybody around at all in the future that would be anybody like him? thank you. >> thanks very much. we have a question for us.

is there anyone in the wings? >> i think they have to come out of the military today. i mean, we used -- to be president, you needed a military correct -- background in the day. maybe in admiral or general someday will come in someday and run a third party. but i don't see anybody other who's ready to put skin in the game right now that is taking seriously. it's hard to get into the debates the way the system is set up today. but america always produces unusual people at key moments. i'm sure there will be, sometime in the future, a serious third party candidate. americans seem to have a flirtation with businesspeople as presidents. for example, ross perot. there was some talk about herman cain earlier this year. also, mayor bloomberg was mentioned as a businessman who might solve americas economic

issues. we get so far as an electorate with them and then not all the way to the finish line. can you talk a little bit about the kinds of people america like as leaders? >> that's a good point. we like the idea of someone who's not part of washington. someone who's going to do what's right for the country and not be beholden to the democratic party or the republican party. and we like that people either from the military or corporate people would know how to run the government. and yet, once you have to start going on all the key tv shows and traveling and every aspect of your life gets investigated, i don't know how many people that want to run anymore. it has become pretty brutal. you basically have to run for two or three years nonstop. president obama, and i'm sure republican romney or gingrich or whoever it might be, have to raise about a billion dollars. it's very off putting in

america. i think we really need to investigate how we can shorten this nonstop running because the president has very little time. they get elected and then were running another election in this country all the time. i do not see what's helping us. >> that color mentioned ross perot's involvement in nafta, the north american free trade agreement, which was a hallmark of the clinton administration. ross perot got very involved in the debate about that after his unsuccessful bid for the white house. our next clip is a very well watched debate he had about nafta with then vice president al gore, again, on the larry king live program on cnn. let's watch. >> i did not interrupt you. >> okay, guys. ... >> we have to got a climate in this country where we can create jobs in the good old usa. there's one thing that the president should do for us and they're not. >> excuse me, i would like to say something about that because that's a direct

political threat against anybody who votes for this. >> colin powell? >> he's a great soldier, doesn't know anything about business. >> i don't want to sit here and listen to you just take shots at president clinton. >> if we keep shipping our manufacturing jobs across the border and around the world and the industrializing our country, we will not be able to defend this great country and that is a risk we will never take. >> he started off as head of united we stand. i'm afraid he's going to be head of divided we fall. everything that he is worried about will get worse if nafta is defeated. this is a historic apart -- opportunity to do that. >> thank you both for this historic evening. >> carolyn barta, the body language in that clip from liking live is very interesting to watch. look at some reporting and it's suggested that support for nafta before that debate was only about 34%. and after, i'm not sure directly related, but after it

went up to 57% among the american public. what was the view of how ross perot paired with this issue? >> a really can't say. i don't recall him losing the debate as decisively as you had said. i thought a lot of people agreed with his position of the giant sucking sound with the jobs going away. and in fact, i think he is proved to be prescient about that. that is what has happened. or >> next call is from larry in the florida keys. you're on, larry. >> hey, how are you doing? i appreciate the opportunity. i just wanted to ask, t.r. set up one of the first national refugees -- refuge in the florida keys protect birds that were being poached. did that ever come up in any of

the debates and that year? i'm old, but now that old. >> okay, thanks very much. do you recall that conservation issues really much at the forefront in 1992? >> no. when you hear about ross perot and the anti nafta, he's worried about environmental degradation happening in mexico. he is someone that wanted corporations regulated. as i mentioned earlier, the caller is talking about theodore roosevelt and florida and protecting bloodily can island -- pelican island. he then went into safe the tortoise and part of the area of a national refuge. theodore roosevelt was very much in bird protection and protecting wild florida. i would not put conservation in that way high on ross perot's list. but i put him on the side of being a conservationist. he was simply, by that climate

in 1992, to be pro epa in the way that he was, as you know in this election, many republicans don't like the epa. ross perot did. you did feel the companies needed to be regulated. in 1994, the gop had a historic retaking of the house of representatives. new to gingrich, who was a candidate for president this year-round, was looked upon as the architect of that. he became speaker of the house. he set the stage for a huge debate over the size of the debt leading to a government shutdown. it very much pitted the two men, president king clinton and new gingrich against one another. how responsible was ross perot's highlighting of the debate issue for those subsequent events? >> i think that's a good question. i think it was quite important. i think it started making people worry about the deficit. but again, remember, ross perot is talking about paying for it with a gasoline tax. you don't hear republicans

talking about that. but it became a big worry of people by the time of, you know, throughout the clinton era. and i might also add looking at that famous gore broke clip. remember, you have to became popular with both democrats and republicans. al gore and bill clinton were pro nafta, but also george herbert walker bush and republicans were very pro nafta. it was only labor unions who were opposed to it. here you have ross perot, probably more right center than left center, deeply opposed to it for the reason he said. i think the outsourcing of jobs, more than anything else, is what parole was focused on in the mid 90s. >> carolyn barta, in 1995, ross perot started to organize or became the reform party. can you tell us a little bit about that effort and how the reform party took shape?

>> well, the people who worked on the pro-campaign in 92 wanted to remain involved. and for a while, they were very active in shadowing the congressman and sending letters and so forth. so reform party then was organized to try to create a vehicle that would be a stable political influence. a third party. then there was in the convention of 1996, perot and dick lam, who had been ... perot remarks to lead to take it. that's probably a high point for the reform party. after that came jesse ventura.

he was elected governor of minnesota in 98, i believe, and then in 2000 pat buchanan was the nominee, the presidential nominee for the party. you was a firebrand conservative, but also a populist. but he certainly could not motivate the reform party people like perot did. and the party was sort of founded ... it initially was established with the same kind of priorities that perot had in his first campaign. reducing the deficit, term limits, some of these issues ... issues that ended up being in the contract for america. so i think there was definitely an impact and you saw the republican party co-op some of those issues. term limits was never passed,

but it was part of the contract. so i think with buchanan in 2000, the party was struggling to find its core. what was it all about? a lot of people thought that burrow, i mean not perot, buchanan did not really represent them. they did not represent their interests very well. i think what has happened since then, the party really sort of has fizzled. there are a few state of elites that are trying to be active, maybe half a dozen or so, but their presidential candidate got a handful of votes last time around. so i think just shows us that it's really very hard. i thought it was going to be a

stable political influence. that, once established, that it would be a challenging party in years to come. but that has not happened. it certainly has just fizzled. and actually, i think it's sort of reemerged in the tape party movement. so i think maybe these movements have just short term life. >> let's go to galveston texas. joe is wearing us they're -- watching us there. hello. >> well, first of all i would like to really thank c-span because every now and then people call in and say you are on one side or the other. but by and large, i think you are probably the most unbiased media outlet and the greatest asset to being able to understand what is going on in our political situation that we have. and i really appreciate having

so many people on both sides. i think it's a wonderful thing to watch. also, asking all of these questions. >> thanks for your kind words. do you have a comment about mr. perot? >> i do. first of all, i'm from texas, so we've got really involved when ross perot was running. he said so many things that made so much sense. a lot of people got behind him. and first of all, i don't think that the balanced budget would have happened had not ross perot pin-up they're having all those charts and graphs to educate people. but i would like david brinkley's comment on that. one more comment, and that would be when they talk about teddy roosevelt. teddy roosevelt is one that broke up staten island in new jersey and i can't imagine ross perot being someone that would condone breaking up ... teddy

roosevelt was in a league of his own, but i would like david brinkley's comment on that. >> it's doug brinkley who is our guest tonight, it probably happens to you pretty frequently. >> it does. >> but teddy roosevelt seems to have struck a chord. >> he's in the air now. president obama just gave the anniversary cancer this talk about the new nationalism. a couple of things i would like to mention. i've been reflecting on what we've been talking about here. one thing to keep in mind with ross perot in 92 is and that you had the soviet union collapse. the cold war ended in 91 when perot is entering in 92. there was a lot of jubilation in that. we have been fighting the cold war from harry truman on down. taxpayers had built up this huge deficit to win the cold war. the fact that perot was being the sort of irritant in the nineties worrying about the deficit, you know, everyone was running deficits up around the

world. he seems a little more erratic. today, we hear these bites and he seems prescient on a lot of things. but he was sort of a fly in the ointment in 92 and 93 when america had the buzzword of globalization. also, political correctness became a great term. he was not keen on globalization. he was about america first. he was kind of a curmudgeon in many ways. i'm not sure we could've even done this kind of retrospect on mr. perot like we're doing tonight perhaps even a decade ago. he may have seemed a little more as a quirky off beat character. but there are those sides to him in his biography. but his central premise in the points you raised really resonate with people right now. and again, with theater roosevelt, the point is only one and that's about service to country. that is what t.r. was all

about. you don't lie, you tell the truth, to stay loyal to your friends and your service to the country. that's in the american grain. it is americanism. that is what spoke to ross perot. not every issue that you are took and all this, what it was the character of the man. >> in 1996, the economy was getting pretty robust. the tech bubble was part of our economic fabric. bill clinton was the incumbent president seeking reelection. the republicans had nominated longtime senator from kansas and senate leader, bob dole. our guests had the big difference was that ross perot was not permitted to take part in the debates. on the screen right now are the results on election night 1996, with president clinton achieving 49% of the votes and 379 electoral college votes. bob dole with 159 electoral college votes, which is 39% of the vote. ross perot with zero electoral

college votes in a different showing than his earlier showing with just over 8% of the popular vote in the 1996 elections. our next clip is ross perot on election night 1996 talking about the future of the reform party. >> we are going to keep the pressure on on the major issues. i think they've gotten the word on campaign finance reform, don't you? they've repent did and been reborn. my dream is they will go to heaven because they do what they say they will do. right? and it's done. it's done. but that's got to stop. we have got to get that and we have got to get campaign reform in terms of time for campaign and all of that done. we must set the highest ethical and moral standards for the people we serve in our government and all that has got to be changed from rules to laws in the next four years. we are going to

have to stand at the gate and keep the pressure on and we will. [applause] we will not let our children and grandchildren pay in 82% tax rate which our core -- government forecasts they will. we have got to have a balanced budget amendment. we have to have a plan to balance the budget. and all the things that you have fought so hard and so long for. and we need to stand at the gate to make sure that happens if we want to pass on a better, stronger country to our children. we will make the 21st century the best in our country's history, but you and i have to stay on watch. we have to keep the pressure on. and as i've said 1000 times to both parties when they say, what does it make to make -- what is it take to make all of you people go away? and that is do all of this and then we don't have anything to

talk about, right? it's done. thank you. you've worked night and day. you've done a tremendous job. take a little break and then we will climb back in the ring and keep the pressure on to see that everybody keeps those promises. right? ross perot on election night, 1996. he talked about the need for the people to put pressure on. without a galvanizing figure, you pointed out to us the truth is that now our national debt, his three times what it was when ross perot was talking about it in 1992. what happened to the spirit and the energy of the people, in the middle who were the reform party members. >> i think they are out there, they are called swing voters right now. any of them are independents. we have a lot of people who are independent, and many people don't want to be associated with the democratic or republican party. at the outset of the program,

you mentioned occupation wall street. people on the left and on the right, and it's about grassroots people getting engaged and getting involved in making themselves heard. it is not a group of money people, kind of running our democracy. there is a spirit to ross perot, i've never been convinced he was did serious about winning the white house in 92 or in 1996. i think what he was trying to do, you know many of these contenders have tried to do, you know they just wanted to stir things up and to get people to talk about the issues and he succeeded in that regard, and he did not have to win the white house to make a difference, it's about getting into the arena and he got beat up some, but he picked himself back up and today he is probably the first citizen of dallas with his business interests integrated into just recently he was a few years back he actually sold the -- for a fortune.

and his business innovations you know if you can't be in dallas without being touched by his philanthropy and you can be a veteran of american warts and not have a debt to ross perot. he is made a difference and that's why he was sent the walking stick, of been latin by our naval seals. >> robert here is your next next call robert. iran. >> thank you for c-span, i remember the 1992 election will, and ross perot he was a viable candidate, and he was he seemed to speak common sense, he was a patriot he went to the naval academy, but tell me if i'm wrong, but he was unelectable because he was mccarrick oak, he you know he benefited from government contracts, he's like james stockdale, for vice president, but that debate was a gunfight in his now his

candidate was not prepared for that. he dropped out of the race, claiming dirty tricks by the republicans, and then he reentered the race but previously he head opposed -- for the war memorial. and you think he wasn't a candidate wasn't really trying to win, but i don't think he could've won. what do you think? >> i agree with that, i'm not sure it was possible to win in 1992, or 1996 against bill clinton and the democrats, and the incumbent president, had just won the gulf war, and saw the breakup of the soviet union, and the reunification you know in many other any other policy issues, but he was you know somebody tried to raise the consciousness several level, on the issues he thought was important for the country, and the reason why he is important to history, is the issues that he raised in 1992, are still with us today.

but just in a vague lower fashion than they were in 1992. some of these people you can look at policies, you know that people said later happened in the new deal, and some things that were reflected in the eisenhower era, but it's always a reminder that we have a third party option, that maybe sometimes that these other parties get to arrogant there will be some voice from the heartland of america that comes up and strikes a different cord and i worry, that the debates make it hard for a third party candidate to get into that, so perot might be one of the last, you know to pull something like that off. >> they mentioned ross perot in the summer of 1990, to ross perot had hired -- rollins to be involved in his campaign. so ed rollins, who continued in

his political work, and is still active today, he talked a bit about the perot candidacy. and we have a clip of that right now. >> the bottom line, was not that perot was difficult to deal with, is that he never wanted to run that kind of a campaign. he wanted to do what he did, and run the last 30 days, and i think you know that's only thought he had to do, any thought why should i waste on my money early, it really doesn't matter to the end, and he never understood getting defined in a negative way during the summer. obviously, the guy has a lot of paranoia, and they always say about paranoia you only have to be right once to make it all worthwhile. but the bottom line, is that he did not understand the political system, and had a disdain for it. that made it more more difficult, and we were trying to argue what you had to do, and how you dealt with the media, had you had to define

yourselves, and he saw that as traditional politics, and he was against traditional politics. in the end, he ran a short-lived traditional campaign in which he ended up getting very negative in the end. and one 90% of the vote. if he would have run a real campaign, there was a serious chance that this man, being a viable candidate for president, drawing an awful lot of support from both george bush and bill clinton. >> carolyn you heard l ed rollins assessment, anything that you agree or disagree with in his assessment. >> well yes, i think the perot was a viable can do that one point. i think that he was, as a color said before, he was quirky, he was mercurial, and that as

people got to know more about him that they were you know they question whether or not, he was suited to be in the white house and i'm not sure that perot thought he was suited to be in the white house. and perhaps the sentiment that has been expressed, that he did not want to be president and he wanted to stir up the american people. he wanted to be the nation's civic teacher. he wanted to make democracy work again for the people, so i think that he resisted traditional politics and in many ways for good reason. he thought that the way the political campaigns are run today, are really silly. flying around from place to place and trying to get a soundbite on network tv and a

plane and press following you around, and essentially you are in a bubble. listening to the same speech over and over again what are they going to learn? he thought the press should be talking to the people. one of the concerns of the people? how are the candidates addressing those concerns? so i think, i think the ed rollings wanted to run more of a traditional campaign, but perot did not want a traditional campaign. and for good reason in his mind, he thought traditional campaigns are out of date, and not working for the american people. i must say, i think that we have seen in the election campaign since then that the media had grown more and more and more dominant dominant. >> as caroline is talking, i'm thinking about perot isms, and all of his phrases and his gets catchphrases in the age of

twitter. >> yes that's true, and he would've been not been able to used twitter right there or maybe you would've, you want to get ideas out their words out there. now you talked about half our format, and going on laurie king, and larry king was free media, and keep in mind though, it's hard to create another ross perot he such a maverick he's is iconoclastic figure and a billionaire and he had the money to be able to do what he did but i think he would've enjoyed being president and, he would've served the people well. but i don't think his heart was in it in 1992 or 1996. it was really about getting the democracy, and the people back on track. at his core, he wanted, but

maybe he was a lobbyist, and washington is a town fill with lobbyists. >> he benefited benefit from the cultural culture, of his campaign. next is a bunch of clips from seven night live. so let's take a look. >> in addition because we feel it is important for you to hear his views, the candidate ross perot is with us. mr. perot do you feel that you have been blackballed by the major clinical parties. >> look it's like this, you know the candidates they're not addressing the issues. >> thank you mr. perot. >> we're gonna have a convention, larry this is not about me, it's about american people. plain and simple. >> ross what about this commercial, that aired last week. >> but for me i'm ross perot, i'm running for president, for

me please. would you vote for me please please please vote for me. >> >> this whole thing fascinates me really, see you have to be a ph.d. at harvard, to know that our kids are going to inherit a four trillion dollar deficit. that's just a crime. now if i am president, will start cleaning up this mess on day one. it will take some sacrificed no doubt about it, but i know the american people, you know and it's your country so take it back. >> clips from saturday night live, aired in 1992 in 1996.

and we have a ten minutes left in our discussion of ross perot. and his 1992 and 1996 bids for the white house. so tony will go to you now here on the air. >> i have. you >> great. thanks >> when ross perot, in the spring of 1992, when he was at about 32%, he had already been three books written about there was already three books written about ross perot before people even knew him. there was an autobiography, right now us by dallas news report, and there was door on leaven's book irreconcilable differences, ross perot versus general motors. after he had announced, and he was at 32%, i watch sam donaldson, on this week with david brinkley, and they made a

statement about ross perot, and the conversation on the roundtable, was basically disguise at 32%, do you think he can win? and donaldson made a statement, something to the effect of, what do we really know about this guy. he came out of nowhere. and at that point, three books were in print already, donaldson noted for being a big mouth covering the white house, making probably 500,000 dollars a year, to make a statement like that about ross perot, and not even read the book, you know and what do you think about them allowing, donaldson to make a statement like that, and not following it up. >> well doug there's a book as well by can grow, spawn perot, and that was a fine book. he was a new york journalist, and it's an excellent book on perot. i don't know the moment you are talking about, sam donaldson i thought was a great and exciting commentator. he certainly during the reagan

years, he was always seeking the questions to president reagan. they ended up becoming quite good friends. he's a journalistic legend, sam donaldson so i want to say anything negative about him, because i can't see the context of what you're talking about but, the spirit of it is i understand what you're saying, you're making good point. sometimes the washington media or news people, think nobody is accomplished if they are not part of a kind of, new york washington and boston axis, and here's ross perot who is really a legend, especially at the time in texas, and everybody knew a lot about him, because he worked on education, and education reform, and most well-known person in the state of texas. it seems to be that donaldson, you know if the spirit of it in what you're saying, maybe he just grew up. >> so caroline, from 1996 on after he lost the second time, how visible and involved was he.

did he exit from the national stage or did he stay involved? >> pretty much exited i think, he was not particularly involved in issues or in the reform party after that i think that 1992 was really quite a unique time because of the the sense of, alienation that people had with government and dissatisfaction with government and economic problems and then in 1996, as you said earlier when things started to come back the same political climate did not exist anymore. so he wanted the people to stay active, and get involved but the climate didn't exist for the kind of perot phenomenon, to happen as it did in 1992. i think that was sort of his

swan song. he got out after. that >> sacramento, hello to jason here on. >> yes, i just want to add you know how do you feel, in the 2013 election, currently if he was on the same wavelength as he was on in 1992, and another question i believe we said it was 90% of the vote, and i recall being in the millions of you get the number but i know it wasn't too far behind for a third party and so my question is how is it possible that he didn't win one electoral vote. i know how the electoral process works, but i find amazing that not one vote, not one state he had the majority, and not even a small state. and it amazes me the numbers that he had. and it was shocking in 1992 when i voted for him, and it was shocking to look at the numbers again now.

>> so jason your first question, about the 2012 election, so mr. perot is in his early eighties, are you interested in bringing him back into the process this point. >> thank you a course not now, but if it were 20 years later, you know if he was the same as in 1992, how would he do now? i think would be a landslide. >> i think if you could take ross perot and drop into our current timeframe how would he do? >> well he came in second in 1990, two in utah and maine, he did not win a state, but it tells you where his support was. it's hard for a third party candidate, to track against the democratic party, and at any given time when you have half of congress, and half of the congress didn't have the senate on your time, and the surrogates you know it was really a two party system. i once in a while a third party comes in there, and it's a slap in the face to the other two parties but you know it's a question that we can answer,

that historians can debate but you will never have a definitive answer as to who did perot help and hurt in 1992. if he had not run, could george bush have beat bill clinton. so some people suggest, his support team for liberals and conservatives, it was awash in the way that 19% wasn't that relevant and he was so central oriented in so many ways, and radically-centric, but he took from both right and left and we can't clearly answer that question but most people would say that he hurt george herbert walker bush, and he was you know it hurt bush we think a lot, but bill clinton was actually helped by parole in 1992. >> some analysis of the numbers, at supporters ingest that 70% of the pro voters, had voted

for george bush in 1998 sorry 1988 sorry skews me. we have a couple minutes left, to the second color and to your second question, it's about our last one for the evening. so this is one from ross perot's infomercials, that he did for the 1992 election. so the 31st one he did in 1992, and he looks ahead to the work to the year 2020. >> let's look at the growth of federal spending see if there is a growth. here we go to 1950, it's obviously a trend here. we're going up to 25% of our gross national product. that is excessive. hold on to your hat, if you and i don't take action now, as owners of this country. the forecast shows, by the year 2020, federal spending will be 41% of the gross national product. we can't take 25%, we certainly

can't take 41%. this is kind of like having willie sutton in charge of the banks. he was the famous bank robber, and asked why don't you why do you rob banks, e-cigarettes money in this. here he said why do you rob banks he said that's where the money is. >> you know when clinton became president in 1993, nobody emailed but by the time he left office there was like a billion emails going around the world. but at the end, ross perot made a difference. he reminded people, of old-fashioned american values. he reinvigorated the notion, of the third party candidate can get into the mix. ralph nader made a difference, in 2000 so he's is a legend and a third party movement, and i think a person who was rightly

part of the contenders. >> last 32nd, so did ross perot make a difference carolyn? >> oh absolutely, i think he was a wake up call. he put issues on the agenda, and the deficit ended up being a surplus, and the budget was balanced during the clinton years. so now maybe, the tea party people think that we need another wake up call. but he definitely had an impact. >> as we close out our contender series, a special thank you first to mark focus, who is the executive producer of this series, and a guiding light for all of these programs. and who richard and to richard norton smith, who has been our consultant in this project. i was the brain child behind it we first got started. thank you for all your hard work. we close our ross perot contenders program, with a look at his theme song, and this is an election night 1992. as he is greeting his

supporters. >> just having said that, you have to play our campaign theme song crazy. okay. here we go. ♪ ♪