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Hand Grenade with a Bad Haircut: Ross Perot Dead at 89
H. Ross Perot, the man who could have been America’s first Independent President, died today at age 89. When he ran in 1992 against the incumbent George H.W. Bush and the Democratic Party nominee Bill Clinton he received 19% of the popular vote, the highest since Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose bid in 1912.
An Annapolis graduate, he was a pioneer in computer data systems, twice building companies and twice selling them to make his fortune. And he was generous with his money while being appalled at the government’s generosity with the money of taxpayers. A special cause of his was the medical care of veterans. He personally funded the research of Dr. Robert Haley at UT Southwestern that showed that many vets of the first Gulf War did, indeed, suffer from a chemical-induced toxin syndrome.
He will be remembered for his first presidential run which he announced on Larry King’s talk show on CNN. Talking about the nation’s problems in a folksy manner, particularly the deficit and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he promised to run if supporters would self-mobilize and get his name on the ballot in all 50 states, which they did.
By June he was leading in the polls with 39%. (Bush was at 31% and Clinton at 25%.) Then he abruptly quit, claiming that Bush’s dirty tricks operatives were trying to disrupt his daughter’s wedding. He returned in October but it damaged his chances greatly. He would win no electoral votes and the best showing he had was 2nd place in Maine.
His lasting legacy from that race is adding the phrase “giant sucking sound” to the political lexicon. In the second presidential debate with Bush and Clinton, he was the only candidate opposed to NAFTA.
“We have got to stop sending jobs overseas,” he warned. “It’s pretty simple: If you’re paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, … have no health care—that’s the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
“… when [Mexico’s] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it’s leveled again. But in the meantime, you’ve wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.”
If he had won that race, many of President Trump’s problems may have paled in comparison. He would have been completely alone with absolute zero of the party support structure that presidents of all stripes lean on. He would probably have leaned heavily on his business organization which would have opened him up to even more criticism.
During that race in 1992, Rush Limbaugh tagged him with the nickname of “A Hand Grenade with a Bad Haircut” and loved to regale his audience with tales of Perot’s eccentricities. One particular favorite surrounded the true story of Perot buying his childhood home in Texarkana. He was disappointed that a subsequent owner had painted the bricks white and that an attempt to sandblast the paint off was ineffective because of the porous nature of the material. He then paid to have every brick chiseled out of the walls, turned paint-side in and re-cemented in place.
Among his other eccentricities, he literally buried his father. When Ross was in the Navy his father suffered a heart attack and Perot was given leave to go home. When the elder Perot passed, Ross picked up a shovel and went down to the cemetery and dug the plot out himself and filled it in after the funeral service. He explained years later to The New York Times, “I buried him myself ’cause that’s the last thing I could do for him.”
He was an American character. Ferociously patriotic, he believed in the America of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. And he lived it out to the fullest.
Published in Politics
Congress was never going to convict Clinton so it was stupid. However, Congress would have censured Clinton with some degree of bipartisan support, leaving a weakened Clinton to deal with Congress. Instead by pursuing impeachment the GOP reenergized the left wing of the D’s (who had not been enthusiastic about Bill, particularly since ’94 ) and ended the discussions between Clinton and Gingrich about social security and medicare reform.
Also remember that after ’94 Hillary was banished to the kitchen to make cookies and take ridiculous trips to foreign lands – she wasn’t allowed to touch policy. She polled terribly. It was impeachment that resurrected her and led to her being a viable political candidate – all because she cleverly played Tammy Wynette.
I liked him – that big sucking sound of jobs heading way south stuck in my head all these years – even when I was a long suffering liberal Democrat back then. Our business partner stood on a street corner in Medfield, MA holding a Perot for president sign – I liked his ears.
I would prefer successful Mexican and Canadian economies to all the illegal immigrants coming here. The Canadians are stealing all the NHL and curling jobs.
Seriously, a functional Mexican economy would be better than e-verify and the wall at preventing illegal aliens entering our country. Although it would be nice to have all three.
3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division suffered two KIAs and numerous WIAs during the First Gulf War at Jalibah airfield.*
Two troops from C/3-15 Infantry lost their legs due to traumatic explosive amputation. Oh, and it was friendly fire, so that was awesome (same for our KIAs; friendly fire).
Our two amputees were flown from Ft. Gordon, GA, to various civilian facilities to get the very best, top shelf care of wounds and provision of prosthetics. All courtesy of a hand grenade with a bad hair cut. This was all 91/92, and Brother Perot never even breathed a whisper of a fraction of a word that he was personally paying for troops to get top shelf care during a political campaign. That’s a mensch, right there.
Godspeed, Mr. Perot.
*If you hit that Wiki link, the last paragraph about Jalibah is insanely wrong. But as @ejhill admonished, don’t want to ‘jack an obituary. ‘Nother time.
Don’t forget the singers and actors and news readers.
And in other news today, the Rio Grande was renamed la Gran Mar.
Me too. Joined in 1988 and although GM had chased him out by then his legacy was still firmly in place.
I went through the whole Systems Engineer Development (SED) Program and did my Phase II in Plano.
My future wife was in the Accounting/Finance program and she too had to take the same technical training.
I needed to know COBOL/CICS, she didn’t. But Ross made sure you wanted to be there and had to demonstrate it.
Talk about character building experiences.
I had mine in Southfield, Michigan.
One of the Chevrolet Dealer Accounting Systems people referred to Phase II as “Phasers on stun.”
My wife did AFD Phase II in Southfield too. Her phase I took her to Opel in Mainz and Troy. They really cared about your professional development.
10 weeks of fun! I was the only GM account guy (Delco Systems Operations, Santa Barbara) amongst a ton of Blue Cross/Blue Shield folks in Plano.
It was a good ride at EDS until “Mr. Action, Urgency, Excellence” showed up.
Well, at least he gave the world that cat herding commercial.
I dragged some friends out to Stanford to see The Capitol Steps back in 1993. They had a hilarious sketch where one of their members, Dave Gencarelli, IIRC, did a parody of Perot debating the other candidates. I remember that more than I remember Perot himself.
Used to have a tradition of seeing The Capitol Steps every Independence Day with my cousin. It was fun.
I have seven or eight of their CDs and an autographed book. They were good at what they did. I was surprised to see they are still working and still have a website.
Oh, yes. Recycling some old favorites, and making some new parodies. Last I saw, I think “Stayin’ Alive” was now sung with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I remember some other Supreme Court Justices, Boris Yeltsin, and some others long ago.
It brings back a memory for me of that election. I was in 6th grade and did a project with a partner having to do with the candidates, which we were to present before the class, something I hated doing. This kid drew Perot, and the picture with his ears etc. looked so funny to me that I just kept laughing during the presentation, which I was doing the talking for. The other boy didn’t seem to think anything was funny.
R.I.P
The one great contribution that Perot made was the focus on the National Debt which was $4.065 trillion in 1992 and was 62% of our GDP.
The National Debt is now $24.057 trillion which is 106% of our GDP. This is the highest since 1946 which spiked at 119% of GDP, immediately after the Second World War.
https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
We need a Perot now to address the National Debt, and I don’t see anyone on the horizon.
If that contribution was so “great”, why hasn’t the debt gone down year-to-year, even once, in all the years since?
(The budget was never balanced in the 90s, although one year came close. There hasn’t been a net year-to-year reduction in the national debt since Eisenhower was President. You can look it up.)
Rick Perry on Ross:
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/07/12/rick-perry-now-ross-perot-gone-can-tell-story?mod=article_inline