The Lessons of Perot

Election '92 may have been God's way of telling Ross Perot he had too much money, but the diminutive Texan with the big ears and the bar charts did win a serious, double-digit share of the vote. The effort cost him more than $60 million -- enough to give even a billionaire pause -- and he failed to carry a single state. Yet along the way, Perot helped focus and energize the race, and provided lessons for future independent candidates, possibly including himself:

1. Money isn't everything. The fact that Perot's candidacy was almost entirely self-financed allowed him to claim he...