HIS WAY OR NO WAY

THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURES OF MR. ROSS PEROT AND HIS CURIOUS QUEST TO BE BOSS

IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II, CHAPTER 1. IN WHICH OUR SOMETIMES ERRATIC HERO PLANS A CONVENTION AT WHICH HE WILL BE ANOINTED LEADER OF THE PARTY WHICH HE HIMSELF PAID TO BE FORMED.

It is an observation widely acknowledged that a billionaire knows the price of everything but not always its value. The judicious reader will doubtless recall from Volume I Mr. Ross Perot's 1992 pursuit of the nation's highest office, when he precipitately and mystifyingly withdrew, before once again re-entering in October and garnering 19% of the vote. Volume II begins as our protagonist, after spending months of coy obfuscation and many millions creating his perhaps inaptly named Reform Party, declares his intentions forthrightly to his amiable megaphone, Mr. Larry King, but not before luring one hapless Coloradan by the name of Richard Lamm into the race so as to assure voters that Mr. Perot himself was not averse to competition.

Ross Perot's political maneuverings have enough ups and downs for a comic 18th century novel, but his quest for office this time around seems as serious and cold-blooded as a corporate takeover. Pundits and others have wondered whether Perot learned any lessons from 1992. He did, but not the lessons his would-be handlers might like to hear. Perot's private campaign slogan this time could be "My Way or No Way."

His way, on the face of it, seems both simple and extravagant: spend more than $60 million on two autumn months of straightforward, just-the-facts-ma'am television advertising. Perot has always wondered why American campaigns can't be as short (and sweet) as European ones. Now he will get his chance to see if they can.

The Reform Party Convention, scheduled to begin this Sunday in Long Beach, California (one day before the Republican get-together down the freeway in San Diego), will not be so much a convocation as a coronation. It's likely to be as lively as an Electronic Data Systems sales conference. Forget the balloons and funny hats. Backers of Dick Lamm fear that even placards and signs might be banned. The party's national coordinator, Russell Verney, says the convention will play host to only about 1,500 valid Reform Party delegates and is not for hoopla but for decision making. "The enthusiastic part," he says, will be a week later in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where the winner of the party's nomination will be formally declared.

Even within the Reform Party, excitement seems to be at a minimum. For the party's nomination referendum, a total of 880,298 ballots were received by signers of Reform Party petitions. Only 4.9% of them responded, with Perot garnering two-thirds of their votes and Lamm getting 28%. In the arcane process Perot has designed, anyone getting more than 10% of the votes was deemed eligible to contest the party's nomination for President. Round 2, in which voters will be able to cast mail, phone or E-mail ballots for one of the two candidates, has already begun. Perot only reluctantly agreed to publicize the details of Round 1, and the Lamm folks implied that he was conducting the electoral equivalent of a three-card-monte game.