From: barrett@cc.gatech.edu (James Barrett)
Subject: PEROT: Today show text - 10/5
Reply-To: barrett@cc.gatech.edu (James Barrett)
Organization: Georgia Tech College of Computing
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 20:18:54 GMT

             Perot: I've Been Working on Strategy
    The following is the text of an interview by
Ross Perot on NBC's Today show Monday, Oct 5, 1992.
    BRYANT GUMBEL: On Close Up this morning, Ross Perot. After
 dancing around the edges of the fray for the last 6 or
 7 months, he's now an officially declared presidential
 candidate. And this morning, he's in our NBC news bureau in
 Dallas. 
    Mr. Perot, good morning.
    ROSS PEROT: How are you, Bryant?
    GUMBEL: I'm fine, thank you sir, how are you?
    PEROT: I'm fine. Where's Willard? I understand he has a
 week off.
    GUMBEL: I figured he was down there working maybe as
 one of your volunteers.
    PEROT: No, I'll be glad when I can afford to take a week
 off. Hope Willard has fun.
    GUMBEL: I figured as much. Where the rubber meets the 
 road, all that other stuff. Let's get that out of the way
 right up front.
    Look, reports are you spent the weekend working on your
 advertising and campaign strategies. What can you tell us
 about what you came up with?
    PEROT: Well, that's not how I spent my weekend. But I
 certainly have been working on it. We will not discuss our
 strategy, you wouldn't really expect us to. I would expect
 you to ask me.
    But we're hard at work. Our first program will run 
 tomorrow night just before the baseball game. I have a
 30-minute program on jobs and the economy. And it will be
 very specific in terms of diagnosing the problem. Then we'll
 have a whole series of programs on the solution to the
 problem.
    I think the American people will find it very
 interesting.
    GUMBEL: You're making a distinction between the
 programs and the paid ads, which I understand start tonight?
    PEROT: You all are getting a lot of bad information. 
    GUMBEL: Do you not have an advertisement tonight on
 Monday night football?
    PEROT: No, we will run an ad tonight on Monday night
 football. We will have a 30-minute program tomorrow night
 just before the game starts. And then we'll have another
 30-minute program Friday just before 20-20.
    You can't cover much in one minute. We need to get down
 in the trenches and really diagnose the problem, explain to
 the American people where we are, what we have to do. That's
 what we'll be trying to do.
    GUMBEL: The program that you have formed was
 characterized by one person in your organization as quote,
 vintage Perot.
    What's that mean?
    PEROT: I have no idea who said it, so I don't know.
    GUMBEL: You've said, Mr. Perot--
    PEROT: I put it together, that's probably what he means.
 I put it together personally.
    GUMBEL: You didn't have any outside help whatsoever? 
    PEROT: No, I wrote the script and drew the charts.
    GUMBEL: You have--
    PEROT: I've been doing business all my life. I don't need
 to go hire people to do that.
    GUMBEL: I understand. You have said your ads are only
 going to target the economy. If you're attacked by the
 others in the form of either speeches or paid media, will
 you respond with any of your ads?
    PEROT: I'm looking at some of the attack ads now. I find
 them unimpressive. The American people are sick of those
 things. The American people have real problems, real issues
 they'd like to have addressed. I'll do whatever I can to see
 that the campaign stays on the issues.
    We need to talk about solutions, not try to destroy
 another human being.
    GUMBEL: Do you yet have a handle on just how much you
 either plan or intend to spend?
    PEROT: I hope to get a budget here in a few days. I'm a
 businessman. I like to know that in advance. 
    Keep in mind, I--these boys are spending the taxpayers
 money, the Democrats and Republicans. I'm spending my money.
 So I do it a little more prudently.
    As we do this, I hope the American people will kind of
 get an understanding of who will watch out for their money
 the best. I'm very careful about money because I normally
 always am spending my money. In this campaign, I'm spending
 my money.
    GUMBEL: So you're going to put a cap on these ads?
    PEROT: No, not necessarily. But I will do it in a very
 orderly way. And if the people send me up there as their
 president, I will spend their money in a very careful,
 orderly way.
    GUMBEL: Aside from the ads, the paid media, some
 appearances like this, are you going to do any campaigning?
    PEROT: I will be very active. My whole nature is to stay
 close to the American people. And I will not reveal my
 strategy. But certainly I will be very active.
    For example, on talk shows, I would urge the candidates,
 talk to the American people. Particularly if you stay in the
 White House too long you get isolated. You can totally--no
 matter--the president's a good man. But if he's out of touch
 he doesn't know the concerns of the American people.
    They think they can get it through polls, Bryant, they
 can't. You got to get out there on the front lines and taste
 it.
    The only reason I've made whatever financial success I've
 had in life is I live with my people who do the work and I
 live with my customers and I listen, listen, listen to them.
    If you're in the White House you need to listen to the
 American people.
    GUMBEL: You mentioned polls. Sixty percent of those
 polls now say they feel you haven't the temperament or the
 personality to be an effective president.
    Can anything you say in any number of ads reverse that
 opinion?
    PEROT: I don't know, I'm not a campaign strategist. The 
 whole thing is, as you well know, what I am and what I am
 being portrayed as is 2 different things.
    If anybody will go to people who have worked with me for
 years they will find that I am not the personality that has
 been redefined by the Republican opposition research group
 over a period of months with the press holding hands with
 them every step of the way. Now I'm just stuck with that.
    I am who I am. And in terms of my ability to handle
 stress and what have you, there is a long, long record there
 in terms of the fact that I will do what has to be done, 
 stay the course, stand on principle, and there's a long list
 of things in my life that would have been easy to walk away
 from, from the drug programs to the education reform to the
 20-some odd years on the POW-MIAs when everybody else was
 saying we didn't leave anybody behind, and I knew we left
 them behind.
    And now they're saying gee, we left them behind. But
 there's nobody alive.
    You follow me? You can go through a whole series of
 unpleasant things probably the worst being the rescue of our 
 people from Iran. It would have been very easy to
 rationalize leaving them over there. We didn't do it.
    GUMBEL: Well, let me talk about those 2 things you just
 mentioned, walking away from problems and people you worked
 with.
    PEROT: Sure. Sure.
    GUMBEL: In fairness, we do have to believe a lot of the
 people you work with think very positively of you.
    PEROT: But we'd never print that, because that would be
 constructive. 
    GUMBEL: I just noted it.
    PEROT: I know, but wait a minute, we ought to build a
 monument to you, because it's the first time it ever came
 up.
    GUMBEL: I would doubt that too.
    But I would also add, there are a lot of people,
 Mr. Perot, who've worked on your behalf who say you're not
 presidential timbre. Ad man Hal Riney says you're like Jimmy
 Swaggart with a lot of tantrums. Ed Rollins, who said you
 offered him hush money not to discuss his work with you. And
 John White, who helped formulate your economic plan, who is
 probably going to come out for Bill Clinton today.
    PEROT: Well, can we take them one at a time?
    GUMBEL: Sure, go ahead.
    PEROT: Number one, I must have spent maybe a maximum of
 2 hours with Ed Rollins. I--it was not my idea to bring him
 in. He was there as an advisor to some of my associates. Had
 almost no contact with him.
    Anybody that has had contact with him understands his 
 strengths and weaknesses. I won't enumerate them here.
    I had 2 meetings, I believe, with Mr. Riney. They were
 both very pleasant, constructive, creative meetings. Now,
 everybody can have his 15 minutes of fame at my expense. So
 that's fine. I don't know what John White's plans are today.
 I do know that according to John, who has called me several
 times to apologize that the positions he is taking are
 completely misconstrued by the press.
    I'm not there when he takes them. All I know is he's a
 good man, he did a good job for me, and there we are. 
    Now, keep in mind, what you have picked is there people
 who have almost--have had limited contact with me at best.
 They were back at headquarters, I was out in the field with
 the people. Nobody will go back to the people who have
 worked shoulder to shoulder with me for years.
    Now those are the people who really know me. Love to find
 someone who spent an hour or 2 with me and say get, here's a
 world authority on Perot's life.
    GUMBEL: We noted the others up front. Let me talk to
 you about the other note that you just mentioned--walk away
 from. The latest Newsweek makes the case that your reentry
 into the race was planned long ago, that back in July you
 told some volunteers, quote, that if anyone thinks I have
 quit, they're in for an October surprise.
    PEROT: Well, number one, you--make sure your viewers know
 it came from.
    Number 2, I think Newsweek's bias is pretty well
 established at this point.
    Number 3, the whole story is filled with errors. For 
 example, they claim that the book was not a best seller
 because I bought 100,000 copies.
    It's my understanding now they've sold over 800,000
 copies. But the important thing, and I would think anybody
 at Newsweek knows this, is that any books you buy directly
 from a publisher don't get counted. It's only the books that
 go through a distributor.
    So the books I bought to give to the volunteers across
 the country aren't counted. That's typical of the Newsweek
 article. Isn't it interesting that all we do is talk about 
 things like this rather than get down in the trenches about
 the problems that concern the American people, Bryant?
    GUMBEL: But, Mr.. Perot, and I mean, I'm being nit
 picking, I'm simply trying--
    PEROT: I was assured when I came on this morning we would
 talk about issues. All I can say to the American people is
 if you want to learn about the issues, if you want to
 understand how we put the country back to work, read this
 book, please, because they're not going to let me talk about
 it today. 
    GUMBEL: No, no, no, we'll talk about it. Mr. Perot, is
 not character a genuine campaign issue?
    PEROT: Yes. I put my character up against anybody's if
 anybody will ever take an honest look at it.
    Here, you go back through my life and I think you will
 find that I have spent a significant part of every day of my
 life helping other people.
    If anybody really cares, you will find out who I am.
    Bryant, you know the game you all play up there. You know
 the game that politicians play, particular the Republicans.
 And that is if somebody shows up that's just a good, decent,
 hard-working man with the finest family in the world, step
 one is have to try to destroy him. I accept that.
    GUMBEL: I don't know that game, Mr. Perot.
    PEROT: You're right in the middle of it.
    GUMBEL: I don't know that game.
    PEROT: So for a guy in the middle of it, look around.
    GUMBEL: Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't
 know that game. 
    PEROT: I'm not saying you're part of it, I'm saying
 you're in the middle of it.
    The point is, that's the game that's played. If anybody
 will look, if what everything that was written and said
 about me, and a great deal has been written and said about
 me over the years, and then by May or June after the dirty
 tricks guys had done their work, suddenly I'm a whole new
 personality, that's just something you're stuck with.
    That's why the people that you'd really like to have in
 public life wouldn't touch it.
    GUMBEL: Okay, a final note then. If that is in fact
 what you are to use your words, stuck with, and 60 % of the
 people say they wouldn't vote for you under any
 circumstances, is it--
    PEROT: Well, wait just a minute, Bryant. Wait a minute.
    GUMBEL: Well, that's what the polls, say, Mr.. Perot. Is
 it realistic--
    PEROT: Did they say under any circumstances they wouldn't
 vote for me. 
    GUMBEL: The poll said under any circumstances.
    PEROT: Well, let's turn it around another way. Did you
 ask that same question on Bush and Clinton?
    GUMBEL: Their numbers were lower than yours.
    PEROT: Well, that's fine, I would expect them to be.
    GUMBEL: The only point--the only reason I ask it is--
 I'm saying is it realistic to think you can be any more than
 a spoiler at this point?
    PEROT: I cannot be a spoiler. There's no way I can be a
 spoiler. It was already spoiled when I started. We had a
 $4 trillion debt, we had a $400 billion deficit this year.
 We've got the most violent, crime-ridden society in the
 industrialized world. The worst public schools. We've got
 hundreds of thousands of people out of work. We've got 5 %
 of the world's population, 50 % of the world's cocaine use.
    I here as a clean up man. I'm just a guy showing up after
 the party with a shovel and a broom to try to clean it up. I
 didn't create the mess. And I'm willing to go through
 everything you have to go through in the campaign process 
 and all the distortions and things we've talked about this
 morning, because 5 and a half million people asked me to do
 it. And that's what we're trying to do.
    GUMBEL: All right, Mr. Perot, I'll do it right here on
 the air, if you can stay another 7 minutes or so we can talk
 about the economy when you come back.
    PEROT: Unfortunately I have got to go out to a meeting. I
 would like to. I thought that's what we'd be able to do. But
 I realize we got to have the little questions of the day,
 and that's the way the game is played. 
    GUMBEL: You got to put the foundation down before we
 can put up the 3d floor.
    PEROT: No, no, it's not the foundation.
    The foundation has been down. Bryant, there's a record on
 my life that I can stand on before this started. I am who I
 am, I am not who they are trying to repackage me to be.
    Taking people who have met me once or twice, taking their
 distortions and magnifying them, that's not what the
 American people want to hear about.
    Tomorrow night, if you have time, watch just before the
 baseball game for 30 minutes. We're going to be talking
 about the things that concern the American people.
    GUMBEL: Okay.
    PEROT: And I'm doing this for them, so we'll just be
 after it tomorrow night. Great to talk to you.
    GUMBEL: Take care.
    PEROT: Take care, yourself. Thank you.

------------------OS/2 v2.0 -- Why settle for anything less?--------------------
James C. Barrett (barrett@cc.gatech.edu)|"If your so damned smart, why are
Georgia Tech College of Computing       |  you doing what you're doing, and I'm
                                        |  president of the U.S.?" - G.Bush
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