Three-Ring Political Circus

Perot's return -- and the specter of trilateral debates -- jolts a race that was looking like a Clinton blowout. But will the final results change?

YOU KNEW SOMETHING HAD TO give when George Bush started arguing with a 6- ft.chicken. For nearly a month, the President's men had been stiff-arming the dates and format proposed by a bipartisan debate commission and endorsed by Bill Clinton. The challenger was scoring political points by declaring that his opponent was afraid to face him man-to-man. Bush's charges of tax-and- spend liberalism, like his aggressive attacks on Clinton's draft record, were unable to dent the Democrat's double-digit lead in the polls. But when the Clinton forces began infiltrating Bush rallies with workers dressed in yellow-feathered chicken costumes and armed with...

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