ROSS PEROT BASES HIS CRUSADE for the presidency on being an outsider, a political ingenue who wouldn't know a Gucci-shoed lobbyist if he tripped over one. This reformer would have the public believe he has nothing in common with the fools in Washington. He supports a ban on "these guys with their alligator shoes," who swarm over the halls of Congress trying to open loopholes large enough to drive their leased Jaguars through.
The problem is that Perot is one of these guys, albeit in wingtips with a military shine. He has backslapped and arm-twisted with the best of them, winning lucrative non-bid government contracts and appealing decisions he didn't like to higher, more malleable authorities, having loosened them up with huge gifts. Beneath Perot's white shirts and CEO bluster beats the heart of an insider who has been playing the game for 25 years.
Although he talks as if he needs a visa to go inside the Beltway, Perot has dined at the White House, sailed on the presidential yacht Sequoia and lobbied the Oval Office, the Cabinet and Capitol Hill. In 1975, for example, he pulled off a coup most lobbyists only dream about. Late one night as the House Ways and Means Committee tied up the loose ends in that year's tax bill, then Democratic Congressman Phil Landrum of Georgia introduced an amendment that might have been the largest one-time tax break in history, granting Perot an unheard-of capital-loss carry-back. Perot had contributed more than$27,000 to 12 members of the Ways and Means Committee. Ten of the recipients voted for the amendment, though it was later snuffed out in conference.
A partial explanation of Perot's success is his equal-opportunity giving. In 1972 he forked over $200,000 to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Meanwhile, two Perot executives channeled $100,000 to the presidential campaign of Arkansas Democrat Wilbur Mills, then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In 1974, according to Common Cause, Perot gave $90,000 each to the Republicans and Democrats. Although Perot has shown little regard for George Bush, he gave $8,000 to Bush-Quayle committees and $51,000 to the Republican Party between 1979 and 1991.
Perot has had access to Presidents since he first visited Lyndon Johnson at his Texas ranch. Perot was Ronald Reagan's kind of guy. Reagan appointed him to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Reagan thanked Perot for bankrolling three attempts to rescue American hostages in Lebanon. When he was Vice President, Bush arranged for Perot to have a private conversation with Reagan at Blair House to discuss American prisoners Perot believed were being held captive in Southeast Asia. Perot reported that the President had "personally asked me to stay on top of the issue." But when Reagan cooled on Perot's crusade, Perot reneged on an earlier promise of $2 million to the Reagan library.
Of all the Administrations Perot has embraced, he was closest to Richard Nixon's. He was on the phone to the Nixon White House several times a week in 1970 and 1971. Sometimes the subject was casual, such as imploring a White House staffer not to eat on the plane so he could dine with Perot and his wife. Other times it was serious, such as agreeing to the Administration's request that he shore up Wall Street by taking over a nearly bankrupt brokerage.