Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993 TAG: 9303240259
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY GREG EDWARDS and DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PEROT PLANNING RALLY IN ROANOKE
Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate Ross Perot plans to bring his political tent show to Roanoke on Saturday.Perot has tentatively scheduled a rally for the Roanoke Civic Center at 5 p.m. Saturday. All that remained to be done Tuesday was the signing of a contract.
Roanoke Civic Center Manager Bob Chapman said Perot's United We Stand America organization had contacted him Monday about reserving the building for Saturday.
"This is kind of like the days of the Elvis Presley shows," Chapman reminisced. "They wouldn't tell you a damn thing and they'd put three holds on your building and then all of a sudden they'd show up with a contract and the tickets would already be printed."
Well, in this case, the press release is already printed.
Perot plans six rallies in a swing through South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia this weekend, beginning at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., at 7:30 Friday night.
Besides Roanoke, Perot will stop Saturday at High Point, N.C., at 10 a.m. and Fayetteville, N.C., at 1:30 p.m.
Two other Virginia stops are planned Sunday, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk at 1 p.m. and Ginter Hall at the Richmond Centre at 4 p.m., according to his organization's Dallas headquarters.
Perot will talk during the rallies about United We Stand America, which was formed to carry on the goals associated with his 1992 presidential campaign - fiscal responsibility and governmental reform.
Admission to the rallies is free. But Perot can be expected to urge those who are not already members of United We Stand to pay $15 and join up.
Tom Roberts of Blacksburg worked last fall on Perot's presidential bid. Roberts said Tuesday he was excited about the Texan's visit to Western Virginia.
Roberts said Perot was paying for every penny of the rallies from his own pocket, not from the United We Stand America treasury. Perot plans to leave it up to the members how the organization's money is used, Roberts said.
Sunday night, Perot went on television for 30 minutes to ask Americans to endorse his call for government ethics and budget reforms, including a balanced-budget amendment, a line-item budget veto and making lobbying for foreign interests a criminal offense.
Perot spent $700,000 on the show and the distribution of 30 million ballots, seeking public response to 17 questions.
Perot criticized Congress, saying it is dominated by special interests and deaf to the wishes of ordinary Americans.
Although Perot was critical of President Clinton for leaving too many details to work out later, he applauded Clinton for his proposals for government reform and the goals of Clinton's deficit reduction plan.
However, in a speech at the National Press Club last week, Perot was tougher on the president.
He told reporters that the administration's budget-cutting scheme was "another hot-air balloon going across the sky." He called Clinton's $16 billion stimulus package a trifling "political handout" lost in an economy measured in trillions of dollars.
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.