ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 25, 1996 TAG: 9610250088
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: From the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times
Ross Perot on Thursday dismissed Bob Dole's effort to persuade him to quit the presidential race as ``weird and totally inconsequential,'' fanning a heated debate about why Dole dispatched his campaign manager to seek Perot's endorsement.
Perot insisted in a question-and-answer session after a long-scheduled speech at the National Press Club that he would not turn on the Reform Party he established: ``Am I in this for the long haul? Yes. Do I intend to campaign to the bitter end? Yes.''
Aides said Dole had hoped his offer to Perot could stay secret and was furious that word of it leaked out - apparently from within Perot's organization as well as the Republican camp - to be splashed all over the headlines and the network news. Dole, on a campaign sweep of the South, and several of his advisers refused to publicly discuss it.
Dole did concede that even as the ``most optimistic man in America,'' he was frustrated and troubled by the course of the campaign. In Pensacola, Fla., he criticized the press and the voters.
He complained that Clinton had flip-flopped on issues, jeopardized the nation's defenses and prestige overseas and broken his pledge to cut taxes for the middle class, but many voters seemed prepared to entrust the White House to him for another four years. ``Now, we know the liberal media is not going to report on all these things, because they want him re-elected,'' he told an appreciative audience at Pensacola Junior College.
``I wonder sometimes what people are thinking about - or if people are thinking at all'' about President Clinton's flaws, Dole said.
``Wake up, America. You're about to do yourself an injustice if you vote for Bill Clinton,'' he said, asking if voters had ``really watched this administration, watched what's happened in the White House, watched what's happened in some of their policies, watched what's happened when the president tells one thing and does precisely the other - time after time after time.''
The failed mission by Scott Reed, Dole's campaign manager, gave the candidate's political foes, as well as some in his own party, further ammunition to portray his White House quest as verging on hopeless.
Even some of his senior aides said they were stunned Dole had sent an emissary to Perot, as the two have often collided over such issues as trade and tax cuts, and just weeks ago Dole worked to exclude Perot from the presidential debates.
One senior adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: ``I don't understand it. We gave Perot a forum for HIS anti-Clinton platform. It may be worth a few points for him.''
Perot could not stop smiling during Thursday as he coyly refused to discuss details of ``private conversations'' with Reed. ``I would just like to leave all of this in the hands of the Dole camp,'' he said, ``and they've said enough already, I think, to pretty well cover all the answers.''
Meanwhile, as if to accentuate Dole's difficulties, Clinton campaigned through the heart of Republican territory, shadowing Dole through Alabama - a state where voters usually have a better chance of seeing a snowstorm two weeks before Election Day than a visit from a Democratic presidential candidate. Until Thursday, in fact, Clinton as president had never set foot in Alabama.
Clinton and Dole have followed almost identical itineraries in recent days. But ``we have different objectives,'' noted Doug Sosnik, the White House political director. ``We are trying to move in as deep as we can into traditional Republican territory. They're coming in after us, trying to hold onto what they've had for a generation.''
Clinton said Thursday his differences with Dole don't involve labels or ``who's good or bad,'' but what's right and wrong for America.
``Even though our friends on the other side don't like to admit it, we are better off than we were four years ago,'' Clinton said in Birmingham.
Perot used his hour in the limelight to attack the two major parties for campaign finance abuses, denounce Clinton and criticize the GOP-led Congress.
He also warned that despite the optimistic news about the economy, America is heading for an economic ``meltdown'' because the government has failed to tackle the huge national debt, the Social Security system and foreign trade imbalances.
``Don't throw away your vote,'' Perot said. ``Vote for the only group that will make these changes.''
Perot received 19 percent of the vote in 1992, but national polls have shown him with only 5 percent to 7 percent of the vote this time, and his second bid for the White House had received diminishing media attention - until Thursday.
At a reception before his press club appearance, Perot marveled at all the interest in his meeting with Dole's envoy. ``The real issues are not news,'' he said, ``and something goofy is.''
He returned to that theme in response to questions during his appearance, saying he was often ignored when he talked about substantive issues ``but if something weird and totally inconsequential pops up like this thing yesterday, that is really big news, right?''
With less than two weeks until the election, Dole trails Clinton by between 15 and 25 percentage points in many national surveys.
His campaign attempted to put a positive spin on the overture to Perot. Communications director John Buckley, pointing to Perot's harsh criticism of Clinton on Thursday, said, ``If this is the message he is campaigning on for the last 10 days, it will certainly advance the cause of defeating Bill Clinton.''
``We are determined to find 270 electoral votes,'' Buckley said. ``Bob Dole reached out to all of his Republican opponents in the primary to get them to help him win the nomination. Reaching out to Perot fits precisely into that pattern.''
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Terming the Dole campaign's plea to him "totallyby CNBinconsequential," Ross Perot said he was in the presidential race
"to the bitter end." color.