THIS TIME, PEROT WANTS A PARTY

By Dan Goodgame/Washington

THE FIRST PEOPLE TO LEARN THE hottest news in politics these days are Colin Powell and Wendy Walker Whitworth. The top producer for Larry King's prime-time chat show on CNN, Whitworth had just finished the cake and champagne at her mother's 80th birthday celebration in Chicago early last week when her ever present beeper began chirping. The message: Call Ross Perot.

The twangy Texas billionaire, who seasons his speech with references to crazy aunts and albino monkeys, always gives good TV. So he had a long-standing invitation to announce on Larry King Live whatever he might do in the 1996 campaign. He was phoning Whitworth to accept. Perot wanted to announce the formation of a whole new "Independence" political party in all 50 states to challenge what he derides as "those special-interest parties," the Democrats and Republicans. Whitworth booked him for the following evening.

Perot then called the Virginia home of Powell, who was resting from the rigors of signing 4,000 copies a day of his memoir and deciding whether to run for President. Powell listened and asked questions as Perot explained his new party and his desire that it nominate some candidate other than himself for President--say, Powell or retiring Senator Bill Bradley, the New Jersey Democrat. The new party "will build a war chest of $60 million at least," Perot subsequently explained to TIME, so its candidate "won't have to go out with a tambourine and beg the special interests for money." Powell was noncommittal on the phone, but months earlier he had mused to friends that an independent movement with Perot's money--but without Perot as candidate--might be appealing. Later, asked by reporters whether he would run in Perot's new party, Powell replied, "Obviously, it's something I would consider."

Perot seems to realize he will never be President; too many Americans distrust and dislike him after his paranoid and imperious performances, from his baseless charge during the 1992 campaign that the G.O.P. was trying to disrupt his daughter's wedding through the 1993 debate with Vice President Al Gore over trade. In a TIME/CNN poll conducted last week, 54% of those surveyed believe Perot's formation of the new party is "good for the country." A two-thirds majority, however, think Perot should not be that party's candidate for President.

Yet Perot is determined to retain influence in presidential politics, and his success could already be seen last week in the reactions of the presidential hopefuls. Most Republicans expressed anger that Perot might again, as in 1992, draw votes away from their nominee and thus help Bill Clinton. At the same time, though, candidates Lamar Alexander and Pat Buchanan--and President Clinton--tried to ape Perot's independent appeal by distancing themselves from the congressional "insiders" who dominate their respective parties.

Dismissive Republicans suggest that what motivates Perot is an "attention deficit" or "Powell envy." But if Perot were only embarking on another ego trip, his best vehicle would be another independent bid for the White House. By forming a third party, supporters say, Perot keeps himself a player but gives priority to the reforms he wants to leave as his legacy. His central message--that Washington remains in thrall to "checkbook lobbyists" who buy favored treatment through campaign contributions and gifts to lawmakers--resonates with most Americans at a time when leaders of both parties are dragging their feet on political-reform legislation. Recent polls indicate that 4 out of 5 voters believe special-interest influence in Washington has either increased or stayed the same since Republicans took charge of Congress last November.

Perot does have some natural allies on Capitol Hill, mostly among the G.O.P. freshmen. On the morning of his announcement, he phoned Linda Smith, a little-known Republican Representative elected last year from Washington State. Like Perot, Smith has made cleaning up the capital's money politics a top priority. She shares his frustration with a Republican leadership that, like the Democrats' before it, seems intent on cashing in on its control of Congress. Smith welcomes Perot's new party, as does Mark Sanford of South Carolina, another freshman Republican, who bluntly explains, "It gives us leverage with our party's leadership."

In her talk with Perot, however, Smith also voiced a parochial concern: "The first thing I asked was whether he was going to run candidates for Congress." Perot explained on TV that his party would nominate a candidate only for President. In congressional races the party would endorse whichever major-party candidate in each district hews closer to the Perot line, which in most districts will be the Republican.

That was a relief to Smith and her colleagues. So why did Newt Gingrich erupt in anger over Perot's plan? The Speaker says that "an independent party is an act of futility" that "helps re-elect Bill Clinton" and "takes energy away from serious reform." It could be that Perot's announcement had simply caught the Speaker at the end of a bad day. On the way back from a speech in Michigan, Gingrich's plane had sucked a Canada goose into one engine as it tried to lift off, forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff and skid past the end of the runway. Gingrich was unhurt but rattled.

On the other hand, Gingrich could be thinking less as a lawmaker than as a presidential hopeful, in which case the Perot effect cuts quite differently. Most election analysts believe Perot's independent candidacy in 1992 pulled more votes away from George Bush than from Bill Clinton. And last November voters who had supported Perot in 1992 chose Republican candidates for Congress in a ratio of 3 to 2.

President Clinton, while declining public comment, was privately elated at Perot's announcement. And he took pains to cultivate his own image as a free agent. "The Democrats in Congress can be more partisan and lead the party, but I have to think more about leading the country," the President told Time. "I have to make clear where I stand, but I can't let that get in the way of doing what's good for the country." Clinton's most formidable rival on the Republican side, Senate majority leader Robert Dole, referring to Perot's legislative agenda, grumped, "It seems he has a checklist, and if we don't get it all done in a week, he's going to run for President."

As for Buchanan, he just tried to outdo Perot at his own game, setting out again last week to champion some of the Texas billionaire's pet causes. Buchanan's top aides were relaxing in a hotel bar after a long day of campaigning in New Hampshire when someone began reading aloud the first wire story on Perot's new party, and the group started plotting how to respond. Buchanan, however, joined Perot's attack on lavish congressional pensions, an issue stirring fresh voter outrage since the disclosure that disgraced Senator Bob Packwood will receive $89,000 a year for life. Referring to his rival Dole, a 35-year veteran of Congress, Buchanan quipped, "They'll probably have to increase the federal debt limit when he retires."

Alexander, a former Governor of Tennessee, warned that if Republicans nominate another Washington "insider" like Dole or Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, protest votes will flow to the third-party candidate and deliver the White House to Clinton in "a rerun of 1992." Meanwhile, Charles Black, chairman of the Gramm campaign, sipped a Diet Coke and tried to do his bill paying while watching Perot's announcement, but had to put the checkbook aside and take notes. "By the end of the show," he said, "I'd written down a dozen potential election-law violations" in Perot's announced plans.

At the center of these questions is this: Can Perot spend his personal fortune on the start-up costs of a political party, or must he abide by the contribution limits that apply to existing parties? As yet the Federal Election Commission has no answer to this and other thorny questions, which will probably get hashed out in various state courts. Black holds that Perot should comply with the $25,000 cap on contributions from a single individual to candidates in an election cycle. Perot's advisers retort that Perot should be allowed unlimited spending on "party building" activities, just as wealthy donors to the voter-registration efforts of the Democratic and Republican parties are.

These legal tangles are matched by the logistical difficulties and internecine fights involved in establishing the party in every state and on every ballot. The first and harshest test will come in California, where Perot supporters must collect 890,000 signatures, or enroll 89,000 party members, by Oct. 24. It was that deadline--and restlessness in the California chapter of Perot's existing political network, United We Stand America--that forced Perot to move last week. And move he did. Perot's new party flew paid organizers into California, bought full-page ads in newspapers and set up petition tables in shopping malls. Perot arrived on Friday in San Diego to address the first of five weekend workshops up and down the state. Outside the hotel where Perot spoke in San Diego, cars sported bumper stickers that read DON'T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR PEROT. Inside, the 600 volunteers represented a cross-section of Americans disillusioned with both major parties: Shoshana Leiser, who "despises" Republicans as lapdogs of the rich but trusts Perot better than Clinton to take them on; Pauline Doane, a former conservative Republican who fears that the party has "sold out to the religious right"; Mario Minervini, a retired liquor wholesaler who supports Buchanan on most issues except abortion.

Platt Thompson, United We Stand's executive director in California, claims that since Perot launched the new party, "volunteers are calling in from everywhere." He adds, "They realize this time that it's not just about Ross Perot." Even some activists disenchanted with Perot agree. "This is a redeeming act on his part," says Phil Madsen, an ex-Perot worker and a founder of the thriving Minnesota Independence Party who runs a draft-Powell cell in that state.

Some political operatives believe Perot's new party could work successfully as a vehicle for Powell or another independent, but only if Perot convincingly removes himself once the party is up and running so the candidate does not look like his puppy. And that has never been Perot's style. Says Dennis Weyl, former chairman of the United We Stand chapter in Colorado: "Despite the rhetoric, it's still Perot's agenda. It has nothing to do with the members." Says Anne Saucier, secretary of the group's Ohio chapter: "He woke us up and made us a force, and then he became scared of us."

Across the country in recent months, United We Stand has suffered widespread unhappiness with its founder. Some chapter leaders complain that when Perot disagrees with them, he cuts their funding and installs handpicked operatives. The state chairman from California, Skip House, predicts, "They won't get the people out working that they did in '92. Many are disillusioned."

Lowell Weicker, the former independent-ticket Governor of Connecticut who is pondering an independent run for President, credits Perot with drawing attention to political reform and to that "crazy aunt in the basement"--the federal budget deficit. But, Weicker adds, "I don't know many people of an independent frame of mind who are going to accept Perot's conditions" to run under the Independence Party banner.

Perhaps anticipating that outcome, Perot does not rule out running himself. When asked why his name and face are featured on the new party's ads, Perot told Larry King that it is "like the albino monkey at the zoo"--the freak who draws more visitors. But will Perot's familiar, grinning mug attract more voters to a third party or drive them away? It is a question only a billionaire could pursue.

--With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett and Nina Burleigh/ Washington, Paul Krueger/San Diego and Richard Woodbury/Denver

With reporting by LAURENCE I. BARRETT AND NINA BURLEIGH/WASHINGTON, PAUL KRUEGER/SAN DIEGO AND RICHARD WOODBURY/DENVER