Perot

ROSS PEROT is to politics what the hot stove is to baseball. In the long dark winter, devotees of the national game endure by gathering around the figurative hot stove to talks statistics and trades. Now that Bob Dole has locked up the Republican nomination and excitement ebbs until the national conventions in August, political aficionados can count on Mr. Perot for an endless supply of speculation.Just as the hot stove league is followed by the real thing (note the goings-on at Oriole Park yesterday)

WASHINGTON -- Ross Perot is coming back to a fretting Congress today with yet another warning for the Capitol's politicians: Reform and repent or look for another job.The Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate is the star witness at a hearing of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. According to congressional sources familiar with his prepared testimony, he's expected to tell the House members and senators that Congress and the entire government must undergo financial reform.

ROSS Perot, that master of the sound bite, coined a classic during his on-again, off-again presidential campaign: the "giant sucking sound" he claims we will hear as jobs move from the United States to Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement.These days, the only sound I hear, though, is Mr. Perot's misinformed, misleading and often simply untrue NAFTA-bashing. He is dead wrong.If Congress passes the legislation to carry NAFTA out, it will create jobs, in the United States as well as in Mexico.

DALLAS -- One day after pulling out of the presidential race, Ross Perot raised the possibility that he would stay a factor in it after all.Appearing to respond to the deep anger and disappointment among his supporters, the Texas billionaire said he had no plans to take his name off the November ballot, although he insisted he wouldn't actively campaign for the presidency. The 62-year-old businessman is already on the ballot in at least 24 states and could be on more if his volunteers continue their efforts.

WASHINGTON -- Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot made his commercial TV debut last night, outlining his grim report card on the state of the economy and renewing his attack on the "mess" in Washington, but leaving his solutions for another time.In the 30-minute advertisement, aired on CBS right before last night's National League baseball playoff game, Mr. Perot sailed through a roster of economic woes with the folksy, no-nonsense, plain talk that first endeared him to hordes of frustrated voters.

WASHINGTON -- Has he used drugs, had an extramarital affair or cheated the IRS? No, no, no, an exasperated H. Ross Perot said yesterday, experiencing the kind of scrutiny he would face if he runs for president.The might-be candidate ran a gantlet of questions during and after a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He survived, entertaining many with his folksy humor, but the experience didn't whet his appetite for a campaign."I'm not driven to do it," he said. "As a matter of fact, the more I'm in it, the less interested I become."

ROSS PEROT, the billionaire about to be presidential candidate, is poised to waste $100 million on an ego trip. His current popularity, reflected in polls that show him beating George Bush and Bill Clinton in some states and running second or a close third nationally, is nothing more or less than a voter temper tantrum magnified by news media that feed on themselves.By November, Mr. Perot will be lucky to do as well as John Anderson,another third-party candidate, did in 1980. He will not be elected president, he will not throw the election into the House of Representatives and he will affect the outcome in November only if the Electoral College vote is close -- something that has not happened since 1976.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich implored members of Ross Perot's political movement yesterday to abandon any talk of forming a third political party, saying such a plan might only wind up getting President Clinton re-elected.In broadcast interviews, Mr. Gingrich said his GOP initiative rightfully has earned the backing of supporters of the Texas billionaire, who captured 19 percent of the presidential vote in 1992. If GOP conservatives get their support, Republicans "will win a smashing victory" in the 1996 elections, the House speaker said.

To millions of American voters, Ross Perot is an achiever who represents their best hope for a change in the way the federal government works. To the stock market, however, he represents uncertainty, and that's the principal reason stock prices will, at best, probably drift for months to come. Should Perot remain strong among the electorate, stock prices stand a good chance of declining over coming months, and into next year if he wins the election.Uncertainty is a major nemesis for stock prices, even more devastating than a recession and weaker corporate earnings.

WASHINGTON -- Side by side on a television talk show last night, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore made what looked like their first joint appearance of the 1996 presidential campaign. But they were careful to keep some distance from the fray, ruling out attending a conference of presidential contenders called by Ross Perot in Dallas for this summer."I don't think the president should start politicking too soon," Mr. Clinton said, rejecting an invitation to a forum in August that Mr. Perot has said all the Republican presidential contenders had agreed to attend, as well as the Democratic and Republican Party leaders.