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                                                                                THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 47

Don't Waste Your Vote


By Michael Kramer


    If Ross Perot is elected President, it will not be the
first time people buy something they don't need. A slick
salesman's perfected pitch often trumps good judgment, and if
a peddler lives who rivals Perot, he exists only in fiction. To
an electorate eager for one thing above all others -- leadership
of clear purpose, candidly proclaimed -- Perot seems a welcome
breath of fresh air. With the penetrating clarity common to the
slightly deranged, and with an air of bustling purposiveness,
Perot has about him a kind of gravitas that appears to transmute
political banalities into profound insights. Hear his practiced
homilies during the presidential debates, watch his chart-filled
infomercials, and Perot's classic American optimism is instantly
recognizable. Everything will be fine, he says, if we roll up
our sleeves and get under the hood to fix the car.

    Perot's specialty is clothing demagoguery with a semblance
-- sometimes even a facsimile -- of wit and down-to-earth
common sense. His call to "shared sacrifice" resonates with the
nation's history ("The only thing we have to fear is fear
itself") and lends a certain credibility to his painful
prescriptions. Much of what he proposes is philosophically
charming, but the sacrifice he posits would be borne unequally,
and his numbers are as questionable as those of his rivals. His
pie charts and bar graphs convey heft, but when studied
carefully, the bottom line relies on so many dubious and
unspecific assumptions (how, exactly, are health-care costs to
be contained?) that his repeated assertion is effectively
refuted: it is not "just that simple."

    Yet if the polls can be trusted (and even if they cannot,
the rising worries of Bill Clinton and George Bush speak
volumes), Perot has the potential to disrupt next week's
election. Many Americans, it seems, are ready to squander their
franchise -- which, of course, is not exactly the way Perot sees
it: "You are throwing your vote away unless you vote your
conscience." While indisputably attractive, these underdog's
words fail on close inspection.

    Consider first Perot's personality and temperament. It
does not require a degree in psychology to recognize a
world-class paranoid. Perot starts with a firm conviction of his
own superior gifts and high destiny. Then, if his actual
situation falls short, he looks for scapegoats. In Perot's mind,
nothing that has ever retarded his many causes has been his
fault. Whether it is a band of shortsighted General Motors
directors, government officials callously abandoning soldiers
in Southeast Asia or journalists scrutinizing his background,
Perot routinely views himself as the helpless victim of dark
conspiracies. Is the collective memory so short that we cannot
recall July, when, at a high point, Perot inexplicably closed
his campaign with the brutality of a plant manager pink-slipping
loyal workers at Christmas? Have we forgotten that without
warning Perot stranded the millions who had poured their time
and money into his effort, those whom he had repeatedly promised
to "serve" selflessly if only they would follow his lead? Can
anyone seriously believe "the people" called him back when the
evidence proves that Perot himself staged and bankrolled the
"grass-roots" cry for his return?

    Aside from his entering, quitting and then re-entering,
the only public decision by which to judge Perot's judgment has
been the selection of his running mate, James Stockdale.
Leading the nation is serious business, but one swipes at
Stockdale only gingerly because he is such a sympathetic figure.
Thus it is perhaps best to conjure the national nightmare a
Stockdale presidency might induce by adopting the observation
of a political satirist: a Stockdale succession, says Mark
Russell, is probably the only catastrophe that could cause the
nation to pine for Dan Quayle.

    Still, many voters are angry and frustrated. They want to
protest the process that has served up Bush and Clinton. They
want to send a message. Some want merely to telegraph their
disgust. Others want Clinton and Bush to take the deficit more
seriously -- which, thanks to Perot, they are already doing. If
it were possible, we would all gather in a giant electronic town
hall and divvy up the vote: so much for whomever the majority
wants to win, with a healthy percentage for Perot just to keep
the victor honest. But the Electoral College complicates life.
A voter who hates Bush above everything and casts his ballot
for Perot may end up helping the President carry the voter's
state, just as a Clinton despiser who goes for Perot may end up
aiding the Arkansas Governor.

    What to do? If you seriously favor Perot for President,
vote for him. If not, watch the polls carefully and shy away
from casting a protest ballot if there seems any reasonable
chance that the outcome could be distorted by too many others
venting their anger. Remember that in a democratic republic, a
citizen discharges his duty not by making a vindictive gesture
but by voting as if the outcome depended entirely on his vote
alone. It's just that simple.