Houston Chronicle by Donald P. Baker 7/9/2019
H. Ross Perot, an eccentric Dallas billionaire whose two independent runs for president in the 1990s tapped into voters' frustration with the major political parties and foreshadowed the rise of the tea party two decades later, died July 9 at his home in Dallas. He was 89.
The family announced the death in a statement but did not provide a cause.
The son of a politically connected cotton broker, Perot followed a long tradition of buccaneering Texas entrepreneurs. Following an unhappy stint in the peacetime Navy of the 1950s, he became a top salesman at IBM and was such an exhaustive peddler of computer hardware that he once met an annual sales quota in less than three weeks.
Perot went into business for himself in 1962 and made a fortune twice over, starting two software companies that each sold for billions of dollars. He received national attention for showering his largesse on efforts to aid or free U.S. hostages in conflict zones from Vietnam to Lebanon.
Most memorably, Perot deployed a small private army to rescue two of his employees from an Iranian prison around the time of the revolution in 1979. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance criticized Perot for engaging in dangerous personal diplomacy, but the episode played a sizable role in mythologizing Perot. It formed the basis of Ken Follett's 1983 novel "On Wings of Eagles" and a subsequent TV movie.
It was with this reputation as a cowboy - others considered him a loose cannon - that Perot stepped fully into the national spotlight to seek the White House.
In 1992, running without party affiliation, Perot received 19.7 million votes, draining support from both major-party candidates and contributing to the victory of Democrat Bill Clinton over the incumbent president, Republican George H.W. Bush.
Perot's 19% share of the total was the most for an independent or third-party candidate since former president Theodore Roosevelt won 27 percent of the vote in 1912. That showing "assured Perot's place in American history," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist who has written widely on presidential politics.
His legacy was evidenced nearly two decades later when the tea party reignited anti-incumbent fervor, although it mimicked onlyhis demand for smaller government. By contrast, Perot eschewed conventional wisdom, Buchanan pointed out, "promising pain" in the form of higher taxes while also vowing to cut federal spending and the deficit.
Perot - whose high-pitched twang, diminutive stature and a buzz cut held over from his days at the U.S. Naval Academy - was the antithesis of a made-for-TV candidate. Yet he employed that medium brilliantly, calling on his vast resources to buy large chunks of airtime to explain his political beliefs.
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