Ross Perot was a MAGAt

[SHRED]

Link to tweet

[hlthe2b]

1. I figured as such... Trump had run on Perot's Reform Party in 1999.

Perot wasn't a" bad" guy in total, as I suppose can be said for some few of Trump's voters, but the fact he continued to support him for reelection makes that a hard conclusion to maintain.

[Lucid Dreamer]

2. I'll say something good about Perot...

Perot got Clinton elected in '92.

[Honeycombe8]

7. A lot of would-be Clinton voters voted for Perot. Incl. Independents. nt

[shanny]

15. And so did would-be Bush voters. nt

[Honeycombe8]

20. Yes. But people assume he took votes only from Bush.

I know for a fact that's not true. He had a measurable formerly-Clinton-supporter following. It was NAFTA.

[Drunken Irishman]

22. No he didn't. In fact, Perot probably hurt Clinton.

Clinton's lead ballooned after Perot exited the race in the summer of '92 and narrowed significantly when he entered the race again in October of that same year.

[former9thward]

32. He took more votes from Bush in the swing states.

Votes he may have took from Clinton in CA or NY, etc. don't mean anything.

[CreekDog]

43. California voted for Bush in 1988

before 1992, California hadn't voted for a Democrat since LBJ in 1964.

you're always way more confident than your knowledge actually warrants.

[former9thward]

54. Maybe you should keep up with the thread.

Its about Perot and the 1992 , 1996 elections. Not the 1988 election. Do you have anything to add on the relevant topic? But thanks for making my point anyway. Bush and Perot got 53.2% of the vote in CA in 1992.

[StevieM]

24. He did no such thing.

The evidence makes it clear that Perot took equally from both candidates. And even that wasn't true until Election Day, because prior to the election every poll showed Perot taking more votes from Clinton than from Bush.

It was the same exact way in 1996 with Clinton and Dole.

[former9thward]

33. The polls did not show that.

What they showed was Perot was taking more votes from Bush in the swing states Bush needed. The overall number of votes from one candidate or another do not mean anything. Our elections run on an electoral college system then as in 2016.

[StevieM]

34. There were never polls showing what you just described.

That was simply speculation.

Maybe you could argue that the race would have been a little closer, and Bush would have won places like Montana and Georgia. But there is no evidence from polling that Bush would have won the electoral college. Bob Dole and the GOP simply declared that to be the case by fiat, but they never offered any proof.

[former9thward]

35. Clinton used Perot to explain why he never made 50% in either election.

He never offered any proof either...

[Buckeyeblue]

39. I don't agree. Clinton was going to win regardless.

[CatMor]

3. Even to the bitter end ...

he probably wanted a tax cut for the wealthy and didn't care trump is a crooked, con artist grifter. Just my opinion.

[Horse with no Name]

38. Perot was a generous philanthropist

This isn’t something that trump could even fathom

[brush]

4. Too bad. I thought Perot would've seen thru trump's foolishness first off.

[dalton99a]

5. "If Donald Trump is the Jesus of the disenchanted, displaced non-college white voter,

then Perot was the John the Baptist of that sort of movement." - James Carville

[tishaLA]

21. Great quote nt

[Honeycombe8]

25. He's just sore because someone spoke out about NAFTA. But Perot was no Trump-like candidate.

NAFTA was almost entirely the thing Perot was urged to run on. But Perot was pro-gay marriage (years before it was cool), moderate, anti-trade agreements that sucked away American jobs (which ended up happening), pro-choice, etc.

Perot was a moderate populist. But he was not Trump. He wasn't an isolationist nationalist. He wasn't racist, as far as I know. He ultimately reverted back to the Republican Party.

IMO, he represented the only kind of third party that has a chance of winning (altho it's unlikely that any 3rd party would ever win). It's not going to be a rightwingnut who thinks everyone wants to do away with governments and wants rich people not to have to pay taxes because their mere existence is so beneficial to the country. It's not going to be a far left wing candidate who insists on some strange policies (Sarandon's "revolution" ), and that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans. He was the most successful third party candidate, I think.

Carville is sore because Perot took votes away from not just Bush, but also Clinton, who Carville worked for.

[Lithos]

26. He gave the "You People" speech to the NAACP

he was a racist...

L-

[Honeycombe8]

30. That doesn't necessarily mean he was a racist, IMO.

That means he made a bad gaffe in referring to AAs, of whom he apparently didn't know any. Racism is more than that, IMO. We can't read someone's mind. Although that phrase has special meaning to AAs, and is particularly bad, IMO.

He might've been. I haven't researched his life extensively. It depends on whether his company practiced discrimination, or his behavior in other instances showed discrimination, or he had made other, negative statements about AAs or other minorities, so that the sum total shows a pattern or exhibits racism.

It takes more than one instance of "you people" to declare someone a racist, just as it takes more than one speech of professing to "feel their pain" to prove a candidate is not a racist.

To be clear...what he said was bad. But if that was all that was bad in the speech, and if it was only that one time, I wouldn't want to judge just on that. For anyone about just about anything. Your mileage may vary.

Trump is clearly a racist. We have his past behaviors, past legal action against his company for discrimination, and we could list probably 1,000 or more instances of discriminatory or negative comments about brown and black people, and attempts at passing laws that particularly impact brown and black people.

[CreekDog]

44. you're saying he didn't know any black people and he wasn't racist?

you gotta be white to think something that crazy.

why do you think that only white people should get to decide what's racist against black people?

you created a definition of racism that you take seriously even though you aren't expert in racism or in research on racism.

it appears your only expertise in racism is that you're white and it makes you think that you are expert in racism. cause you're white.

you aren't alone though. lots of white people think that they are the only ones who can decide if a black person has experienced racism.

[myohmy2]

6. of course...

...he was a MAGAt…

...perot proves only the good die young…

"...in the last documented political act of his life, he wrote two checks for the legal maximum amount to Trump’s campaign..."

...may perot Rest In Something...

...

[Demonaut]

8. he got to hear that great "sucking sound" as his soul headed south

[llmart]

9. Perot was the beginning of the mantra "we need a businessman in the White House".

I couldn't stand this self-serving asshole. Anyone who ever worked for his company EDS could tell you stories about what it was like working there under his leadership.

[Wounded Bear]

11. Actually, there is precedent for electing businessmen presidents...

If I remember my history correctly, it was almost always a disaster.

I'm pretty sure Hoover ran on his "businessman" chops.

[WillowTree]

28. Not really. Back in the 80s people were suggesting a run by Lee Iococca, also recently deceased.

[keithbvadu2]

36. He had a few good ideas. Perot was an autocrat. Congress would not have worked with him.

He had a few good ideas.

Perot was an autocrat. Congress would not have worked with him.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Not surprising...

I was at all the bullshit coverage of Perot's demise.

He didn't deserve it, IMO.

IIRC, while fighting against NAFTA, Perot was making millions off of selling shit in a duty free zone in Texas.

[Liberal In Texas]

12. According to Open Secrets, no donations to 45.

408 donations listed, mostly to repubs and mostly Texas repubs and the repub party. A few to Texas democrats.

I suppose it's possible this "bequest" would come out of his estate or something, but if he wrote checks and gave them in March, they haven't shown up on Open Secrets yet.

There is also a fake story about him leaving in his estate $100 million to go through his 11 kids (he doesn't have 11 kids) to the Orange Idiot.

The season of fake stories is upon us....

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/perot-trump-100-million/

[sl8]

19. FEC link:

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?data_type=processed&committee_id=C00580100&contributor_name=Perot&two_year_transaction_period=2020

I couldn't find them at OpenSecrets, either.

[blogslut]

47. I think that's from Jr. Perot, who is an unequivocal jerk

Jr. is the chairman of Hillwood according to this

https://www.hillwood.com/About/Leadership.aspx

I don't care much for the senior Perot but his son is an absolute shitbird.

[sl8]

49. I think you are correct.

I can no longer find Pindell's tweet. Granted, I'm not the world's best Twitter searcher, but I had no problem finding it yesterday

I looked to The Boston Globe to see if they had issued a retraction to that part of Pindell's article, but so far, they have not:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/07/09/how-ross-perot-paved-way-for-donald-trump/c5nVo4Je1CIRcFYEAHqHiI/story.html?event=event25

The FEC record definitely shows "Jr.". The Perot that just died was not a "Jr.", but as you said, one of his sons is.

Thank you for the correction.



–--------------------------------

On edit.

The 2 FEC records do at the link I provided earlier do NOT show "Jr."in the name field. If you search for Ross Perot some results show "Jr." and some do not. The 2 records showing contributions to Trump's reelection campaign, on 3/19/2019 do not have the "Jr.". However, if you drill down to the contributor details, it shows his occupation as Chairman of Hillwood. I believe that this indicates that the contributor is the son.

Bottom line, I think the FEC records are for the son, but I'm not quite as sure as I was an hour ago.

[blogslut]

57. The donations on that FEC page are from Jr - of this I am positive

Not all juniors refers to themselves as jr. Hillwood is the younger's company. He founded it. He is its Chairman. He is also an unequivocal shitibird.

https://www.hillwood.com/About/Leadership/RossPerot,Jr.aspx

[Liberal In Texas]

48. Good find. n/t

[sl8]

50. Thanks, but I think I was wrong.

See blogslut's post in this subthread.

[Liberal In Texas]

52. Got it...says he "works" at Hillwood.

And that's Jr. as chairman.

Still, good job, I wouldn't have thought of that.

[sl8]

53. I'm less sure now than when I replied to you,

but I do suspect that the contributions are from the son.

I think you're correct about the contributor's occupation.

Also, the "Jr." issue could explain the apparent discrepancy between Open Secrets and FEC query results. Just maybe, someone at Open Secrets is better at sorting out Perots than I.

[brooklynite]

13. "Ross Perot was a champion for veterans' rights"--Bernie Sanders

Link to tweet

[SHRED]

14. Facepalm

[nolabear]

17. The replies to that tweet are astounding.

[Maru Kitteh]

45. Bernie F Sanders can go ahead and pine for Ross Perot

Seems about right.

For myself? Hard pass.

[JonLP24]

46. It looks like Ross Perot died and Sanders said something nice

Like when Obama said Margaret Thatcher was a "champion of freedom".

[Aristus]

16. I suspected as much.

People were going on and on about his philanthropy and work with veterans, etc. All I could think of is that his schtick sounded a lot lot the Tea Baggers who infested the national consciousness starting in 2010.

I don't care what charitable organizations you donate to. If you support Trump, you have some deep and abiding hatred for your fellow human beings.

[SHRED]

18. Also

Perot was a RW asshole who once advocated dropping troops into our cities to fight the drug war.

[Drunken Irishman]

23. Ross Perot was a fraud - and so is Trump.

Case in point: Perot bitching about the deficit and debt and yet supports a president who is running up the deficit and debt beyond anything we've ever seen.

[redstatebluegirl]

27. Of course he was, that is when a lot of this stuff started.

And Bernie puts out this long winded RIP thing about him. Another reason to choose someone else for our candidate.

[Scoopster]

29. This has already been debunked as false propaganda

See this thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212262388

[sl8]

31. That's a separate, apparently debunked, claim.

The claim in your link is about a $100 million donation via his 11 [sic] children.

This thread's OP is referring to two $2,800 donations. FEC records seem to support this.

On edit:

I now think that those FEC records pertain to Perot's son, not him.
Thanks to blogslut

[Horse with no Name]

37. I'm not sure this is true

I know members of his family and he has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for several years.
Not to say that there wasn’t money given from the estate, but I’m pretty certain he didn’t have legal control of his finances in the end.

[Polybius]

40. Who is this "Shred" person?

"He's dead...good." What a rotten, disgusting thing to say. I want no part of mean-spirited liberalism. Positive Obama liberalism works much better.

[TwilightZone]

42. The OP

The Shred on Twitter and the poster of this thread are one in the same.

[CatWoman]

41. this will make you feel better

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/joyride-with-perot/n10313

[tymorial]

51. Shred, I like a lot of what you say on here and Twitter

This here however is beneath you. Grave dancing is a disgusting activity. I know you won't be alone and I will log off for the day because every time a well known conservative dies this site becomes a fucking prom.

It's disgusting.

[Paladin]

55. That's an important thing to remember.

Whatever inadvertent favors Perot did for Democrats, he was a world-class asshole.

[WhiteTara]

56. Remember Edwin Meece?

He was Reagun's AG? He and Perot partnered in Perot's company.