Ross Perot Endorses Romney

Ross Perot, who garnered 19% of the vote in the 1992 Presidential Election and roughly 8% of the vote four years later, is out with an Op-Ed in The Des Moines Registerendorsing Mitt Romney for President:

(CNN) - Former presidential candidate Ross Perot came out in favor of Mitt Romney Tuesday, writing in a newspaper editorial the 2012 GOP nominee was in a better position to slash America’s ballooning federal debt.

Perot, who ran as an independent candidate in 1992 and 1996, wrote in the Des Moines Register President Barack Obama hadn’t done enough to fix a stalled economy.

“Our country faces a momentous choice,” Perot wrote. “The fact is the United States is on an unsustainable course. At stake is nothing less than our position in the world, our standard of living at home and our constitutional freedoms.”

Perot, a Texas businessman and billionaire, ran as an independent candidate in 1992. He dropped out of the race in July but re-entered in October, going on to nab 19% of the vote. He ran again in 1996 and won 8% of ballots cast. He backed George W. Bush in 2000, but stayed out of the presidential race in 2004. In the 2008 GOP primary, he endorsed Romney over then-rival Sen. John McCain.

In his endorsement Tuesday, Perot hit Obama for adding to the national debt as well as presiding over cuts to the military.

“At a moment when turbulence is sweeping critical regions of the world, we are increasingly unprepared,” Perot wrote. “That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be. It is for these reasons that I am endorsing Mitt Romney.”

From the Op-Ed:

The American economy is stagnant. Economic growth is insufficient to create enough jobs for a country whose population is growing. The result is unemployment stuck over 8 percent for every single month of Barack Obama’s presidency. We have 23 million Americans who are looking for work and either can’t find a full-time job, can’t find a job at all, or who have given up looking. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.

At the same time, and not unrelated, is the extraordinary explosion of federal deficits and federal debt. In the last four years during Obama’s presidency, he’s added around $5 trillion to our national debt, more than any previous president. This was accomplished by successive federal budgets that each ran deficits exceeding $1 trillion a year. It is this massive deficit spending that threatens to undermine our future standard of living. To pay for our government’s massive debts, Washington’s profligacy, our children and grandchildren will be paying interest and principal on the nation’s debt for untold years into the future. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.

Even as we have engaged in runaway domestic spending, the country has been put on the path to massive cuts in the defense budget. President Obama’s own Secretary of Defense has called the proposed cuts “devastating” to our nation’s security. History teaches that the price of military weakness always exceeds the price of preparedness. And yet at a moment when turbulence is sweeping critical regions of the world, we are increasingly unprepared. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.

It is for these reasons that I am endorsing Mitt Romney. He has spent most of his career in the private sector. He understands how jobs are created. He understands how government can get in the way of that process. As a president, he would do what this administration has been unable to do, which is reform our federal government, pare it back, and — most critically — keep it from acting as a brake on economic growth.

Perot has basically been out of the political scene since the late 90’s so I really have to wonder whether this will amount to anything. Nonetheless, it’s no coincidence that the Op-Ed is running in the largest newspaper in Iowa in a year when that state is a swing state. Perot garnered nearly 19% of the vote there in 1992, and 8.5% in 1996. If those voters are still around and still amenable to his message, it could end up swaying enough of them to do Romney some good.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. legion says:

    Quick show of hands – did anyone here actually think Perot was still alive?

  2. Fiona says:

    @legion:

    I didn’t. Nor do I care that he’s endorsing Romney. The people that do we’re probably going to vote for Romney anyway.

  3. Geek, Esq. says:

    A billionaire endorsing Romney? Shocking.

    How to spot a poser on the deficit issue? People who engage in this kind of rhetoric:

    In his endorsement Tuesday, Perot hit Obama for adding to the national debt as well as presiding over cuts to the military.

    It’s amazing how many austerity evangelists turn into Keynesians when it comes to defense pork.

  4. reid says:

    I assume he’s a Republican now? Because he sounds awfully ignorant. Is Obama really the cause of “massive cuts” to the military? And sure, Romney knows how to create jobs… in China. What a load.

  5. rudderpedals says:

    giant_sucking_sound.mp3

  6. The fact is the United States is on an unsustainable course. At stake is nothing less than our position in the world, our standard of living at home and our constitutional freedoms.

    So why are you endorsing Romney?

  7. gVOR08 says:

    Last time Perot was featured in OTB was Steven Taylor pointing out some crazy talk from Perot. https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/perot-warns-of-takeover/ Now the Des Moines Register is printing more crazy talk from Perot.

    Perot ran for prez holding up pie charts and proclaiming the deficit to be a horrible crazy aunt in the cellar who was going to kill us all if we didn’t immediately panic and go full austerity. The takeaway shoud be that we then elected the Democrat and he cut taxes a little and raised spending a little and the economy grew and then we had a surplus. No panic, just governance.

    Given the history of the last three decades, anyone who votes for a Republican thinking he’ll cut the deficit is crazy. Hence Perot’s endorsement.

  8. David M says:

    At the same time, and not unrelated, is the extraordinary explosion of federal deficits and federal debt.

    I’m going to have to assume Ross Perot has been in a coma for the last decade and just woke up very confused , there’s no other reason concern for the deficit would lean one to endorse Romney. As a reminder, Romney has promised to make the deficit bigger, to the tune of more than $700 billion a year over the next decade. Here’s what he’s proposing over the next decade:

    ** $5 Trillion tax cut “offset” by cutting funding to public broadcasting
    ** $2 Trillion in increased military spending
    ** $200 Billion by repealing Obamacare

    That’s a more than $7 trillion hole he’s promising to put in the budget for the next decade, and yet the Romney/Ryan keep lying and pretending they going to reduce the deficit. Proof the media isn’t liberal? That reporters don’t laugh non-stop for 5 minutes every time Romney/Ryan bring up the deficit and then end the interviews, announcing the Romney/Ryan ticket is a complete fraud.

  9. Bill says:

    @legion:

    Quick show of hands – did anyone here actually think Perot was still alive?

    Being alive or being brain dead aren’t the same thing.

  10. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Ah, Ross Perot. The staggering irony, and Perot would not be able to grasp even the irony of it, is that his true political legacy is (gulp) that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Sigh.

    In any case, this endorsement is not surprising. Perot is a businessman. Romney is a businessman. Perot’s hallmark issue is the deficit. Obama took a bad deficit and pissed away so much additional and frivolous money it boggles the mind. 1+1 = 2.

    Endorsements matter little to nothing. Unless we’re talking about tiny micro margins. In that respect a lot of Reagan Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans voted for Perot not once but twice. The likes of Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin still have a lot of Reagan Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans. In the very unlikely event we get a Florida 2000-style result in one of those states then perhaps this endorsement will be somewhat relevant. Otherwise, meh, much ado about not all too much.

  11. David M says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    Obama took a bad deficit and pissed away so much additional and frivolous money it boggles the mind.

    Um, isn’t the deficit lower now than when Obama took office?

  12. Septimius says:

    Remember when George H.W. Bush tried to ruin his daughter’s wedding? Good times.

  13. bill says:

    and honey boo boo countered by giving the white trash endorsement to obama!