From Ross Perot to Tom Steyer, rich megalomaniacs run for president by preying on voters’ disillusionment
The past week saw both the passing of Ross Perot and the entry of Tom Steyer into the presidential race. It’s fitting that the two events should coincide – as one billionaire presidential candidate leaves us, another steps up to take his place. But while “rich guy who tells it like it is” candidates are not necessarily doomed to electoral oblivion – one of them sits in the White House today – they represent everything dysfunctional about US democracy.
Ross Perot was the original “outsider billionaire” candidate, gaining nearly 20% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election. It was not always clear what Perot stood for or what his policy plans were, though he was against Nafta and for balancing the budget. The Washington Post ran the headline “In Search of a Perot Platform”, and Perot himself would say cryptic things like “you could take any number of good plans that are around, implement them and have a gigantic improvement over the way things are.” Voters responded well to Perot. At one point, a poll showed him well ahead of both George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, and if it wasn’t for Perot’s bizarre temporary withdrawal from the race, he might have been a serious contender. Deficit-obsessed and mockable as he was, Perot had clearly tapped into something in the American electorate.
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