Perot: One More Time?

On the day that the two major parties' challengers quit, or in the case of John McCain "suspended," their presidential campaigns, some Reform Party activists were calling on Ross Perot to hitch up the wagon for a third run at the White House.

Perot supporters held sparsely attended news conferences Thursday in over a dozen cities - including Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson, Philadelphia and Washington - urging the Texas billionaire to run again on his floundering Reform Party's ticket.

In Dallas, Perot's home base, four supporters showed up to say they would join a nationwide organization called the Committee to Draft Perot 2000.

"There have been many politicians who say 'reform this' and 'reform that,' but it never seems to get enough force to do anything because we have lobbyists who write the legislation and our representatives and senators ... they don't read it," said Jude Hoeper.

In Los Angeles, five Reform Party members said they had collected 10,000 petition signatures to draft Perot into the race.

"I feel he's an honest candidate," Karen Mountain, 32, said. "He speaks what we need to hear, not what we want to hear.''

In Louisville, Ky., Reform Party State Chairman John Longmire found himself all alone on the steps of the county courthouse at the appointed hour. No reporters showed up to join him.

Perot himself hasn't expressed any interest in another presidential run.

And his top aide doubts Perot will do it. "I am not optimistic Ross is going to make another run," said Russell Verney. "It would take something of a miracle to get him to run for office again."

But that's not discouraging these Perot diehards.

"He hasn't said to stop," said supporter Pat Muth of Tallahassee, Fla., one of the organizers of Thursday's events.

"He's always said that if the American people want him to do something, they should just ask," Muth told the Dallas Morning News. "So we're asking, from the East Coast to the West Coast: 'Run, Ross, run,"

Muth said Perot backers are urging Larry King to invite Perot to appear on his TV show, where he lauched his first campaign back in 1992.

Perot's third party candidacy earned him an impressive 19 percent of the vote in 1992, but just 8.5 percent four years later.

There had been speculation that McCain might be enticed to run under the Reform banner now that he's out of the GOP race. But in his speech Thursday announcing his withdrawal from the Republican contest, McCain repeated his statement of GOP loyalty: "I love my party. It is my home." He gave no hint whether he would entertain any thoughts of a third-party run.

Pat Buchanan is now the best-known name vying for the Reform nomination, which comes with $12.6 million in federal campaign subsidies. The conservative commentator switched hiallegiance from the Republican Party in October, calling the two-party system "a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation."

Real estate tycoon Donald Trump also briefly flirted with a Reform Party run, but announced last month he would not seek the nomination. He labeled the party "a total mess," and said it was too fractured to support a credible candidate.

Trump, who split the party along with pal Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, called Buchanan's presumptive Reform Party candidacy "a disaster."