‘Cannot Win’
In July, he stunned his backers by saying he wouldn’t run after all. “I have concluded that we cannot win in November,” he said, citing, among other considerations, “the revitalization of the Democratic Party.”
Perot reversed himself again, announcing on Oct. 1 -- 33 days before the election -- that he was back in. He shared the stage with Bush and Clinton in three televised debates that month, offering a memorable turn of phrase when he predicted that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create a “giant sucking sound” as it pulled U.S. jobs south to Mexico.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired nine days before the election, Perot said the real reason he had dropped out in July was that he had learned of a plan by Republican leaders, whom he wouldn’t name, “to have a computer-created false photo of my daughter, Carolyn, that they were going to give the press shortly before her wedding to embarrass her.” He offered no proof.
Popular Candidate
On Election Day, Perot and his running mate, James Stockdale, a former U.S. Navy vice admiral, received 19.7 million votes, or 18.9 percent of the popular vote. Though not good enough to win any state’s electoral votes, their total was more than any other third-party presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive “Bull Moose” ticket took more than 27 percent in 1912.
An exit poll by a group of news organizations found little evidence that Perot’s presence had influenced the result. The poll, focusing on second choices of Perot voters, found that only Ohio might have shifted from Clinton to Bush had Perot not been in the race, and Ohio alone wouldn’t have been enough to give Bush a victory.
Bush didn’t agree. “I think he cost me the election, and I don’t like him,” he said in “41,” a documentary that HBO aired in 2012.
Perot remained active politically, criticizing the Nafta accord in a November 1993 debate with Vice President Al Gore on “Larry King Live.” Congress adopted Nafta soon after.
Second Campaign