Perot ran again in 1996, this time as the nominee of the Reform Party, which he had founded the previous year. He received 8.1 million votes, or 8.4 percent, as Clinton defeated Republican Bob Dole to win a second term.
In 2012, he told USA Today that the continued swelling of the national debt -- then $16 trillion, up from $4 trillion when he challenged Bush and Clinton -- was testament to the truth of his message.
“I didn’t get done what I hoped I’d get done,” he said. “Whether I got elected or not, I hoped they’d all get busy and straighten it out.”
Henry Ray Perot was born June 27, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas, the last of three children of Gabriel Ross Perot, a trader of cotton and cattle, and the former Lulu May Ray. At 12, he let his parents change his middle name to Ross, in memory of their first son, Gabriel Ross Jr., who had died at 3 of meningitis. Perot’s older sister, Margaret Elizabeth, was known as Bette.
Young Salesman
Perot achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and learned salesmanship while young, peddling Christmas cards, garden seeds and copies of the Saturday Evening Post.
He attended Texarkana Junior College for two years and was elected president of the student council in his second year, according to his 1996 memoir. He won appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1953. He then served in the Navy for four years.
He joined International Business Machines Corp. in Dallas and became a star salesman, reaching his 1962 sales quota in a matter of weeks. He went out on his own that year, borrowing $1,000 from his wife, Margot, to incorporate Electronic Data Systems, an early provider of computer hardware and data-processing services.
To maintain his income, he worked part-time as a data-processing consultant for the health insurer Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Texas.
EDS Contracts