Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Many Unhappy Returns; At the Perot Bash, Looking Past the NumbersBy Michael Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 04:54:43 EST Message-ID: <52.1992Nov4.045444@AmeriCast.com> Many Unhappy Returns; At the Perot Bash, Looking Past the NumbersBy Michael IsikoffWashington Post Staff Writer DALLAS, Nov. 3 - The red, white and blue balloons were all in place and Ross Perot's favorite Dixieland band had just started to play when Maurine Hudgens, of Grand Prairie, Tex., went into denial. The early returns were being shown on one of the large television screens, and Perot was trailing a distant third at 16 percent. Talk about spoiling a party. "Oh, that's just a bunch of bull," said Hudgens, committed Perotnista, waving her hands at the screen. "You just wait till morning, and he's going over the top, going to give this nation a big shock." Like more than 2,000 others of Perot's precious volunteers, Hudgens had come here to celebrate what she was con- vinced was going to be the political upset of the century. After all, Perot himself had told them it was coming, promising sup- porters at his election-eve rally Monday that he was going to capture all 50 states. "We will landslide this thing if people vote their conscience," he said. Earlier today, in true Texas fashion, Perot kept up the boasts, telling volunteers at his phone bank they would be marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In" when he is inaugurated in January. So as they gathered tonight at the great ballroom of Dallas's luxurious Grand Kempinski's hotel, a lot of the Perotnistas had a hard time coping, at least at first. "I don't believe it - it's making me very sad," said Marion Klein, a Dallas schoolteacher, as she saw the numbers after taking a seat at a confetti-strewed table. "I thought the polls were all wrong. I thought he had a chance." How could this have happened? "I think the media has been trying to sway the people," Klein said, echoing a refrain repeated time and again here. "There's a lot of gullible people, and they listen to what these reporters say." But it was also a time for spin control. Informed of the early exit polls running slightly higher at 17 percent, Russ Varney, one of the few political professionals still left on Perot's cam- paign staff, instantly pronounced it an unqualified triumph. "That would be dynamite," he said. "This is the most monumental event in political history since ... since ... I can't remember when." Varney, a former executive director of New Hampshire's Democrat- ic Party, explained that as far as he was concerned, anything over double digits was nothing short of miraculous. "For an in- dependent candidate with no party structure who's only been been in the race for 30 days ... that sends shock waves to the Estab- lishment in Washington." "If you look back to the beginning, nobody was even thinking about these types of numbers," said Murphy Martin, a former Dal- las TV anchor who served as producer and director of Perot's much-celebrated campaign "infomercials." "Regardless of what the final figures are, a very large statement has been made about the political process." To be sure, many who assembled in the ballroom didn't need spin- ning at all. Peter Russo, an architect, and his companion, Mary Lunn Black, had come all the way from Palm Beach, Fla., and didn't care what the numbers showed. "We're here because it's historic," said Russo. It was the birth of a new political party, an event that would change America. But even more, there was the expected opportunity to see their leader in the flesh. "How can you not be awed just being in the same room with him?" said Russo. "I get chills just listening to him." 02:45 11-04C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)