Texas billionaire Ross Perot's offer to let a Washington political consultant manage his still-undeclared campaign for the presidency was turned down, a newspaper reported Saturday.
"It would be very difficult to run a campaign for Perot. He would call all the shots," Ray Strother told The Advocate. He also discussed "days" of meetings with Perot campaign manager Tom Luce before meeting personally with Perot two weeks ago."My meeting with Perot was very short," Strother said. "Half an hour. One gets the impression that meetings with Perot are always short. But he was very congenial.
"Normally, we charge a fee and a commission and the Perot people were not willing to pay a commission," Strother said. "Perot said he wouldn't pay people a premium to spend more of his money."
Strother described Perot as unusual, adding, "there's nothing political about the man. He doesn't fit any political niche I've ever seen. I've done 230 political campaigns and he's not like any candidate I've ever seen. In fact, he's not a candidate. He's a businessman."
A leading factor in Strother's decision not to work for Perot was Strother's fear of alienating officials of the national Democratic Party, since Strother specializes in handling campaigns of Democrats.