The Bizarre ‘Ross & Larry Show’

It’s his year.

Some of the public already knew about him. But the 1992 political campaign--from the candidacy he launched on CNN in February to the amazing show he put on in Dallas Monday--gold-plated him as an American institution. And on Sunday, in an appearance that symbolized his new epic status as Someone Who Matters, he was even interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” sounding a populist theme about Washington politicians. “Don’t these people work for us?” he asked.

Who is this man and what does he really want?

“I think I have this whole thing figured out,” Willard Scott said on NBC’s “Today” program Tuesday. “Larry King is going to run for President.”

At the very least, the political season’s president of the airwaves.

If 1992 is the year that legitimized Ross Perot as a force in national politics, it is also the year that pumped up the fame of Perot’s electronic Boswell, the Mutual Radio and CNN talk-show host whose “Larry King Live” last February virtually invented the Texas billionaire’s on/off/perhaps on-again presidential bid, and may have given it another enormous boost Monday night.

It was the “Larry & Ross Show.” No, make that the “Ross & Larry Show.”

Capping what ABC’s Jeff Greenfield called “one of the most bizarre days in American politics,” King expanded his hour CNN show to 90 minutes for an appearance by Perot that became, in effect, a televised mini-political convention in the Dallas hotel where, earlier that day, representatives of the Bush and Clinton campaigns had wooed Perot supporters by urging his abstinence from the presidential race.

More than merely an incredible spectacle, King’s program was a boldfaced primer in the kind of mutual back-scratching that occurs in the media every day.

“To Dallas they came,” said King, who was in town himself to snare Perot for his viewers, even at the cost of looking as much the panderer as did Republican and Democratic officials during their earlier, separate, CNN-televised press conferences with Perot. All right, that was why King had come to Perot.

But why--after being courted that evening by just about every national news program--had Perot come to King?

The answer came from one of King’s first callers. He was Mike Wallace, the veteran top gun known for shooting down the people he interviews on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

“You made Larry King a household word when you declared (candidacy for President) on his show last February,” Wallace said to Perot. “What is it that you get on the Larry King show that you don’t get on ‘Face the Nation’ or ‘Meet the Press’ or the Brinkley show? Is it the softballs that my friend, Larry, throws at you?”

“Mike!” King protested.

Perot grinned, nervously showing Wallace the kind of deference he rarely grants anyone in the media. “Wait a minute. I’ve got missing teeth from being on a show with Larry. This nose wasn’t broken till I met Larry.”

It was a feeble attempt to obscure a truth that couldn’t be obscured, for King’s Perot-promoting session spoke for itself.

Perot is very good. When he wants to make a point, he speaks directly to the camera instead of to his interviewer. When he doesn’t want to answer a question, he either obfuscates or turns the question on the interviewer, as if throwing back a hot grenade. And he has learned how to maximize his free TV time a la Jerry Brown, whether announcing his new “800” number or advertising his best-selling book, as he did numerous times Monday, the last in response to a skeptical King caller questioning what he stood for. “Anybody who has an interest, just read the book,” urged Perot, displaying it for the camera. “Just go to a bookstore and pick it up.”

Perot is that much better when the questions are the kind of friendly “softballs” lobbed at him by King, who did not press his guest on much of anything:

* As he did in his earlier press conferences and in a brief interview with Bryant Gumbel on NBC’s “Today,” Perot repeatedly emphasized that his volunteers will decide whether he will re-enter the race. “The volunteers own this organization.” Then why hadn’t he consulted them when he dropped out of the race in July? When asked that morning by Gumbel, he replied that he “wasn’t able to.” When asked at one of his press conferences, he said that “there wasn’t time.” These were amorphous replies that went unchallenged. Yet they also were answers to an obvious question that King didn’t even ask.

* Echoing one of his favorite themes, Perot accused President Bush, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and the advisers of both candidates of being isolated from the public. Perot said: “I spend a lot of time with the American people.” Although the charge against Bush and Clinton may be true, they at least have been pressing the flesh on the campaign trail. Just where is it that a busy magnate like Perot is spending “a lot of time” with ordinary people? At malls? Supermarkets? At Walmart? Another obvious question unasked.

The show began resembling a political convention when King let Perot introduce and go on and on about his family, and when King several times tossed questions at Perot’s 50 state coordinators who were seated in the hotel ballroom and connected to King and Perot by satellite.

Back to Wallace, who said it appeared that Perot was going to “declare one way or another” on Thursday. He asked: “Are you going to do it on the Larry King show again, Mr. Perot?”

Perot appeared flustered. “Well, that won’t drive the process. So that’s, uh, that’s not a key factor with us.” He talked some more about his volunteers.

“Oh, I understand that,” Wallace said. “I just wondered whether you’re going to do it, no matter what you do, with Larry.”

“You’ve got to make an announcement,” King said.

“I’m not that organized,” Perot said, then added, “Larry hasn’t invited me, Mike. Put him under pressure. Otherwise, I have to buy television time.”

King jumped in. “Tell you what, Ross. We could do this . . . off the air or on the air. Is it going to be Thursday night or Friday night?”

Perot predicted Thursday.

“Could you fly to Washington Thursday?” King asked.

“Uh, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Could you think about coming on this program Thursday night?”

“Let’s think about it and talk about it.”

“Or Friday night.”

A grinning Perot danced away. “I can’t mess with big Mike here. I think Mike’s a little unhappy about something. I hope not.”

Not giving up, King threw it back to the Perot coordinators, asking them to indicate by their applause if they wanted Perot to appear on his show Thursday night. They applauded enthusiastically.

Perot grinned again, then followed his own agenda. “Mike deserves an answer. Let me give it to him. Mike was saying, ‘Why don’t you do it (make an announcement) on the Sunday shows?’ No. 1, the Sunday shows don’t give people a voice. That’s why. The people don’t get to call in. No. 2, the Sunday shows don’t have an audience that big. That’s all. That’s all.”

Wallace responded. “I was thinking of Sunday night, Mr. Perot. Seven o’clock Sunday night?”

As in “60 Minutes,” which has an audience that dwarfs King’s. The light bulb clicked on above Perot’s head, and he grinned once more. “OK, I understand. I understand.”

So did we all understand. Just as the Republicans and Democrats had bid on Perot in Dallas, so were Big Larry and Big Mike now using national television to bid on his services for their respective shows.

Don’t bet against the incumbent. Not only does Perot know who his friends are, but his coordinators themselves had voted Monday night for “Larry King Live.” And as America knows, Ross Perot always obeys his volunteers.