Special Interests Rule Foes, Perot Tells Vfw Reform Party Nominee Not As Warmly Received As Dole

Taking his third-party presidential campaign to a national veterans convention, Ross Perot said Thursday that both the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets were so captive to special interests that they could not look after the national interest.

“They’re bought and paid for by these companies who want to take the jobs out of the U.S.A. and take it over to child labor in Thailand, make tennis shoes for $5, pay 22 cents to ship them across the Pacific, sell them to our kids for 150 bucks and they kill one another on the street to get them,” said Perot.

“Is that what you fought for?” he asked members attending the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “I don’t think so.”

At another point, he lambasted a Defense Department manual authorizing purchases of military equipment from foreign suppliers, arguing that this represented the kind of unpatriotic outrage that neither Bill Clinton nor Bob Dole was willing to address.

“Did either of the other two candidates ever bring that little skunk up and hold it by its tail?” said Perot, drawing laughter, shouts of “No!” and some applause from the crowd.

Neither Perot nor Vice President Gore, who spoke here on Wednesday, drew the kind of sustained cheering that Dole did in his speech to the VFW earlier this week. Dole, who was severely wounded in World War II, has been endorsed by the group’s political action committee.

The address marked Perot’s first public appearance since he accepted the nomination on Sunday of the Reform Party, whose activities have been bankrolled almost entirely by the Dallas billionaire.

He said of his party volunteers today: “They built it. It belongs to them, and there’s not a penny of special interest money in it.”