Perot Adding Rallies To His Campaign He Hopes Speeches Will Raise His Single-Digit Poll Standings

Running out of time to turn around his presidential campaign, Ross Perot is adding a series of rallies to round out a political schedule that is still bare-bones compared to his major-party rivals.

Perot has added to his schedule eight rallies and two speeches at colleges around the country and in cities in Ohio, New York and Florida where the Reform Party has support.

Campaign coordinator Russ Verney said that when Perot’s appearances are combined with those by running mate Pat Choate, “we’ll be able to cover a good portion of the country before this is over.” He said the appearances were designed to reach “voters who are likely to get out and get motivated but otherwise wouldn’t be likely to go to the polls.”

Perot, who is languishing in the single digits in opinion polls, has done most of his campaigning from TV studios since he accepted the Reform Party nomination on Aug. 18. He has appeared publicly about once a week and held just one rally.

His campaign strategy has been under revision since the Commission on Presidential Debates decided to exclude him the debates and he encountered difficulty getting desirable network time slots for his TV infomercials.

His new schedule starts with a rally Thursday at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., but is still light compared to the hectic schedules of President Clinton and Republican Bob Dole.