Money Can’t Buy The White House Button It, Ross Perot Hasn’t Earned The Honor.

With all due respect for Ross Perot’s long campaign to buy his way into the White House, he does not belong there, and he does not belong in the presidential debates, either.

Paul Kirk, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, put the matter in perspective the other day. He said: “This is not candidates’ night in D.C. This is the endgame. This is the Super Bowl. And in order to get to the Super Bowl, you have to obtain certain victories along the way.”

Say what you will about Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, it is beyond debate that each boasts a long career in elected public office, each has submitted repeatedly to the judgment of the voters and each has emerged, still breathing, from a nationwide gantlet of investigative reporters, caucuses and primary elections. The next president will be one of these two men.

Someday, a viable third party with a real crack at governing may emerge and if one does many will applaud. But for now, like it or not, ours is a two-party system.

Perot built his party by paying for its creation and guiding its selection of himself - hardly a method worthy of a democracy’s respect. He does have followers. But his poll ratings have plunged by half since March and today just 5 percent to 8 percent of Americans say they’d vote for him.

The criteria for a spot in the debates boil down to this: Can the candidate win?

It’s not even clear, to some, that Dole can win.

Yet for Americans who take seriously the election of a president, the business at hand is to compare Dole’s vision and qualifications with those of Clinton. This is a messy, difficult undertaking - as it always is, every four years.

Notwithstanding Clinton’s recent scramble to the right, there are stark differences between the two, on matters of profound importance.

The debates offer Americans a final, prime-time chance to analyze and choose. Questioners at the debates - as well as the printed, verbal and electronic uproar in forums outside the hall - make it impossible for any valid issue to be ignored. Clinton doesn’t want to talk about his character deficit and Dole is floundering in his pizzaz deficit, but Americans are talking about those things. The two finalists don’t need any also-ran’s jabs to know all that they must address to win.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see “Now lissen here, let’s all talk plain”

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