Let’s Be Done With Fooling Around : Perot jumping in again? Is this any way to run a presidential process?

If Ross Perot is serious about helping solve the federal budget deficit problem, we have a suggestion for him. Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) have proposed that each presidential candidate--separately and on his own--address that issue of issues in an hour of open discussion with two other senators who are not running for reelection. The other two are Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who is leaving the Senate in well-publicized disgust over the government’s failure to address the deficit, and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who astonished the political world when he announced that he was leaving because he had failed to keep a promise to his constituents to do something about the deficit.

Both of these senators are done with fooling around. Their mood is as close as can be found anywhere in the political spectrum to Perot’s let’s-get-under-the-hood-and-fix-the-damn-thing. The Texas billionaire, whether or not he declares his candidacy, ought to participate in the discussions. ABC has stated its willingness to televise the meetings. Gov. Bill Clinton has declared his willingness to accept an invitation if President Bush will do so as well. (So far, Bush has not.) Perot, by participating, would have a chance to call two bluffs at once.

In urging that he participate, we admit that we are calling his own bluff. Is Perot putting us all on when he says that he may re-enter the race because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have addressed the budget deficit issue? They weren’t doing so when he began his undeclared candidacy. They still weren’t doing so when he ended it. Did he really think that his asking them to do so as he withdrew was the necessary push? Wouldn’t staying in the race have been a better way to keep the pressure on? And are we really to believe that the major candidates’ avoidance of this central topic is Perot’s one and only reason for talking about jumping back in? Back in July, he said he was quitting because he couldn’t win. All he could do, he told his bruised volunteers, was throw the race into the House. Is that not still the case?

In one endeavor after another, Ross Perot has demonstrated his taste for dropping in, making a big splash and then dropping out. It looks to us as if he is now planning to drop back into the presidential campaign just long enough to appear in the debates, make his splash and then drop back out. Frankly, if Perot declares that he is, once again, in the race, we suspect his declaration will prove temporary. But as for Perot’s budget ideas, we’d genuinely like to hear about them, for a full hour, with Warren Rudman and Kent Conrad pushing past the colorful metaphors for the grim but indispensable details.