Gerald Posner take on some similarities between Donald Trump and Ross Perot
Even colleagues and friends forget sometimes that I wrote a biography on Ross Perot (Citizen Perot: His Life and Times) that was published when he ran for president in 1996. Trisha Posner and I spent considerable time interviewing Perot in Dallas, and I thought the book was an evenhanded bio, even though it covered both the good and bad of his life.
The NY Times review - titled "Ross Perot Will Not Like This Book" - concluded: "Mr. Posner, who started researching this book when most of the press had lost interest in Mr. Perot, has performed a useful public service with this expose. Anybody who is thinking of voting for the charismatic Texas billionaire ought to read it."
In the past month, I've been talking to several national correspondents about the similarities and differences between outsiders like Perot and this year in Trump. Kevin Diaz, the Houston Chronicle's political reporter, has written a good overview for his paper, "The Echoes of Perot in Trump's Improbable Rise." It's the first time I'm on the record about any of this....
I wonder what former Trump campaign consultant and FB friend Roger Stone thinks of my 3 takes on Trump through a Perot prism?
"There's no doubt that Trump is the inheritor of Ross Perot's straight-talk campaign, but just with a little more in-your-face attitude."
"Perot was selling 'can do,' folksy; Trump is selling 'can do' in-your-face."
"What Trump has going for him that is the same as Perot's DNA is that both come over as authentic. What you see is what you get."
