Remember Ross?

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT WASHINGTON

LOOKING JUST LIKE A CANDIDATE IN search of TV coverage, Ross Perot turned up in Homestead, Florida, last week to commiserate with hurricane victims. In Phoenix, Arizona, meanwhile, Perot supporters held a midnight rally to start the petition drive that will place his name on the state ballot in November. Elsewhere, diehard Perotistas, with financial support from their billionaire hero, are completing work that is almost certain to give voters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia the chance to vote for a man who ostensibly abandoned his campaign for President in July. At Perot's Dallas office, his aide Sharon Holman says, "Everyone's on hold, waiting."

Waiting for what? Perot's political headquarters in North Dallas has been stripped down. Rows of cubicles stand empty, and the phone bank that once accommodated 100 lines now has only 12. More than 400 calls a day still come in, many from people who want Perot to compete. While most supporters took Perot at his word in July, thousands of others, disillusioned with conventional politics, stayed in a movement that seemed to promise fresh approaches.

Perot had no firm strategy when he abruptly fled the race two months ago. Then, faced with headlines that branded him a quitter, and with the anger of disappointed loyalists, he quickly improvised a strange quasi-candidacy. At a cost of $480,000 a month, he is maintaining 64 field offices in addition to the Dallas headquarters. They operate as part of a new advocacy organization, United We Stand, which is also the title of a book he brought out in August. The slim volume contains the austere economic plan, including tax increases and spending cuts, that Perot never announced while he was campaigning. It currently tops the New York Times paperback best-seller list.

For states such as California, which require an official declaration of candidacy to get on the ballot, Perot has sent the necessary documents. Yet the day before his letter arrived in Sacramento, Perot told a TV interviewer that the chances he would actually run were "very remote, not even worth talking about." His most zealous supporters, however, refuse to take what Perot now says at face value. Says Orson s followers, he said, would monitor the candidates to assess how well they toe the policy lines he has drawn. If Bush and Clinton both satisfy him -- an unlikely prospect -- Perot would stand down. If only one does, he might endorse that candidate. If they both fail his test, he implied, he might heed the calls from remaining fans to compete.

One scenario envisages a condensed guerrilla campaign, waged by TV commercials and appearances on the talk-show circuit that he exploited effecte, Clinton benefited initially. But recent polls indicate that many of the voters now uncommitted are Republicans who favored Perot last spring. If they drift toward Bush, as some analysts believe probable, Perot could attempt to court them with a targeted effort in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain states.

Whatever his strategy during the end game, Perot seems to be enjoying his ! mischievous role. He has spent about $13 million of his own money on his political movement this year. For that kind of cash, he apparently feels entitled to at least some influence.

With reporting by Edwin M. Reingold/Los Angeles and Richard Woodbury/Dallas