ROSS PEROT WILL BE AN ANSWER TO TRIVIAL PURSUIT

What makes Ross Perot run? Ego, pure and simple. In his first political life, Perot was the Messiah who would deliver America from crass politics. In a country where disenchantment with politics and politicians was and is at an all-time high, Perot was, back in the early summer, something new an alternative to more of the same.

His "it's as simple as that" rhetoric couldn't last forever. The "He's something new" phase became the "Who is he and what's he for?" phase and the Perot candidacy began to fade.

Who is Ross Perot? Is he just a folksy little guy loaded with zest and money? Or is he an egomaniacal autocrat short on intellectual depth, contemptuous of any opinion differing from his? Heading a big company and leading the United States through troubled times are not one and the same.

Perot's knowledge of federal government was essentially limited to those narrow, specific areas where he or his family had particular business dealings in Washington.

On problems such as urban America, the environment, civil rights, civil liberties, foreign policy, agriculture, labor, international trade and most everything else he was a blank slate. He said he needed 60 days to come up with a full platform. He never did.

Instead, Perot made himself into a single issue candidate: balance the budget. Off the top of his head, he thought Germany and Japan ought to give us some money to help out. He suggested that as a realistic solution, but no one took him seriously. He found that balancing the budget wasn't "as simple as that." When his advisers finally figured out the game plan and Perot recognized that balancing the budget is the politics of pain, not the politics of joy, he quit the race not wanting to be "disruptive," he purred.

He published his budget plan in a paperback. It's a serious proposal even if Perot as a candidate isn't. He's back because he knows he let down tens of thousands of supporters. When the polls turned south, when the press got tough, when the talk show honeymoon was over, Ross Perot did a cut-and-run. He chickened out. He wasn't made for the Alamo.

He sat at home in Texas and watched the parade go by. Being left out was too much for him. He would try to recapture the glory days of "Larry King Live." He would no longer be Chicken Ross, but Ross the Budget Balancer. He finally knew what he believed in. He discovered himself a second time.

In reality, he's Ross the Sideshow. No more of this stuff about carrying some states in the Electoral College. No longer the panic about throwing the election in the House of Representatives. No longer the speculation about some bigshot running with him for vice-president. Now it's just Ross, his paperback, his money and his ego.

The same national disenchantment that propelled Perot into the race earlier this year is still out there. The conventions and the political campaigns have not quieted the disquieted. Most of the disenchanted, however reluctantly, will make their choices in the realm of political reality rather than the Perot fantasy.

Ross Perot is destined to be a footnote in political history. Along with John Anderson, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Henry Wallace, Norman Thomas, William Crawford, John Bell and James Weaver, he will be the stuff of Trivial Pursuit.