
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992                   TAG: 9203310219
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEROT NAMES WAR HERO RUNNING MATE

Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot on Monday named retired Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, a former Navy combat pilot and decorated Vietnam War hero, as his temporary running mate in a possible independent bid for the White House.

The move clears the way for volunteers to mount petition drives on Perot's behalf to get him on the ballot; 27 states require independent candidates to name running mates on their ballot petitions.

Perot has said that he will run for president as an independent if volunteers can qualify him for the Stockdale November ballot in all 50 states.

Stockdale, 68, retired from the Navy because of his combat wounds in 1979. He is a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a conservative think tank.

In 1965, Stockdale was shot down over North Vietnam and spent more than seven years in a prisoner-of-war camp. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for trying to kill himself to keep guards from getting information he feared would jeopardize his fellow prisoners.

A new poll, meanwhile, indicates wide support for Perot's entry into the presidential race.

Signaling dissatisfaction with their current choices, one-fifth of registered voters say they would support Perot in a race with President Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found.

In a hypothetical three-way election, Perot drew 21 percent, compared with 37 percent for Bush, and 35 percent for Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, the poll found. What makes Perot's strength even more striking is that only one-third of registered voters now know enough about the industrialist to have an opinion of him.

In a two-way race without Perot, the poll found Bush and Clinton in a virtual dead heat, with the president leading the Democratic front-runner 48 percent to 46 percent. In the struggle for the Democratic nomination, Clinton led 53 percent to 25 percent over Jerry Brown among registered Democrats and independents leaning toward the party.

The poll surveyed 1,521 adults, including 1,233 registered voters, from March 27 to March 29; it has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB