After a months-long battle with leukemia, former two-time independent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot has died at the age of 89.
“Ross Perot, the ground-breaking businessman and loving husband, brother, father and grandfather, passed away early Tuesday at his home in Dallas, surrounded by his devoted family,” a Perot family statement said.
In his later years, Perot was more known for his political endeavors, even being lampooned regularly on TV shows like Saturday Night Live. Perot stances on political issues crossed party lines, some appealing to Democrats and some to Republicans.
He shocked the establishment political parties during the 1992 presidential election by receiving nearly 19 percent of the vote. Fox Business reported that Perot’s 19 percent was “the biggest percentage for a third-party hopeful in 80 years.
According to Reuters:
His outsider campaign, much of it financed by his own money, featured 30-minute television “infomercials.” With his charts, self-deprecating humor and down-home economic remedies, Perot led a Gallup Poll five months before the election with 39 percent, compared to 31 percent for incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush and 25 percent for Democrat Bill Clinton.
Perot ran for president again in 1996, but only received a little over eight percent.
Before any of his business or political world accomplishments, Perot served in the Navy after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1953.
Perot also became a billionaire at the age of 38 following his move to create Electronic Data Systems Inc (EDS). Reuters also reported that EDS handled “data processing for customers such as the Medicare system, NASA and other government entities.”
As the Dallas Morning News reported, Perot is survived by his wife, Margot, five children, and 16 grandchildren.
Rest in peace.
And just because I know all of you who are old enough to remember are thinking about those "infomercials" Perot did during his 1992 presidential run, here ya go: