Ross Perot’s run at the US presidency in 1992 was the most successful ever by an independent candidate, and the third most successful by a third-party candidate in history. In an attempt to realign American politics, he then set up the Reform Party, which took 8.4% of the vote at the 1996 election. However, its somewhat broad church of candidates (comprising of Christian fundamentalists, Communists, wrestling commentators and some weird tiny-handed failed real estate developer from New York) was never going to be a platform for full-time success, and has since withered into irrelevancy.
Perot’s political adventures were funded by his riches: he set up a data processing firm, Electronic Data Systems, in 1962, and sold it to GM for $2.4 billion in the early 80s. His presidential run (where he won 18.9% of the vote) in 1992 was built on a libertarian boardwalk: he strongly opposed the Gulf War, was broadly pro-choice (he donated heavily to Planned Parenthood) and had a real hate-boner for NAFTA. Again, imagine a populist politician getting elected in the US on that now…
H. Ross Perot
June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019
Died aged 89 (five picks)