Perot supporters collecting signatures

ROCKLAND — Businessman Ross Perot has walked into the hearts of some area residents like it was Texas.

Perot, the Texas billionaire who has pledged to run for president if enough of his fellow citizens demand it, has found a willing group of supporters in Knox County.

Local coordinator Charles Culpepper, of Camden, said the signature drive to get Perot on the ballot was spreading like prairie fire.

“We received the first forms last Thursday and had volunteers distributing them from Islesboro to Port Clyde and throughout the county that day,” Culpepper said.

Culpepper said the fervor for the Lone Star state’s Perot was so intense not even a heart attack could slow down one volunteer, John Pearce of Rockland.

Culpepper described Pearce as “a strong and long-time Perot admirer who was the first volunteer to pick up petition forms.” That same day while petitioning in his neighborhood Pearce was felled by a heart attack. Culpepper said that when the rescue team arrived, “John looked up from his position on the living room floor and said, `Are you fellows registered voters? How about signing the Ross Perot petition?”

Pearce, who is in his 70s and is a former Navy carrier-based pilot, was taken by the ambulance team to Penobscot Bay Medical Center where he remains in stable condition.

The response to Perot’s non-candidacy was just as intense at the Rockland IGA, where supporters started collecting signatures on Wednesday. Richard Anderson said he signed the petition because it was time to send a message to Washington.

“I don’t see why not,” Anderson said. “I think they need a transfusion down in Washington and he’s the guy to do it. They need to clean house down there…As my father used to say, `there’s nothing wrong with that city that a few good funerals wouldn’t cure.”

Manning the signature table was Donald Cheney, of Rockport. Cheney, a registered Republican said he supported Perot because he had lost faith with the current administration.

“I don’t want to see us become a third world country. We can’t keep spending and you can’t spend what you don’t have,” Cheney said. “I can’t say mine is not a protest vote but what I think is that we really need a businessman down there running things. This guy is saying we can control the spending, stop the bleeding.”

Perot supporters will be collecting signatures this weekend at the Rockland and Camden IGA’s as well as by going door to door throughout other Knox County towns.

Culpepper said 4,500 signatures were needed to place Perot’s name on the November ballot and that Knox County volunteers had already gathered more than 500 signatures.