Clinton Failing to Attract Perot Voters, Survey Finds : Politics: Democratic group’s poll shows President is in fact losing ground among Texan’s backers. 50% say he’s too tied to tax, spend policies.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton has made no inroads into the vast bloc of voters who fueled Ross Perot’s candidacy last year and who have grown increasingly skeptical that Clinton can deliver anything more than politics as usual, according to a survey by a moderate Democratic organization.

If anything, Clinton has lost ground among the nearly 20 million voters in the middle of the American political spectrum who supported the Texas billionaire.

The survey of 1,200 Perot voters found that fully 40% of them believe Clinton will be unable to fulfill his campaign promises and consider him too inexperienced for the presidency. Half characterize Clinton as an old-style tax-and-spend Democrat beholden to entrenched interest groups.

The grim news for Clinton comes from the Democratic Leadership Council, a moderate party organization that presented the findings in Washington on Wednesday.

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, the research arm of the DLC, argued that Clinton’s success as President depends on wooing the alienated and militant Perot constituency who constitute the essential swing vote in current American politics.

“The bad news is that the President has not made a lot of headway,” Marshall said. “He still faces a wall of skepticism from the Perot voters.”

The Perot voters are an unusual force, different from the traditional supporters of third-party candidacies in that they remain an identifiable bloc, held together not only by Perot’s continuing visibility but by their alienation from the two-party system.

They are deeply cynical about politicians and the political process, according to Stanley B. Greenberg, who supervised the survey and who is Clinton’s principal poll-taker. The Perot bloc will not be won by rhetorical gimmicks or traditional tactics, but only by concrete action on the issues that drive their discontent, he added.

“They are watching Bill Clinton to see if he succeeds, though they are predisposed to doubt the genuineness of anything that happens in politics,” Greenberg said. “They fully expect a corrupt, gridlocked system to keep any leader from succeeding and helping people.”

Greenberg also conducted focus group interviews with 800 Perot voters, who said that Congress represents everything wrong with American politics. They described Congress as a spendthrift collection of “liars,” “crooks” and “lawyers,” while Perot was seen as honest, frugal and action-oriented.

Yet Perot voters have doubts about Perot as well, describing him as “unreliable,” “unpredictable,” a “quitter.” Many cite his abandonment of his presidential campaign last July as evidence that he lacks the temperament for national leadership.

One of the more surprising findings is that deficit reduction is not the chief policy priority of the Perot crowd, even though that continues to be Perot’s overriding theme. Instead, the deficit is seen as a symptom of deeper problems.

“They see the deficit as a symbol of irresponsibility,” Greenberg said. “It means the country’s problems are out of control. . . . They think the deficit crowds out all the other good things the government ought to be doing.”

What the Perot voters really want to see is economic renewal and a radical change in the way the government does business. And therein lies Clinton’s opportunity, said DLC President Al From.

If Clinton can show substantial progress in creating jobs and attacking entrenched interests in Washington, he can win over these skeptical voters, From said.

Clinton political adviser Paul Begala said that the study confirms what he has sensed for months about the Perot constituency. “They don’t see the world ideologically,” Begala said. “They are suspicious of Bill Clinton but they’re suspicious of Ross Perot, too. They want economic change and they want political reform.”