Ross Perot held his summer camp and fawnathon in Dallas a week ago. More than 3,000 of Perot's faithful gathered to listen to the leading political personalities of our time (except Bill Clinton and Al Gore) as they danced around Perot's agenda and expressed their undying admiration for him. Perot has been in partial eclipse since the 1992 election where he gathered 19 percent (20 million votes) of the votes -- more than enough to help elect Clinton. He continues to instill fear into the hearts and minds of party regulars. As a loose cannon with millions to spend and a demonstrated willingness to spend it, quixotic Perot is still a political factor to be reckoned with.

Clinton's reading of the 1992 election is that he won because of Perot. The basic Perot voters calls himself an independent, but most often votes Republican. George Bush agrees with Clinton's reading. So also do Bob Dole and the others in the run for the Republican nomination.

Perot disagrees. In his mind, he drew evenly from both parties. He clings to the notion that his movement is broad enough in appeal to draw equally from both parties together. In his view, "United We Stand" means appealing to American of all types and persuasion, not merely to disgruntled Republicans.

But Perot supporters are no microcosm of America or its politics. Perot's following among blacks and other disaffected minorities is virtually non-existent. The fact is that the people in Dallas were, by and large, angry middle class white suburbanites. Yes, there were a couple of blacks and Hispanics, a few blue collar folks, some gun lovers -- a sprinkling of this and that -- but substantially middle class white Americans who find the eternal truth on television news and talk radio. That's where Perot got most of his vote in 1992 and that's where his strength is still to be found. That's where he siphoned off sufficient votes to defeat George Bush.

Perot and his followers have a multifaceted credo (anti-NAFTA, anti-immigration etc.), but two precepts recur repeatedly: balance the budget and crush the "special interests." All the visiting orators in Dallas genuflected before the balanced budget. Most sinned by trying to obfuscate on the "special interests."

Perot believes that you can't begin to reform government unless you reform the method of electing those who do the governing and the conduct of those who influence the governance. You have to cut out the money cancer in contemporary elections and you have to constrain the pervasive influence of lobbyists. On this one, Perot is right. Money is the mother's milk of modern politics. Until you enforce limits on the raising and spending of political money, you will not alter the power of the "special interests."

Perot knows whereof he speaks. In his presidential race he spent more of his own personal wealth than anyone in our history. Money transformed his campaign into the second most successful third party presidential effort of this century. As Perot viewed it, in spending millions out of his own wealth, he didn't have to surrender his independence of judgment to campaign contributors.

Last June in New Hampshire, President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich made their televised handshake pledge to do something on campaign and lobby reform. That's just about the last we've heard of that. It seems that the whole matter has to be studied for years to come. Back in Dallas last week, Perot made a veiled dig at Clinton, who said that he might appoint Perot to a commission to study the problem. "We don't think a commission is needed to study the problem," Perot Said. "We all know what the problem is." He also chided the Republican presidential hopefuls for "skirting the questions of changing the system of financing political campaigns.,"

Every senator and congressman knows first hand of how rancid the existing campaign finance system is and knows of the power of the Washington lobbyists. Yet most every incumbent shudders at the notion of change. The nature of the existing system is to tilt the process lopsidedly in favor of those already in office. Even in a congressional election like 1994 where a significant number (36) of incumbent House members were defeated, the new members immediately think of themselves as having a vested interest in maintaining the existing slush system.

The eager presidential aspirants came to Dallas to show they were purer than Perot. Yet on one of the two major issues about which he and his followers have the deepest faith, the aspirants were evasive. Sadly, one can be fairly certain about one after effect of the 1996 presidential election: once the votes are in, the level of zeal for campaign spending and lobby reform will be just as it is now: nil to none.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri and a columnist for the Pulitzer Publishing Co.