Ross Perot
Perot’s bizarre 1992 presidential campaign, which despite its flagrant amateurishness (he sort of stumbled into running for president in the spring, withdrew from the race in July, and then re-entered it in October) garnered nearly 20 million votes, was in some ways an obvious precursor to Donald Trump’s far more nefarious and successful run 24 years later.
My eulogy in full: As demagogues go, I’ve seen worse.
Please share your memories of the diminutive billionaire whose name will forever be synonymous with the phrase “giant sucking sound.”
ETA: I see Erik got here first, but I’m keeping this post so that my eulogy can be compared to Pericles’s.