(FORTUNE Magazine) – TO HENRY ROSS PEROT's growing band of supporters, there's no doubt about it: His stellar business skills are convincing proof that he ought to be President. As campaign volunteer Nell Dee ''Bunny'' Vanderpool puts it in a bit of doggerel that the Perot people in Texas delight in handing out: He knows how to balance books / We don't want the cheats and crooks / Take my advice / Don't think about it twice. But history offers no guarantee that being fabulously successful in business necessarily makes for a good Commander-in-Chief. On the contrary, Abe Lincoln's general store shut down after a year. F.D.R. fronted for a zeppelin company that went bust. And then there was Richard Nixon's foray into fruit: In 1940 he and other investors started Citra-Frost, a marketer of frozen orange juice. With Nixon as CEO, it went phhhht 18 months later. How, then, should an intrigued but undecided voter evaluate Perot's fitness for the White House? So far, the traditional method -- examining his positions on the issues -- doesn't get you very far. In a two-hour interview with FORTUNE, Perot was lively and voluble about his businesses and his management philosophy. But when it came to policies and political philosophy, the range of what he hadn't thought about was, well, striking. Here's a sample. FORTUNE: ''So, how do you feel about the federal government? Is it too big, in absolute terms? Ought it to be smaller? Is it, maybe, involved in aspects of American life where it has no business being? Or is it, maybe, not involved enough in other areas, where it ought to be?'' Perot: ''Interesting question. Never thought about it. Have to think about it.'' While he's thinking, probably the best way to sort out how you'd feel about the prospect of Ross Perot as President is to ask yourself this question: Would you want this man as your boss? Nothing so illuminates Perot's character as a detailed look at the traits, attitudes, and habits of mind that have propelled him through four decades of business life. Start with tenacity. When Perot wants something, whether it's the presidency or a ham sandwich, he wants it. Badly. A passion for winning radiates from him like heat off a stove. One of his favorite maxims, which he quotes every chance he gets, is from his hero Winston Churchill: ''Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never.'' How tenacious is he? After he had repurchased and begun restoring the Texarkana house he grew up in, contractors discovered they could not completely remove paint that interim owners had added to the brick exterior. Perot suggested various ideas. None worked. Finally he asked if it would be possible to take the walls apart, brick by brick, then turn each brick around, so its unpainted interior face would be pointing out. Er . . . yes, said the contractor, that could be done. It was. True, Perot does sometimes get frustrated, take his marbles, and go home. But that happens only when the man whose boyhood nickname was Henry the Hammer concludes that the forces keeping him from his goal are beyond his control. He clearly felt that way at General Motors, to which he sold Electronic Data Services (EDS), the company he founded and turned into a fortune. Despite joining GM's board and becoming its largest shareholder, he got nowhere in his / campaign to shake up the company. So after two years he took a $700 million payoff and walked away from an organization he once described as a place where, when people saw a snake, they organized a committee on snake killing. The Perot Doctrine? See snake; kill snake. He now speaks about Congress in much the same way that he denounced GM management: It's not responsive; it's not doing what needs to be done. Skeptics believe that as President a testy, impatient Perot would be no more successful working with a recalcitrant Congress than he was with GM's chairman, Roger Smith. Maybe. But he would also bring some powerful assets to the task of getting things done in Washington. For one thing, he's a pretty great communicator, far more of a Ronald Reagan than a George Bush. Usually working without notes, he wins listeners over with a one-two punch of humor and folksy common sense. When he needs a set speech, he writes it. Says Tom Luce, Perot's attorney for 20 years and now a top political adviser: ''He doesn't delegate communication. I don't believe I've drafted a letter for Ross in 20 years.'' Perot was such a hit when he addressed the National Governors' Association five years ago that the chairman told him he ought to run for President. The chairman? Bill Clinton. Perot is also one hell of a salesman. He learned that art at the knee of his cotton-dealing, horse-trading dad, refined it at IBM (where he was one of Big Blue's top commission earners), and cashed in on it by founding EDS. Two years ago Bob Wallach, president of Robert Plan, an auto insurance company, signed a $100 million contract with Perot Systems, the computer services company Perot founded after he left GM (which kept EDS). Wallach says the owner's personal salesmanship swayed his decision: ''I know it's theater, but when he meets you at the airport and says to the people around him, 'Excuse me, but I have to go meet my good friend Bob,' you feel great. He also gave me his home number.'' That kind of personal touch would go down well with Congressfolk too. Would Perot be a micromanager, like Jimmy Carter, or a big-picture guy, like Ronald Reagan? A little bit of both, says Pat Horner, president of Perot Systems. He and the boss speak daily by phone. What do they discuss? ''It's both ends of the spectrum,'' says Horner. ''Maybe he was out driving and got some idea he wants to tell me. Or he ran into so-and-so, who might be a good sales prospect. He's got incredible recall. Other times we talk strategy.'' When Perot looks at the big picture, big is the operative word. Big and visionary. That's the moral of the oft-told story of EDS, founded in 1962 with $1,000 borrowed from his wife, after he failed to convince IBM that there was a huge market not just in selling people computers but in helping them figure out how to use them as well. Soon after EDS went public six years later, it was valued at $375 million. Perot hasn't had any other successes on the order of EDS, but he is still thinking big. His current businesses, known collectively as the Perot Group, all report to That Office. Probably you've seen it. 60 Minutes visited. So did David Frost. It's the office that looks as though Frederic Remington is having a garage sale. One of those businesses is Alliance Airport, a new, $50 million airfield northwest of Dallas. Alliance, located near 17,000 acres of Perot-owned land, meets many of the tests for the kind of enterprise Ross likes: It's original, it's huge, it's daring, it has the chance to be worldclass (a favorite accolade). Perot and son Ross Jr., 33, who runs the project, tout Alliance as the world's first ''industrial'' airport (meaning no passenger traffic). They are marketing it to manufacturers who want to locate factories right by the runway, so they can receive parts and ship finished goods by air. IN DEVELOPING Alliance, the Perot Group consulted with ''the best experts'' -- something Ross says he'd do regularly as President -- advisers in real estate, urban planning, and economics (including renowned economist Lester Thurow). When the experts agreed that the concept might fly -- and boost the Perots' land values to boot -- the Perot Group didn't dither. At the FAA's behest, it donated 5,000 acres for the runway. The government paid for construction. Because the Perots footed the bill for design and planning and took responsibility for gaining the necessary permits, Alliance was completed in just four years -- perhaps a record for a public-private project this size. American Airlines has already built a $480 million maintenance facility at Alliance. While the Perots are still looking for tenants, a few significant ones have climbed aboard: Food Lion, Nestle, Santa Fe Railway, and Ishida Aerospace Research, whose parent is based in Nagoya, Japan. Ross Jr., no mean salesman himself, says he keeps a herd of longhorns and buffalo on the property, mainly because ''they're great for marketing -- the Japanese love them.'' But David Kocurek, Ishida Aerospace's president, says the Japanese were impressed by a lot more than buffalo: ''When the Perots tell you something will get done, you can count on it.'' The Perots hope Alliance will be the template for other big construction projects requiring public-private cooperation. Ross Jr. envisions developing a system of industrial airports around the planet. He's looking at projects in Africa and Russia, and reports that ''President Aquino wants us to privatize Subic Bay.'' Another megaproject that's still in the design phase shows the Perot Group's talent for coming up with unconventional ideas. Like other states, California wants to build new highways but lacks the money. Solution: Bring in the private sector, in this case a consortium of investors and builders headed by the Perots. After building a road for $650 million and giving it to the state, the developers can collect tolls for 35 years. Bidders from all over the world, many far bigger than the Perot Group, submitted proposals. The Perots won, in large part, because the state's Department of Transportation liked their money-saving idea of building the road above an existing right of way: a creek bed. It will be, in effect, an 11.2-mile-long bridge, imposing minimal environmental impact. Such victories delight Perot Sr., who relishes beating the pants off competitors twice his size, especially ones staffed by smarties. That pleasure, in turn, explains much of his appeal to the sorts of Americans who don't normally cotton to billionaires. Yes, he has consorted with lobbyists -- probably has even bought them alligator shoes. Yes, he enjoys expensive toys. No, he is not so much the country boy that on summer afternoons he runs barefoot in between his Remingtons. But still, behind that golden collar pin bobs an Adam's apple baked under Texarkana's sun. Ross Perot is the same prickly little guy who broke his nose breaking horses. He is a populist -- the genuine article. This populism informs hiring at the Perot Group, whether for the 80-person real estate operation or the 1,800 employees at Perot Systems. Perot likes a hungry man or woman from Baylor better than some tubby Ivy Leaguer with an MBA. He understands the lean ones, trusts them more, and figures he'll get more work out of them. Says Jim Leslie, a Dallas real estate developer: ''Perot employs serious individuals. They're not the absolute brightest Rhodes Scholars, but they're committed to the work ethic.'' + In a Perot White House not a sparrow would fall, personnel-wise, that the boss wouldn't know about. On one wall of That Office hang some petulant letters (framed) from Thomas Edison, asking his office manager why workers are just lollygagging around the laboratory, lying on tables. Edison suggests each man be given a questionnaire to find out what he does. Perot, approvingly, says this shows Edison didn't spend all his time inventing, as is popularly believed; he kept one eye on his employees. BUT PEROT doesn't limit his interest to how workers perform on the job. At his companies, he also upholds standards of behavior: Among them, employees cannot discuss their salaries; infidelity in marriage can be grounds for dismissal. (When Perot briefly owned the Wall Street brokerage du Pont Glore Forgan in the early 1970s, an office joke went: ''I'm having this terrible dream. I'm in bed with Ross's wife, and I'm telling her my salary.'') A haircut and a neat appearance are expected, if not literally a suit and starched white shirt. Perot can be a martinet. Arthur Gensler Jr., head of San Francisco's Gensler & Associates, the largest architectural firm in the U.S., designed data storage facilities for Perot at EDS. He vividly recalls the experience. ''You'd get a message: 'Mr. Perot will arrive at 7:27; you will meet him at the door; there will be no smoking; he will make a 2 1/2-minute presentation; he will have two minutes for questions; he will walk out the door at 7:32.' He made the Marine Corps look flexible. People would shiver in their boots. But he accomplished a tremendous amount in a very efficient way.'' At the same time Perot instills loyalty and devotion in the people under him. A longtime employee says simply, ''I'd walk through a brick wall for the guy.'' He doesn't just tolerate people unlike himself: He works well with them. Says Mort Meyerson, who for many years was Perot's right hand at EDS: ''Look at me. I didn't go to the Naval Academy. I'm a Jew. I collect modern art. And I live in a house like this.'' With a wave of his arm, he incorporates by reference the Power House, once a Dallas Power & Light Co. substation, now the Meyersons' $2.9 million Architectural Digest-quality residence. And a wacky one it is too. Three stories above the living room floor, an industrial crane runs overhead. His ex-boss, says Meyerson, expects subordinates to argue with him. He may dictate their dress, but not their thoughts. Behind closed doors, Perot and EDSers squabbled lustily, enjoyed it, and felt their decisions were better for the experience. But once the doors were open, Meyerson admits, they were expected to present a front to the world every bit as uniform as was their dress. Is Perot a good listener? To a point. When he started his crusade to give Texas worldclass public education, says Tom Luce, ''he spent three months not commenting on what he thought ought to be done. He held hearings and meetings all over the state with parents, teachers, and experts to find out what they thought was needed.'' This is very much like what Perot says he would do in tackling problems as President. Once the man finishes listening and makes up his mind on a course of action, though, you might as well paste a closed sign on his forehead. Says a former EDS subordinate: ''You can argue with him if you've got new information, but don't come back to Ross and try to argue a second time on the same set of facts.'' Perot loves things military to an inordinate degree. Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell were reportedly on his short list for running mate but declined. (The Perot campaign denies they were approached.) In private conversation he likes to toss off bits of supposedly hush-hush military information (''Now this has to be deep, deep off the record'') the same way other people twirl Phi Beta Kappa keys. He often speaks as if he's reading from the Military-Industrial Complex Handbook. On his second Larry King appearance, when asked about Republican dirty tricks, Perot said that yes, he had received reports of ''counterinsurgency activity.'' When a caller said something that tickled his funny bone, he responded: ''Ha, ha, ha. That's a real thermocouple.'' He opposed the U.S. war with Iraq, mostly because he thought it unnecessary. All the U.S. really had to do, he has said, was to ''take out'' Hussein personally. And while he agrees not everybody should have to serve in wartime, he told FORTUNE, those who don't should pay a special surcharge -- a war tax -- so they can't just sit home in their Barcaloungers, watching it free, painlessly, on television. His authoritarian instincts make a lot of Perot watchers nervous. But his egoism doesn't prevent him from hiring capable lieutenants and delegating. At EDS, Perot built a mighty team that in no way depended on his presence. EDS sales, post-Perot, have grown more than eightfold in seven years. Says Howard Anderson, managing director of the Yankee Group, a high-tech consulting company: ''To his credit, he left in place a superb organization there. It wasn't warm and fuzzy, but then neither is Ross.'' Perot is not hung up on hierarchy. Says a former EDS employee: ''He reaches down in an organization and looks for the person who has the ability to get the job done. He'll even skip over more senior people.'' That approach holds true today at Perot Systems, where project leaders are picked by level of expertise, not job title. In practice this means that the person who's your boss today could be your subordinate tomorrow -- and vice versa. ''It really keeps you on your toes,'' says account manager Stan Rodimon, with some understatement. Perot's meritocratic instincts clearly outweigh his populist impulses. During his campaign for school reform, parents worried that creating special classes for the brightest kids smacked of elitism. ''Fine,'' said Perot sarcastically. ''Let's put all the fat girls on the drill team. Let's let everyone play quarterback.'' Nor is the feisty billionaire's reputation as a bridge burner entirely deserved. Roger Smith, it's safe to say, doesn't get his Christmas card. But Perot stays in touch with a variety of friends at organizations he's left, including some at GM. For example, he maintains a dialogue with Saturn's President Richard ''Skip'' LeFauve, who says Perot befriended the startup operation and followed up on commitments he made to it even after his split with GM. Okay, now, let's see: Ross Jr. runs the family real estate business. Pat Horner runs Perot Systems. Most of Perot's $3.3 billion fortune is in T-bills and bonds (see box). So before he started running for President, when Ross Sr. wasn't meeting potential clients like Bob Wallach at the airport . . . what was he doing? Plenty. At Lake Texoma, on the Texas-Oklahoma border, and in Bermuda, he keeps boats. Fast ones. Cigarette boats. He is said to resent the amount of attention paid George Bush's Cigarette boat (Cigarette envy?). He likes his boats so much that sometimes, according to Leon Derebery of Derebery's Marine, he flies the 120 miles from Dallas in his helicopter just to make a few passes in them for 45 minutes or so, and then flies home. Other times he and Ross Jr. race each other across the water -- Junior in a helicopter, Senior in the boat. Sometimes the boat wins. Says Derebery: ''He got it going so fast one time he delaminated the hull.'' Here, too, Perot has been a pioneer: ''He was one of the first to try to install turbine engines on a boat like that, but it never ran the way he wanted it. He told me once that with all the testing he'd spent upwards of $1 million in research.'' AWAY FROM his boat, Perot likes to spend free time with his family -- besides Ross Jr., four daughters, four grandchildren, and wife Margot. When Gail Sheehy starts nosing around, she will find that the Perots are happily married -- so much so that they still hold hands and dance. Maryln Schwartz, longtime columnist for the Dallas Morning News, predicts that Margot, as First Lady, ''will have the appeal of Barbara Bush, except with better jewelry.'' The Perots are not listed in the Dallas social register and are not known for throwing lavish parties. What are his biggest liabilities? Perot can be prickly about criticism and ham-handed in handling the media. When he took exception to a National Review item about his famous rescue of EDS employees imprisoned in Iran, he called editor and publisher William F. Buckley Jr. and asked that it be dropped. Buckley told him the issue had gone to press. Fine, said Perot, just kill the whole issue, and send him the bill. A now-flabbergasted Buckley explained this wasn't the way his magazine did business. Perot, he says, expressed surprise. In a more serious charge, the editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which had written critically about the Alliance Airport project, claimed in May that back in 1989 Perot had pressured him with compromising photographs of an employee that would embarrass the paper. (Perot confirms he called the editor, but says he did nothing more than express displeasure.) His political opponents hope to find proof that Perot's fierceness has at times led him to cross the line between hardball and illegality. So far all they've got are allegations, which they are happily spreading. Sit quietly in the waiting room outside the office of Fred Meyer, head of the Republican Party in Texas, and you can hear one side of conversations like this: ''Now this is absolutely a rumor -- no confirmation -- it may be an absolute lie. Story is that Ross Perot had the book on this guy and said to him, 'Do you want me to send this to your home, or do you want to settle?' Yeah. Yeah! Unbelievable hardball, this guy.'' It's not impossible that between now and November some kind of smoking gun could turn up. But many who know Perot well bet that won't happen. Explains a former Perot insider: ''He knows if he ever were found out to have done something wrong, it would circumscribe his power to get results. That's what he lives for.'' At no time has the man ever had a kind word to say for management. What he admires is leadership. When and if Perot succeeds in getting Congress and the presidency to dance together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (as he's fond of saying he will do), there's not much doubt who'll be Fred. Whatever the next few months hold, Ross Perot has already inched closer to becoming America's second-shortest President than anyone would have thought possible six months ago. (He's 5 foot 6; James Madison was 5 foot 4.) The odds he will make it are still long. But if he doesn't self-destruct and if voters remain eager for a guy in the White House who is supremely good at raising hell, who knows? It might not be too early for a citizen to lay in a supply of starched white shirts. A shoeshine couldn't hurt. No hanky-panky. And while you're at it, mister -- get a haircut.