What were your thoughts on Ron Paul, Bob Dole and/or Ross Perot?

[Twisted Crow]

Basically, I would like some opinions on one, either or all of them.
Perot and Dole were sort of early to before my time. I don't have a stake on this topic, I am more just interested in what others saw in these people.

I prefer your own words as opposed to maybe Wikipedia's take on them.

[Oniya]

As I personally recall, Perot struck me as a 'vanity run', much like Bloomberg and Steyer strike me today.  Not really doing it because he wanted the job, but because it was something that was 'there'.  And honestly, that was about as seriously as the political coverage of the day took him.  It was 'Clinton versus Bush.  Oh yeah, and Ross Perot.'

[Callie Del Noire]

I didn’t like Perot from the start, he had this ‘slick weasel’ vibe and the more I learned by his past the less I trusted his appeals to be something fresh to the game.

1. There is a story that he was the guy who named President Clinton ‘Slick Willy’. Not anything I can prove to a definitive degree.
2. He and the President Bush had a go around over a corporate purchase that President Bush’s testimony as a director of the CIA killed (Texas Instruments, I think) that right off.
3. His continue search for POW/MIA troops soured relationships with the Regan Whitehouse, which is also a point of contention with Bush

His follow up attempts with the Reform Party turned out to be a personality thing.. he wanted to be the big guy in the room.

[HannibalBarca]

My first election was Bush/Dukakis when I was 18.  One of only two times I voted for a Republican for President.  When Perot was running the first time, I voted for him.  By then I was more of a moderate.  But during his second run, he revealed some of his tempermental snippiness during a debate or questioning by journalists and I didn't want someone with that personality to be in the White House.

Dole...he was a standard 80s Conservative.  Bland, though fairly honest as politicians go.  He was out of his league against Clinton.

Ron Paul...by that time I was very left wing, mature, and saw through his libertarian persona.