IT MAY BE PARTY TIME FOR PEROT

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT/BAYVILLE

Substituting for Larry King one night last week, Ross Perot gently prodded Bob Dole to proclaim his presidential candidacy on CNN. The Senate majority leader did not miss a beat: ``Maybe I should ask you that question. We could both announce it right here, together.'' That genial exchange underscored a vital issue about 1996. A Perot campaign would revive Bill Clinton's prospects while hurting Dole or any other Republican. Even as Perot maintains his tease, his advocacy group, United We Stand America, is seeking to form a new, center-right party.

Though still in gestation, the party would have the potential to produce independent candidacies for offices at all levels in many states. The new gambit is a dramatic reversal of strategy. Two years ago, Perot overruled a faction in his following that sought to develop a party. Some activists left in frustration.

This month, however, state directors of his U.W.S.A.--hired and paid by the national headquarters in Dallas--began organizing public meetings at the county level, ostensibly to canvass the group's rank and file, as well as anyone else who cares to attend, on whether they think formation of a new party is in the national interest. In spirit, the ploy resembles Perot's 1992 appeal for public guidance on whether to run for President.

A typical session, last Wednesday night in exurban Bayville, New Jersey, attracted 93 voters despite rain and fog. Norris Clark, the full-time state director, told the group, ``We're talking about a major new party--national-- right up there with the Republicans and Democrats.'' Though the G.O.P.'s Contract with America picks up several of U.W.S.A.'s causes, he pointed out, it omits others. When he asked for opinions from the floor, virtually every voice condemned the major parties as hopelessly out of touch. Agnes James, 58, a real estate agent with five children, promised, ``We will provide a focus for people who are disgusted with their government and unable to express their frustration in other ways.'' For James, and several other Perot followers in New Jersey, the exercise is already real. They are running for the state assembly on the ticket of the New Jersey Conservative Party, an infant group that plans to contest all 80 seats in the lower house this year. If it captures 10% of the popular vote, the party will be entitled to its own ballot position for national and state offices in 1996.

Local meetings like the one in Bayville will occur for two months, but already the sentiment is clear. Says Russell Verney, U.W.S.A.'s new executive director: ``There is a great deal of energy out there behind a new party.'' It will take all that energy and more to overcome the many legal and procedural obstacles thrown up by states, but Perot is yearning for a new crusade.

--By Laurence I. Barrett/Bayville