PANEL DECIDES PEROT CAN'T JOIN IN DEBATES.

Byline: Neil A. Lewis The New York Times

The Commission on Presidential Debates announced Tuesday that it believed Ross Perot had no realistic chance of winning the presidential election and therefore would not be invited to join President Clinton and Bob Dole in this year's debates.

The Perot campaign immediately protested the decision, calling it a travesty and promised a lawsuit by the end of the week to try to overturn it.

The decision was welcomed by the Dole campaign, but aides to Clinton, who have made no secret of their hope that Perot's presence would dilute Dole's chances of making gains, said they would continue to insist that Perot be included in at least one debate.

The bipartisan 10-member panel, which has sponsored the presidential and vice presidential debates in the past two national elections, invited Perot to take part in the 1992 debates. He received 19 percent of the vote four years ago, and unlike in 1992, he has agreed to accept $29 million in federal campaign money this time around.

But Perot is now running in single digits in most polls, and a survey of political scientists and journalists turned up no one who believed that Perot could win the election or carry even a single state, according to the commission. It would not release the names of those surveyed.

Frank Fahrenkopf, a commission co-chairman and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Perot met some of the commission's criteria for inclusion, like being on the ballot and having organizations in all 50 states.

But the commission was designed to provide the public with debates featuring only those who might actually become president, not those with merely theoretical chances, Fahrenkopf said.

``Participation is not extended to candidates because they might prove interesting or entertaining,'' said Paul Kirk, the commission's other co-chairman and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The commission, which was set up in 1987 by the two major political parties, can set the conditions only for the debates it will sponsor. The candidates are not obliged to accept its conditions, nor are they required to participate, although that could have a political cost.

After the decision was announced, Russell Verney, the national director of the Perot campaign, told reporters, ``This just exposes the two-party system for what it is. They want to protect themselves and do not want the American people to see a vigorous debate.''

The decision is widely seen as a potential boost to Dole, who is trailing Clinton by wide margins in voter preference polls with less than two months until Election Day.

In Phoenix on Tuesday, Dole told reporters he was looking forward to debating Clinton one-on-one.

Clinton, for his part, campaigning Tuesday in Ypsilanti, Mich., said of Perot: ``I enjoyed having him in there in 1992. I thought he made a valuable contribution.''