PEROT SCOFFS AT PRESIDENT'S SPEECH : PLEDGE TO RESTRICT CONTRIBUTIONS FROM NONCITIZENS CALLED CYNICAL.

Byline: Brandon Bailey Knight-Ridder News Wire

The leading presidential candidates were talking Friday about campaign reform, but Ross Perot told a Stanford audience that neither President Clinton nor Republican nominee Bob Dole can be trusted on the subject.

``That speech today is one of the most cynical things I ever heard,'' Perot said of Clinton's call for a crackdown on ``soft-money'' contributions and donations from foreign interests.

``He stood in California today and promised all the things we've been proposing for years,'' Perot said. ``It's like Willie Sutton . . . saying `I ain't gonna rob any more banks.' ''

The president promised reform during his 1992 campaign and again during the primary campaign this year - but he ``never delivered,'' Perot charged. Instead, with four days remaining before the election, Clinton is facing growing criticism over donations from U.S. and foreign interests.

Perot, who repeatedly has complained of special-interest influence, derided Dole's recent efforts to attack Clinton's campaign finances. Dole offered Friday to debate Clinton and Perot on the subject.

``Dole wants to debate - Dole's been dipping into the same pork barrel,'' Perot said, adding that he'll debate Dole only if Clinton takes part.

Perot's hourlong speech at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium, laced with his usual mix of dry statistics and colorful one-liners, was part of a last-minute volley of campaign appearances and television ads the Reform Party candidate launched two weeks ago.

Despite drawing 19 percent of the vote in 1992, Perot had been struggling to climb out of single-digit poll results this year. But this week, two national surveys gave him 10 percent to 12 percent.

Perot's speech was a medley of the same tunes he's sung in TV interviews and infomercials over the past five years.

While repeatedly assailing Clinton for alleged pandering to special interests, Perot also focused on the twin issues of federal budget and trade deficits. He warned students in the audience about a projection that the annual federal deficit could reach $4 trillion by 2030.

``By the end of your careers, you'll be paying an 82 percent tax rate'' to pay off the national debts, he told them.

He also warned that mounting trade imbalances will make the United States vulnerable to economic disaster. He told students they should worry about increasing reliance on cheaply made foreign goods, if not for economic reasons, then because products from athletic shoes to popular toys are made by child laborers under exploitive conditions.

``If you don't care about those people, I don't know about you,'' he said to applause. ``They're human beings, and their life is just as precious as every life in this room.''