GET THOSE BIKES IN A ROW

PEOPLE Dallas’s only announced candidate for president walked right into Highland Park Cafeteria without fanfare and ate his jello like an ordinary citizen.

No entourage trails behind this “candidate of the common man.1’ But Dallas’s GEORGE ZIMMERMANN believes that other George can be had, and he’s not worried about the current president’s sky-high approval rating. “That will change.” he says. “Besides, he hasn’t declared yet. Who knows what will happen?”

The 65-year-old El Centra computer instructor says his first act as president will be “to go to Washington, determine where the money is going, and reverse its direction.” Zimmermann will direct it toward educating the poor and building a new society with no homeless and no crime.

Zimmermann’s Utopian inspiration struck in a Tokyo train station where he saw a row of at least 1,000 unlocked bicycles. He asked the obvious question and was told that not one was ever stolen.

How does one go about running for president? First, Zimmermann says, he told his wife. Then he picked his staff and called a news conference. That it wasn’t a major news event didn’t daunt him. “It’s hard to get publicity today if you’re not rich or an idiot,” he says, “Ross Perot’s dog can get his toenails trimmed, and it’s on the news.”

He says he hasn’t decided about a running mate yet, but it won’t necessarily be someone chosen merely to balance the ticket. It might even be a woman, he acknowledges.

Zimmermann says his election to the presidency of the Dallas County Community College District faculty association had nothing to do with his try for the Oval Office.

And will his students treat him any differently now that he is a candidate? “Well, one already called me ’Mr. President,’” Zimmer-mann says, with a wist ful gleam in his eye.