From: msifry at publicampaign.org Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 17:04:11 -0500 To: msifry at publicampaign.org Subject: Sifry on Reform Party MIME-version: 1.0
Friends and colleagues--here's an advance, pre-edited version of my
report on the Reform Party and the presidential campaign of 2000,
which will be up on Salon's website later tonite.
Micah
-----
Micah L. Sifry
What's wrong with this picture? Just over a week ago, Republican
presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, sporting a cat-ate-the-canary
grin, emerged from a private meeting with Reform Party Governor Jesse
Ventura to banter with the press while trading compliments. Buchanan
applauded Ventura's "courage to run and his tenacity and ability to
win," while Ventura said Buchanan "makes people think."
America's leading right-wing populist, scourge of "corporate killers"
and dark-skinned immigrants alike, making common cause with the
country's hottest new political star and only sitting third-party
governor? Pat Buchanan, fulfilling the dream of his most loyal
followers and abandoning the GOP race to run as a third-party
candidate for president? Relax, folks, it ain't going to happen.
But Buchanan's pilgrimage to Ventura, coupled with the intense
speculation that continues to swirl around Ventura's presidential
ambitions, shows that even without a certain crazy billionaire in the
race (I'm trying not to encourage him), the idea of a third-party bid
for the presidency is being taken a lot more seriously by the press
and the political professionals than ever before.
And this isn't just because whoever is the candidate of the Reform
Party this time will get $12.6 million in public financing for the
general election. Ventura's 1998 victory has made the impossible seem
possible. That, along with a widespread feeling that the cautious,
centrist Big-Money campaigns of Gush and Bore (the Trim Sons of
Different Patrician Fathers) have yet to connect with the voters,
suggests that there's still room for more unconventional candidacies
to take off.
There's certainly a fleeting logic to a Buchanan-Reform bid. Pitchfork
Pat has scored well with many Perot supporters ever since he turned on
the "Eastern Establishment" and became an articulate critic of
free-trade deals like NAFTA and GATT. Those of us who were at Perot's
August 1995 gabfest in Dallas, where a parade of top speakers from
both major parties came to kiss Ross's ring, remember well how
Buchanan wowed the crowd of die-hard United We Stand America members,
bringing them to several standing ovations. "An overwhelming amount of
our supporters think we should go third party," says Bay Buchanan, the
candidate's sister and close adviser. Certainly there's still a base
for him among Perot voters in border states like Texas, Arizona and
California, where nativist fervor still stews, as well as in hard-hit
mid-Western towns of the Rust Belt.
But Buchanan isn't going to bolt, and there's no chance Ventura would
support him. Last October, during the course of a long interview, I
asked Ventura if he admired Buchanan, given that he had also
positioned himself as an outsider in his races against George Bush and
Bob Dole. Ventura grimaced. "He carries too much of a religious
agenda, and I'm a firm believer in separating church and state." He
did offer that Buchanan "had some good ideas, certainly, and he's a
very bright man." But you didn't get swept up in his brigade? "Nooo,"
Ventura replied, drawing out the word for emphasis. Contacted
Thursday, the governor's spokesman John Wodele confimed that
"Ventura's mind hasn't changed about Buchanan."
Nor is there much likelihood that many Reform Party activists want to
see their party taken over by the Christian Right. The party's
national vice chair Pat Benjamin is diplomatic about the idea. "The
more the merrier," she says about Buchanan seeking the party's
nomination. "He obviously agrees with us on economic issues. But we
don't cover social issues and that might be a problem for him," she
adds. Michael Novosel, the party's Southeast regional representative
and treasurer of the Georgia Reform Party, is blunter. "Don't forget
that it was the Republicans' move to the right on religion that pushed
a lot of Reformers out of the GOP. If Buchanan came in to our party,
it would be the beginning of the end. He might bring in a lot of
people, but half the current ones would leave. And any hope of
positioning the party in the center would be over."
Anyway, it's likely that Buchanan is just using the third-party threat
as a card to play against the front-running Bush campaign - which must
be terrified of a rightwing splinter in the general election. Right
now, Buchanan complains, the Bush juggernaut, using its deep network
of allies around the country, is working to shut down all the
pre-election-year straw polls that "gave us our early victories and
momentum in 1996." He points to Florida, where Republican Governor Jeb
Bush, Dubya's brother, has eliminated the straw poll from an important
candidates forum in October; Michigan, where Republican Governor John
Engler has changed the state's primary from a proportional to a
winner-take-all system; and Louisiana, where Republican Governor Mike
Foster is trying to restructure the GOP caucuses that gave Buchanan an
early upset win last time around. Threatening to go third-party may
just give him the leverage he needs in these internal wars. Besides,
it's pretty hard to picture Pat, who semi-denied the Reform Party
rumor on "Inside Politics" on Wednesday, giving up all the status and
income that comes from being a Republican spear-chucker on shows like
Crossfire.
Still, the third-party buzz continues to build. On the right, there is
Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, whose guns-and-abortion
presidential crusade has barely scored with GOPers in his home state.
He's expected to announce any day whether he will jump to the pro-life
U.S. Taxpayers Party. On the left, consumer advocate Ralph Nader is
talking to Greens about running a more substantial campaign than he
did in 1996, and to keep his options open he's already given
permission to the California Greens to enter his name in their
presidential primary. New age author Marianne Williamson has expressed
interest in seeking the Green presidential nomination, and guerrilla
filmmaker Michael Moore is reportedly mulling it over.
And in the middle there is Ventura, who is more popular and
better-known in California than the new governor, Gray Davis,
according to Davis's former pollster Paul Maslin. The ex-Navy Seal and
ex-pro-wrestler keeps denying any presidential ambitions for 2000,
citing his promise to serve out his term and the stress any bid for
higher office would place on his family. The Ventura campaign
team - which has never hidden its hope that Jesse will run in 2004--has
tried to make use of all the grass-roots calls for him to run, setting
up a website to sign up volunteers in the hopes of wooing a credible
candidate into the race. (More than 3000 people have signed up so
far.)
Ventura also keeps deflecting the attention onto _his_ favorite choice
for the Reform Party nomination, retired General Colin Powell. When
the two men crossed paths in May, while Powell was in Minnesota for a
speaking engagement, Ventura floated the idea of their being running
mates. Last week, when he was asked outright on the Montel Williams
show if he would accept a VP nomination, the governor made that offer
more official, announcing, to cheers, "I would do it - but only for
General Powell."
Someone should remind Jesse that Powell has unequivocably ruled out a
presidential run. And, besides, the General has been a loyal
Republican and friend of the Bush family since before the Gulf War.
Indeed, a glance at the $18,415 in campaign contributions made by
Powell since he retired in 1994 shows all but $1,000 of that money
going to Republicans. (The exception was Democrat Doug Wilder,
Virginia's first black governor.) And lo and behold, on April 22,
1999, General Powell wrote a check for $1,000 to George W's
presidential campaign.
This doesn't mean that the Ventura circle has given up on finding a
viable contender to hold the Reform banner in 2000. Dean Barkley,
Ventura's campaign chairman and now his Commissioner of Planning, says
"We've been trying to recruit Lowell Weicker and it's going well - he
hasn't said no." Weicker, a political maverick ever since his days as
the only Republican on the Senate Watergate Committee to go after
President Nixon, left the two-party fold in 1990, when he ran and won
election as an independent for Governor of Connecticut. Since leaving
office after one term, he's dabbled with presidential politics,
joining briefly with iconoclasts like Dick Lamm, former governor of
Colorado, and moderates like Minnesota ex-congressman Tim Penny (and
Bill Bradley) in an attempt to conjure an independent platform in
1996.
Now Weicker is looking at the 2000 race, says Barkley. "He's the
person I'd prefer. He's got an honest, refreshing approach; he doesn't
do polling or focus groups, he just speaks his mind. The separation of
church and state is firmly embedded in his thinking. He's got guts,
charisma and the fire in the belly. He was one of the first to leave
the two parties, and he's a centrist." Would Ventura back Weicker?
Barkley says, "The governors met and they got along. In my opinion,
he'd back him." Weicker was unavailable to comment, but his longtime
aide and campaign manager, Tom D'Amore, says Weicker is far from a
decision to run. "He said he wouldn't rule it out, but he's just as
interested as Jesse in recruiting someone else to run." And, D'Amore
adds, there is still the question of what that crazy billionaire will
decide to do.
The tiny Texan still towers over the third-party scene, despite his
reduced showing as the Reform Party candidate in 1996 and his efforts
to stay out of the spotlight since then. Every serious politician who
might even consider seeking the Reform Party nomination remembers how
Perot treated Dick Lamm last time around. First he assured Lamm that
he wasn't interested in running, then he jumped in right after Lamm
announced his bid. Things went downhill from there, with Perot's
campaign manager running the party's nomination process and Lamm
supporters (among them Barkley and Ventura) complaining that their man
was being railroaded. Perot could do something similar in 2000, and he
has a motive apart from maintaining the leadership of the party he
founded: he holds a grudge against the Bush family.
Had enough of this soap opera? Here's what's next: the Reform Party is
having a planning convention this July, when a new slate of national
leadership will be elected and the party will fine-tune its process
for nominating a presidential candidate. If a pro-Perot slate of
leaders similar to the current team is selected, potential candidates
like Weicker may take that as a danger sign. On the other hand,
because the party now has ballot status in only 17 states, it has
announced that whoever wants to stand for election as its nominee will
first have to qualify as an independent presidential candidate in
enough of the remaining states to win a hypothetical electoral-vote
majority. Which means anyone with real grass-roots support and, say,
the endorsement of Jesse Ventura, could put up a strong fight against
Perot and win. Not only would that be a good thing for the Reform
Party, it might even break open the Gore-Bush contest and turn the
presidential campaign into something other than a money chase. And
that would be good for all of us.