Reformers' decision? It's doom or bloom

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By HOWARD TROXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2000

Glory is fleeting.

Florida's own Jack Gargan barely had a chance to get his business cards printed before he was sacked as national chairman of the Reform Party.

Last weekend in Nashville, the national committee of the party created by Ross Perot gave Gargan the boot by a vote of 109-31. He was replaced by Pat Choate, who was Perot's running mate in 1996.

The most common analysis was that Perot's folks -- the Perotistas -- were taking back their party from the Jesse Ventura wing.

Ventura, the governor of Minnesota, quit the party on Friday, calling it "hopelessly dysfunctional." He is disgusted that Pat Buchanan might win the party's presidential nomination.

Gargan, who had Ventura's support, was ousted the next day.

The party then put out a Soviet-style statement under the headline, "Reform Party Corrects Course, Takes Care of Business in Nashville."

The question now arises:

If the Reform Party is doomed either to remain Ross Perot's plaything, or to serve as Pat Buchanan's ego-vehicle, is this the end of its hopes as a legitimate third party?

When you put it that way, the answer is yes. The party's best hope is not to put it that way.

The dissatisfaction that led millions of Americans to vote for Perot in 1992 and 1996 still exists. But in 2000, both major parties have produced their own "reform" candidates who are keeping more dissatisfied voters in the fold.

John McCain and Bill Bradley both are advocating probably the most important plank of the Reform Party, campaign finance reform.

Another favorite Reform cause, balancing the budget and paying off the national debt, has lost steam because it is already happening, more or less.

What's left for the Reform Party, then? Buchanan's anti-abortion rhetoric? Beating the trade war drums?

A party is not really a party unless it is bigger than an individual politician. Those third parties that have survived any length of time in the 20th century did so by having a cause or a set of principles and by offering candidates at the grass-roots level.

Richard Winger, the editor of a publication called Ballot Access News, pointed out to me that the Libertarian Party, the Prohibition Party, various farm-labor parties and even the Socialist Party have managed to elect members of Congress, governors and legislators.

As institutions, they have been more viable than third parties or independent movements led by Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and John Anderson.

I couldn't find Gargan, but I talked to David Goldman, chairman of the Florida Reform Party. Goldman said the state party is going to run several candidates for Congress, maybe the U.S. Senate, and for the state Legislature this year.

This is the first year in Florida that third-party candidates have equal access to the ballot. A large number of seats in the Legislature will be vacant because of term limits. So you never know.

Goldman said he is delighted McCain and Bradley are talking campaign-finance reform. But what happens if the big party establishments shut them down? The voters will be stuck with George W. Bush versus Al Gore.

I know the Reform Party is often portrayed as a joke. But the reform spirit is important. At least it has forced the big boys to take notice. The party should now avoid Perot and Buchanan and nominate someone for president who will not be an active drag on its grass-roots candidates. Who, you ask? How about ... McCain or Bradley?

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