This was sent to IPR for publication by Steve Krabbe. It can be found on his blog, The Moderate Independent.
By Steve Krabbe
On March 2, 2013, I had the pleasure of speaking with David Collison, the Chairman of the Reform Party National Committee. It was a pleasant conversation, where he and I discussed the history of the party and the strategy for the future. We also spoke about some current national issues, which will be addressed in separate articles. I plan to speak with more him in the near future about other issues, which he seemed very open to.
The conversation began with our discussing how he came to be the Chairman of the National Committee. His response was, “I got drafted”. In 2001, he joined the party on the county level, and quickly became a leader there. Soon, he became the State Secretary Treasurer of the Texas Reform Party. In 2002, he became the National Secretary. In 2008, when he was “drafted”, he was chosen as the Chairman of the Reform Party National Committee, being re-elected to a second term recently.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE REFORM PARTY
In order to find out where the Reform Party is headed, I needed to understand the history of the party. It is important to know where a group has come from in order to understand where they are going. So, we discussed the founding of the party, some of the problems they have encountered along the way, and what the Reform Party has learned from these experiences.
Most who follow third parties know that the party was founded by Ross Perot, as a result of his candidacy for President of the United States. Collison said that Mr. Perot was somewhat disillusioned by the way that his candidacy was treated by the media and the way that the rules were rewritten to make third-party candidacy more difficult. So, at the founding convention in 1997, Mr. Perot addressed the convention and told them, as Mr. Collison said, “You’ve got a party now, if you can keep it”. In 2000, the party nominated Pat Buchanan after a bitter dispute over who was the legal nominee for the party, which ended in a court battle where Mr. Buchanan was declared the official nominee. The Reform Party still contends that the Buchanan nomination was not legitimate because of the way the Buchanan supporters replaced delegates from state parties. In 2004, the Reform Party supported Ralph Nader’s candidacy for President. Collison said this was because “it was a mutually beneficial relationship. We had been painted with a brush by the whole Buchanan affair as being kind of a right-wing party. And, we knew that by nominating Ralph Nader, we would basically completely dispose of that picture.”
The rest of the article can be found here , including audio of the interview.
12 responses so far ↓
1 NewFederalist // Mar 5, 2013 at 2:15 pm
I love this title! The Reform Party sure has a past but as for a future… maybe not.
2 David // Mar 5, 2013 at 3:32 pm
Perot had all that matching money in 92 and the Reform Party had to nominate him again since Perot was the only person that money could go to.
3 Rob // Mar 5, 2013 at 4:10 pm
The Reform Party
1996 – Ross Perot and Pat Choate – 8,085,402 votes
2000 – Pat Buchanan and Ezola B. Foster – 449,225 votes
2004 – Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo – 463,655 votes
2008 – Ted Weill and Frank McEnulty – 481 votes
2012 – Andre Barnett and Ken Cross – 962 votes
There’s been a decade of decline and disaster. I’m not even sure what the Reform Party stands for besides constant infighting and bickering.
Stick a fork in it.
4 Dennis // Mar 5, 2013 at 4:15 pm
Lamm was the better choice in 1996. The matching funds would be lost, but the credibility it would have given was worth more.
5 paulie // Mar 5, 2013 at 5:08 pm
That’s not true. Perot ran as an independent in 1992. There was no Reform Party then. Thus, there couldn’t have been matching funds in 1996.
6 NewFederalist // Mar 5, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Paulie is right on target. It was the showing in ’96 that received the matching funds for 2000 that Pat Buchanan was drooling after.
7 Gene Berkman // Mar 5, 2013 at 7:37 pm
Ross Perot did run as an Independent in 1992, and therefore should not have been able to receive taxpayer funding for his Reform Party, but the FEC ruled that the Reform Party was a continuation of Perot’s 1992 campaign, and he therefore received something like 26 million dollars in taxpayer funds for his 1996 campaign.
In 2000, Pat Buchanan and TM cultist John Hagelin went for the Reform Party nomination in order to get their hands on millions in taxpayer funds. Buchanan won the nomination and received 12.6 million dollars from the FEC.
8 paulie // Mar 5, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Matching funds follow the party, not the candidate, so I don’t see how the Reform Party “had to” run Perot in ’96 to get the funds.
9 Catholic Trotskyist // Mar 5, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Could there have been a Perot-Lamm ticket in 1996
10 NewFederalist // Mar 6, 2013 at 7:49 am
Only if Ross Perot had been willing to invite Dick Lamm to be his running mate. I think Lamm was so pissed off at how the deck was stacked against him I doubt he would have accepted even if asked.
11 Rob // Mar 6, 2013 at 9:00 am
Right. Lamm chose Ed Zschau, a former Republican congressman and a businessman from Silicon Valley, as his vp pick.
12 paulie // Mar 6, 2013 at 10:20 am
The Reform Party sure has a past but as for a future… maybe not.
Probably not, but it’s an appealing name, so it might, even though it has no money and practically no ballot access left.
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