User:Southern Texas/Sandbox

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/06/former-ipr-writer-publishes-book/

The 2000 Reform Party National Convention held August 10-12, 2000 in Long Beach, California, was the second national convention of the Reform Party of the United States of America. During the event, political commentator Pat Buchanan was nominated for President of the United States and school teacher Ezola B. Foster was selected as his running mate.

Prior to the convention, the party had been deeply divided between two factions competing for the future of the party. On one side were the supporters of the party's 1996 presidential nominee Ross Perot, who had founded the party after his 1992 presidential run. On the other side were the anti-Perot members, who felt Perot had too much power in the party. The dispute between the factions escalated and complicated matters as the convention neared.

Because of Perot's 8.4 percent showing during the 1996 election, the party had achieved ballot access in several states and qualified for matching campaign funds of $12.5 million. As a result, several candidates vied for the nomination including: entrepreneur Donald Trump filed an exploratory committee with the FEC, but withdrew several months before the convention; social conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who left the Republican Party to seek the nomination, was viewed as the frontrunner; Dr. John Hagelin, who had already won the nomination of the Natural Law Party, gained acceptance from the Perot faction and was seen as the anti-Buchanan candidate.

By a margin of 49,529 to 28,539 in the mail-in votes, Buchanan won the nomination at convention, which had descended into chaos. The Perot faction accused Buchanan of fraud and held a counter-convention, nominating Hagelin. However, courts ruled against the Perot faction and invalided the Hagelin selection. On election day, Buchanan won 0.43% of the popular vote.

Background
After winning 18.9 percent of the popular vote during the 1992 presidential election, industrialist Ross Perot organized his grassroots supporters into the United We Stand America citizens watch group. The group worked with Perot to support cuts in government spending to balance the budget in lieu of higher taxes and to oppose the approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1995, the group helped Perot form the Reform Party of the United States of America. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm first announced that he would seek the nomination of the party in 1996, just a few days before Perot announced his intentions. Though Perot won the party's nomination and garnered 8.4 percent of the popular vote, riffs had grown. Lamm accused Perot of using the party as a personal vehicle for his political ambitions. Perot and his supporters argued that Lamm, a former Democrat, was a plant from the Democratic Party. As a result of the infighting, some of Lamm's former supporters and other anti-Perot members formed the American Reform Party in 1997.

In 1998, the Reform Party of the United States had its most significant victory when former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota as a member of the party. Perot and his followers were not receptive to Ventura and his political allies, who argued that Perot should allow others to hold leadership positions within the party. The Perot-faction adamantly, though unsuccessfully, attempted to prevent the election of Jack Gargan, a Ventura supporter, as party chairman in 1999 when Perot backer Russ Verney chose to not stand for re-election. Verney would retain the chairmanship until January 1, 2000. Ahead of the 2000 convention, Ventura opted to not run, but searched for candidates to seek the party's presidential nomination.

Donald Trump
Speculation concerning the presidential intentions of New York City real estate tycoon Donald Trump proliferated following a July 1999 publication of Newsweek. The report cited an unnamed "close friend" of Trump, who revealed that he was "toying" with the idea of a campaign, allegedly in response to rumors that Ventura was courting former Connecticut governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. for a run. Trump purportedly held a grudge against Weicker for blocking his plans to build a casino in Bridgeport in 1994, and for a war of words between the two that saw Weicker label Trump a "dirt bag" and Trump refer to Weicker as "a fat slob who couldn't get elected dog catcher." After Weicker decided to not seek the nomination due to the party's internal bickering, Ventura reportedly backed a Trump candidacy.

Despite a poll of Reform Party members that showed Trump tied for third place, he initially shrugged off speculation, explaining "I'm having an awfully good time doing what I'm doing". But he did not put the rumors to rest, remarking that he would make a run if nominated by the party. In September 1999, after reports that conservative political commentator and adviser Pat Buchanan was about to join the party to seek the nomination, Trump announced that he may mount a campaign as a sign of respect to Ventura. He labeled the views of Buchanan as "prehistoric", and began to build his credentials and gauge support across the nation.

On October 7, Trump announced that he had formed an exploratory committee to judge whether he could win the nomination of the Reform Party and ultimately the presidency. He stated that he did need the committee to raise money for him since he would fund the campaign himself, rather, he would use the committee to advise him on political matters. He was optimistic about his chances and believed there was a "very strong possibility that we could win". He listed Oprah Winfrey as his ideal choice for a running mate. At the end of October, Trump appeared on Meet the Press and questioned why a politician would do a better job than him of running the nation, remarking "I understand this stuff". Afterwards, he formally joined the Reform Party. But this came as tensions in the party escalated. Party chairman Russ Verney asked Ventura to leave the party after he commented in a Playboy interview that "organized religion is a sham and a crutch." Verney also criticized Trump, wondering "what the compelling reason is for him to seek the presidency."

For the next two months, Trump traveled the nation and appeared on several television shows promoting his potential run. In January 2000, he released a book titled The America We Deserve which outlined his political positions. In the book, he advocated tough anti-crime measures, increased pressure on China, fair trade, border control, increased military spending for homeland security and universal health care. Despite media coverage of the book, intra-party fighting increased. As a result, Trump withdrew from the race on February 14, the day after Ventura left the party in response to the unseating of chairman Jack Gargan. Gargan was removed from his position by a 109 to 31 committee vote at a chaotic meeting dominated by the Perot-faction members. He was cited as failing to "faithfully perform and execute the duties of his office". At the event, Perot members chanted "out, out, out" as Gargan shouted that the meeting was illegal. In his withdrawal, Trump argued that the party was on the verge of "self-destructing" and referred to it as a "total mess".

Pat Buchanan
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=URtJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uQUNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1923,143699&dq=donald+trump+reform+party&hl=en

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/26/nyregion/strange-can-t-begin-describe-it-fulani-buchanan-see-upside-political-marriage.html

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg53721.html