Perot

WASHINGTON -- If Pat Buchanan, the human hand grenade, lobs himself into the 2000 presidential campaign as nominee of the Reform Party, some Republicans, and perhaps some Democrats, will try to dampen his explosive force by excluding him from next year's presidential debates, as Ross Perot was excluded from the Clinton-Dole debates in 1996. Exclusion would be in the spirit of campaign-finance reformers' plans to further constrict, through government regulation, political discourse.Fortunately, Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor, in his essay "The Debate Gerrymander" in the Texas Law Review, refutes the arguments for excluding candidates like Mr. Buchanan from the central events of presidential contests.

WASHINGTON -- At a time when voters continue to express dissatisfaction with the two major political parties and suggest they'd like an alternative, the turmoil in the most conspicuous option -- the Reform Party -- is imperiling the movement to put a serious face on the third party concept.As a result of Mr. Perot's organizational efforts and 19-percent vote total in the 1992 election, and the formal establishment of the party and his vote of 8.5 percent as its standard-bearer in 1996, the Reform Party is positioned, technically, on the brink of respectability.

WASHINGTON -- Too bad a gravel-voiced ring announcer wasn't around to introduce Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and billionaire Ross Perot when they grappled for the Reform Party championship belt this past weekend.Any doubt about how the title match between the Body and the Mouth came out? Nope. The Body devastated the Mouth.Sure, Mr. Ventura -- the enormously popular former wrestler -- tried to be gracious to Mr. Perot. "A job well done. We owe him a great debt," Mr. Ventura told Reform delegates in Dearborn, Mich.

WASHINGTON -- Japanese voters' stunning rebuke of their ruling party Sunday may prod Tokyo to undertake the sweeping economic reforms long demanded by the United States to help lift Asia out of crisis, but the changes must be swift, American analysts said yesterday."

WASHINGTON -- As polls continue to reflect widespread public apathy if not disgust toward the two major political parties and interest in an alternative, long-shot efforts are going forward to crack the door open for independent and third-party candidates in the next presidential election.Leading the effort is Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who was the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee in 1988 and was elected to the House as a Republican in 1996. He is sponsoring bills that would make it easier for such candidates to gain ballot position in the various states and to gain admission to presidential debates.

WASHINGTON -- Ross Perot turned to a federal court yesterday to get himself included in presidential campaign debates, asking a judge to bar any encounter between President Clinton and Bob Dole unless Perot is on the stage, too.Perot, the Reform Party's presidential candidate, will continue his legal challenge "through the Supreme Court, if necessary," his national campaign coordinator Russell Verney told reporters here.The lawsuit complained: "Declaring the election essentially over for all candidates but two before a single debate takes place will only deepen the nation's cynicism about government."

SPRING GROVE, Pa. - Republicans in this gritty paper mill town feel about their likely presidential nominee much as they feel about the acrid pulp smell that hangs over Main Street and keeps visits from relatives to a minimum.They may not be crazy about it, but hey, they will tell you to a person, "It smells like money."Bob Dole, they say with similar resignation and pragmatism, may be a little shopworn and musty as a presidential candidate, but they see the 72-year-old senator as their only hope for, as the front-runner himself put it, the smell of victory.

PHILADELPHIA -- Just when it seemed he was about to head quietly into the electoral sunset -- after four years of on-again, off-again presidential efforts -- Ross Perot has sparked a last-minute bump that may be enough to give the Texas billionaire yet another political life.It is not quite a Perot surge. Not even a boomlet. And it is not likely to get the Reform Party candidate anywhere near a victory next week. He does not lead in any state and thus, at the moment, has no prospects for a single electoral vote.

In the final days of the least memorable presidential campaign since Taft beat Bryan (campaign slogan: Why not elect a fat guy for a change?), it finally gets interesting.The tenor of the campaign changes when Bob Dole, in desperation, asks Ross Perot to give up the race. Perot goes on Larry King to call the request "weird." And then Perot, who hates to be out-weirded, demands that Bill Clinton and his whole draft-dodgin', pot-smokin', money-stashin' staff resign, ya see. Now, kin Ah finish talkin' here?

IRS took action in '80s against Forbes advisersWASHINGTON -- Two of Steve Forbes' campaign advisers ran a nonprofit group that was stripped of its tax-exempt status after authorities concluded it had not delivered the projects it promised donors.Carter Wrenn and Tom Ellis, who are helping Mr. Forbes' campaign, were co-directors of the Coalition for Freedom Inc. The group raised more than $1 million in the mid-1980s, and had been granted tax-exempt status as a nonprofit educational group.But the Internal Revenue Service concluded that more than half the received donations went to a consulting firm controlled by Mr. Wrenn and Mr. Ellis, according U.S. Tax Court records.

On July 25, 2009, WILBUR QUINTER "Bill" age 92; beloved husband of the late Jean Quinter; devoted father of Nancy E. Gibault, Jeanne Wilbourne and Charles Quinter; dearest brother of Ivan Quinter, Jr., and the late Sarah Perot and the late Mary Gaston. Also survived by several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Services and interment are private. Arrangements by Bradley Ashton Funeral Home, P.A.

Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, a pilot who died in 2005 at age 81, is perhaps best known for his heroic turn as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Shot down while on a mission Sept. 9, 1965, he landed in a small coastal village, where he was beaten by a mob. He spent the next 7 1/2 years in the Hoa Lo Prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement for four years, tortured and denied medical care. Yet Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking naval officer at the prison, managed to organize a system of communication and help buoy the spirits of his fellow prisoners.

WASHINGTON -- The conditions for an independent presidential run might be better in 2008 than at any time since Ross Perot made his first White House try, according to analysts and recent opinion surveys. Those conditions, and his own deep pockets, might entice New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to enter the '08 contest. But Bloomberg indicated yesterday that he was still a long way from becoming a candidate, and there are serious questions about whether he would meet with much success if he did. "I think the climate is as favorable as it gets, particularly for somebody like Bloomberg who can project an image of competence.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- If Ross Perot were dead, he'd roll over in his grave to see what's happened to the Reform Party he founded. He's not, but he doesn't seem to care. Four years ago in this same coastal city, Mr. Perot ran a tightly controlled self-coronation with only minor opposition from former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm. In the election that followed, Mr. Perot's vote fell from the 19 percent he had won in his first presidential run in 1992 as an independent to only 8 percent. But it was enough to entitle this year's Reform Party nominee to $12.6 million under federal campaign law. With that kind of money, there seemed to be a fair chance at the start of 2000 that the new party could gain a real toehold in presidential politics if Mr. Perot finally stepped aside and a good new candidate could be recruited.

WASHINGTON -- Pity the poor Reform Party. Just when voters have been stirred to a lather by John McCain to clean up presidential politics, and Al Gore and George W. Bush are trying to assume his reformer mantle, the third party hand-crafted by Ross Perot seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. The highest-ranking elected official to win under the Reform Party banner, Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, has abandoned ship in disgust over the party's internal squabbling and its growing image as a haven for political kooks.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Ross Perot's allies moved yesterday to reclaim control of the Reform Party in a rowdy and hostile showdown that at one point required police intervention. Before the day's end, the party's national committee had removed Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura's hand-picked party chairman and was on the verge of rejecting Ventura's efforts to hold the party's summer convention in St. Paul, Minn. Ventura, the party's highest-ranking elected official, anticipated yesterday's votes and quit the party Friday, declaring it to be a "dysfunctional family."

WASHINGTON -- At a time when voters continue to express dissatisfaction with the two major political parties and suggest they'd like an alternative, the turmoil in the most conspicuous option -- the Reform Party -- is imperiling the movement to put a serious face on the third party concept.As a result of Mr. Perot's organizational efforts and 19-percent vote total in the 1992 election, and the formal establishment of the party and his vote of 8.5 percent as its standard-bearer in 1996, the Reform Party is positioned, technically, on the brink of respectability.

WASHINGTON -- If Pat Buchanan, the human hand grenade, lobs himself into the 2000 presidential campaign as nominee of the Reform Party, some Republicans, and perhaps some Democrats, will try to dampen his explosive force by excluding him from next year's presidential debates, as Ross Perot was excluded from the Clinton-Dole debates in 1996. Exclusion would be in the spirit of campaign-finance reformers' plans to further constrict, through government regulation, political discourse.Fortunately, Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor, in his essay "The Debate Gerrymander" in the Texas Law Review, refutes the arguments for excluding candidates like Mr. Buchanan from the central events of presidential contests.

WASHINGTON -- Too bad a gravel-voiced ring announcer wasn't around to introduce Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and billionaire Ross Perot when they grappled for the Reform Party championship belt this past weekend.Any doubt about how the title match between the Body and the Mouth came out? Nope. The Body devastated the Mouth.Sure, Mr. Ventura -- the enormously popular former wrestler -- tried to be gracious to Mr. Perot. "A job well done. We owe him a great debt," Mr. Ventura told Reform delegates in Dearborn, Mich.

WASHINGTON -- Japanese voters' stunning rebuke of their ruling party Sunday may prod Tokyo to undertake the sweeping economic reforms long demanded by the United States to help lift Asia out of crisis, but the changes must be swift, American analysts said yesterday."