Reform party needs reformation

hile presidential candidates have slowly been dropping out and the main nominees have been becoming more secure in the Republican and Democratic parties, the Reform Party boasts an incoherent mess of defectors from all over the ideological map.

The only thing that everyone in the Reform Party can agree on is that Republicans and Democrats are merely wings of the same party, an old charge made throughout American history that has never quite been accepted as a political truth. Nevertheless, what is of interest here is how the Reform ticket will affect the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Once again, a third party is playing the wild card in U.S. politics, as it has in the last two presidential elections.

The Reform Party was created by Ross Perot after his first failed run at the presidency in 1992, and his goal when creating the beast was to upset the balance of the American political system. The verdict has not come in yet as to whether his creation has really changed anything, but it undoubtedly affected the outcomes in both of Clinton's presidential election victories.

President Bill Clinton, who never received a clear majority of the vote in '92 or '96, undeniably benefited by Perot's presence in the elections, especially against former president George Bush. We will never know if Bush could have beaten Clinton without Perot in the race, and it would have been too close to call anyway.

With Bush facing the burdens of a stagnating economy, a debacle Pat Buchanan caused at the '92 Republican Convention and two foes who freely hijacked issues and positions from the traditional Republican platform, it was simply too easy for independents and closet-conservatives to vote for Perot.

Even in '96, Bob Dole may have had a chance to win, despite his poorly run campaign, had Perot not been a factor. However, the outcome was fairly predictable, as the political camps had been cleanly demarcated by November 1996.

Now, in late 1999, looking ahead to the 2000 presidential election, ambiguity once again clouds our vision, with Perot out of the picture and a smattering of conflicting figures scrambling to succeed him as the official election spoiler. Donald Trump and Pat Buchanan both announced that they were defecting from the GOP on Monday, in hope of winning the Reform nomination.

While everyone and their mother is now battling for the chance to run on the Reform Party ticket, Al Gore and Bill Bradley aren't worried in the least. They know that likely Republican nominee George W. Bush will be the one with reason to fret, as any mistake he makes will potentially have the net effect of sending voters to the Democratic or Reform side, dampening the powerful effect of the Texas governor's sizable war chest.

Yet while the potential is there for the Reform candidate to cause major problems for George W. Bush, it will be an unpredictable and wild ride for Reform Party supporters. With Perot likely to support his fellow populist and isolationist, Pat Buchanan, and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura already backing the billionaire, Donald Trump, there is no obvious candidate to take the helm. Furthermore, with Buchanan and Trump holding widely conflicting ideologies, it is impossible to say exactly what political platform the Reform Party will stand for in the 2000 election.

If Buchanan gets the nod from Reform voters, he will cause two things to happen: he will make George W. Bush appear more moderate (and reasonable), but will simultaneously possess the ability to pilfer the hardcore social conservative vote if Bush strays too far to the center.

Should Trump pull off the nomination, things may turn out as uncertain and erratic as the '92 election. Trump would have the capacity to match Bush's funds and compete in that sense, but where he will draw his voters from is another question entirely.

Perhaps if he convinces Oprah Winfrey to run as his sidekick, he can steal some of the African-American and female votes from the Democratic Party, which has traditionally been stronger with those two constituencies. Yet his business-oriented message will more likely resonate with disaffected Republicans, so he may very well end up stealing a decent chunk of votes from both parties.

However, no matter what happens on the Reform Party side, the next president will either be George W. Bush, Al Gore or Bill Bradley. Third parties don't win major elections in a two-party system. The only roles left to be decided are who will be the spoiler, who will be the spoiled and who will reap the benefits.

Needless to say, the 2000 election is far from over.

Andrew Long is a junior majoring in political science.

Copyright 1999 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 138, No. 41 (Wednesday, October 27, 1999), beginning on page 4 and ending on page 6.