Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [38]
—The New York Times, February 12, 2000
I encouraged the state party to follow suit and, about a week later, they withdrew also, and we went back to being the Independence Party of Minnesota again. I couldn’t be with any party that would consider having Pat Buchanan as its presidential nominee; not a man who’d been involved with “dirty tricks” in the Nixon administration, and who wanted to expel the United Nations from New York.
All of a sudden, Donald Trump came forward as a possible alternative. He thinks a lot like me, and we had several meetings together. I’ve known Trump since the early WrestleManias he staged in Atlantic City, which were the fastest sell-outs he ever had. At least you could look at Trump and say, “This guy knows how to do business.” So I came out in favor of his receiving the Reform Party’s nomination. And Donald has said publicly that, if I ever run for president, he will fully support me, financially and any way that he can.
But in 2000, I saw the handwriting on the wall. There was a loophole that allowed Buchanan to come in and claim the Reform Party nomination. You see, the party wasn’t put together in an ironclad way. You could walk into the convention and become a delegate that same day, just by signing up. That’s what Buchanan did. He had the power in all the states to bring in more delegates than the other candidate, an Iowa physicist named John Hagelin. This divided the Reform Party into warring camps. It got so bad that dual conventions ended up being held at the same time in separate areas of the Long Beach Convention Center. Ultimately, the Federal Elections Commission ruled that Buchanan would receive ballot status—as well as that nearly $13 million in federal campaign funds.
Basically, Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party. Nobody had ever thought ahead as to whether someone with the steamroller he had could do this. I’m sure he had plenty of help from Republican operatives. In fact, when Buchanan called the Republicans a “beltway party” and announced he was leaving in October 1999 to seek the Reform Party nomination, my belief is that it was a set-up all along by the Republicans. A way to destroy the momentum for a third party.
Buchanan had huge debts from his previous campaign when he was seeking the Republican nomination in ’96. He saw an opening to be almost like a corporate raider—take that federal funding and retire his campaign debts with it. After he raided our treasury, he didn’t even put on a campaign. It was reported that he was sick. Even though he was on the ballot in forty-nine states, he finished fourth in the general election with 0.4 percent of the popular vote.
Well, they wanted a third party gone and, in my opinion, Buchanan was the black knight sent to do it. Throw the last bit of dirt on the casket, at least temporarily. The Reform Party destructed, and it’s a shame. In hindsight, had Perot graciously stepped aside and allowed for natural evolution, and for Dick Lamm to be the candidate in ’96, there’s quite the possibility that today you would have a legitimate three-party system in this country. But it came down to the fact that Perot and his cronies didn’t want to relinquish the power for the common good.
Movements of third parties rise and fall, much like the tide. Right now, we’re at a very low ebb. But it’ll come back. The corruption of the Democrats and Republicans ensures that it will. I call them the Demo-crips and the Re-blood-licans. No different really than the Crips and the Bloods street gangs—except that these guys wear Brooks Brothers suits.
Eventually people will start seeing the light again, and some leader will step forward and raise the third-party banner.
CHAPTER 5
Crossing Borders: A Curious Sense of Security
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment.