Reform Party Promises To Make Process Fair

DENVER (AllPolitics, July 26) -- Responding to candidate Richard Lamm's complaints about the changing rules in the Reform Party's nominating process, party leaders pledged to make the process "as fair as possible."

In a six-page letter to the Lamm campaign, Reform Party national coordinator Russell Verney promised to make deadlines and requirements more definite and make all information about the nominating process public.

But Lamm is still campaigning without a list of the party's 1.3 million members, a list his opponent, party founder Ross Perot, can access. Verney says giving Lamm the list, which cost more than $4 million to compile, would violate the $1,000 campaign contribution limit.

"If you can provide us with a legal opinion that we can transfer the mailing list to you without violating campaign contribution laws, we would be glad to provide you with the list," read Verney's letter.

Tom D'Amore, Lamm's senior campaign advisor, said his lawyers are drafting such an opinion. If they cannot buy the list for less than $4.2 million, maybe they can rent it, he said.

"I'm happy that the process, through our insistence, has become more open, which it was not," said D'Amore. "But I wish that we hadn't had to go through this process of pulling teeth."

While the former Colorado governor took his campaign to the radio airwaves, Perot hit the road in Dallas with MTV's "Choose or Lose" bus. Armed with charts, Perot refused to talk about Lamm, likely GOP nominee Robert Dole or President Clinton. "I just talk about how to solve problems," he said.

Perot said the country is approaching a financial crisis with the escalating debt, comparing the nation's economy to an alcoholic's liver. "You know his liver is going, you don't know when," he said.

Speaking to the cable music network's Generation X audience, Perot said the best drug policy is for young people to stop taking drugs and for the government to dish out tougher punishments to drug dealers.

"The government can't make you good, it can only punish you if you're bad," he said.

Suggesting that media "propaganda" ruined his presidential bid in 1992, Perot said "Politics is nothing but acting. Watch through the fall. Never forget the American voter is easily manipulated."

Related Stories:

• Mailing Foul-Ups Plague Reform Party On Candidates -- July 25
• Lamm Says Reform Party Rules May Be Unfair -- July 23

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