Word: perots
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...then-incumbent George H. Bush was dragging his feet and the former governor from Arkansas, a candidate for a new generation, was tending ever more towards the center. Ross Perot, a billionaire from Texas, put up over $60 million out of his own pocket to run for president on a platform centered on reducing federal spending, balancing the budget and term limits...
Ventura's departure from Reform's ranks is only the latest chapter in the predictable tale of fruitless fights for respect by third parties. Reform earned an astonishing 19% of the vote in the 1992 presidential race. But after founder ROSS PEROT's far worse finish in the 1996 presidential contest, the party seemed doomed--an antideficit party in a budget-surplus world. Ventura's 1998 gubernatorial win gave Reform new life and its first major officeholder, but there was no honeymoon. Ventura and Perot eyed each other with suspicion; the two have spoken only twice in their lives. Ventura...
Still, the Ventura departure has consequences. It's all but impossible for Donald Trump to seek the party's nomination, clearing the way for Pat Buchanan--unless the mercurial Perot should get in. A Buchanan candidacy could drain votes from the G.O.P. in the fall, especially if the Republicans nominate JOHN MCCAIN, whom many on the right may find unacceptable. Reform still comes with a prize of ballot access and $12.6 million in federal matching funds...
Forbes' real contribution to this year's campaign has been to show that lucrative spending cannot develop a constituency. In the Iowa straw poll last August--although no delegates were at stake--Forbes spent $160 per vote. He ranks close to Ross Perot and Michael Huffington among wealthy men willing to spare no expense for their political ambitions...
...Sunday he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" that those sly Dems were planning on pulling the McCain lever just so they could stack the deck in favor of their candidate in the general election. Although this seems to veer dangerously close to the paranoid territory known as Perot-land (hmm... the Reform party doesneed a candidate), some polls do back up Bush's contention that he's the candidate who can beat Bradley/Gore. A Newsweek survey this week found that 52 percent of voters thought that Bush would be more likely to defeat the Democratic party's candidate...