Word: reformer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...wannabe pol ? wants to switch. The battle is on for the soul of Ross Perot's brainchild, and the question being asked by the more serious elements in the Ventura camp is whether Pitchfork Pat has a reformist bone in his body. "I haven't heard his political reform agenda," Minnesota Reform party chairman Dean Barkley told the Washington Post. "I still see him having that abortion issue and that social agenda on the front burner, and I still say if he continues to do that, he's not going to sell well with a number of the people...
Only in the Reform party could Buchanan's be a big tent. His would-be candidacy has already won the support of New York far-leftie Lenora Fulani, who is militantly pro-choice and pro-gay rights but told CNN she thinks she can come to terms with Buchanan, the man who is currently embroiled in a war of words with fellow Reform flirter Donald Trump over whether the U.S. should have gotten involved in World War II (Pat seems more than a little against it). According to Fulani, Buchanan "can play a role as a unifier, bring everybody together...
...legislature functioning. Despite the chuckles, Ventura has not disgraced himself, and he has lent his party what must be considered a legitimate ? and respectable ? intellectual identity. He is for a small government that loves tough, and that ordinary folk get to participate in ? namely, for campaign finance reform. He is for fiscal conservatism (a balanced budget and low taxes) and social libertarianism. He has based a so-far-successful governorship on the idea that government can be better, smarter, smaller and more accessible ? that it can be reformed. And he has the credibility that any reformer needs; at a time...
...businessman's Ventura, a perfect placeholder for The Body because he's unencumbered by a demanding constituency or ideology, and might at least grab enough press to keep the dream alive until 2004. Then there were whisperings about Warren Beatty. If he ran as single-issue gadfly (campaign finance reform) and not as an ultra-liberal, his star power could light up a few election booths. But the actor, a long-time Democrat, didn't respond to calls...
...posturing, is a political animal, a politician's politician. He happens to be a grassroots rabble-rouser because it keeps him on TV and sells books, and because no one else much wants to be one. He has the give-'em-hell attitude to excite the Reform party's lunatic fringe, and comes with his own built-in constituency ? a rabid band of anti-abortion, pro-prayer protectionists who are fightin' mad over the Republicans' slow-but-insistent move back to the center under George W. Bush. With a Reform party nod, Buchanan gets a brand-new pan-partisan forum...