With great reluctance, I have decided who I will be voting for in the presidential election coming up on November 5. I will be voting for billionaire and showman extraordinaire H. Ross Perot.
It is not that I do not recognize this very flawed man's autocratic and undemocratic tendencies. It is not that I do not recognize that his temperament is less than ideal for the job of president. And it is not that I do not recognize that both Bill Clinton and Bob Dole have more of the sort of experience one needs in this nation's chief executive.
But facing this country at this time are two pressing issues, and the Republicrats have yet to deal constructively or meaningfully with either of them. The first is the issue of democracy in this country. Right now, our country suffers from one of the lowest election turnout rates of any industrialized democracy in the world. The fact is that to a larger and larger portion of our people, the electoral process has become a meaningless, boring, bad joke. We no longer enjoy within our body politic the healthy skepticism that any self-governing nation needs for its institutions of government to thrive. Instead, we are mired deep within a mentality of knee-jerk and ignorant cynicism, where the typical response is to walk away from the process entirely rather than to "throw the rascals out." True, we saw the people throw out the Republican rascal in the White House in 1992, and replace him with a Democratic rascal. And true, in 1994, we threw out our Democratic legislative rascals, and replaced them with their Republican rivals. Yet for all that, the REAL mandate from the voters in both those elections was that of dismissal. A little over half of the eligible voters in this country bothered to participate and vote in 1992. And a pathetic one-third of our nation's eligible electorate bothered to turn out and vote in 1994. The message was very clear: boycott. Boycott and scorn; and if our democracy had been a business instead of a process of governing, it would long since have gone out of business from lack of trust and/or interest.
While our citizens have been walking away from the elite class who have pretensions of leadership, that same elite has been walking away from the children of those citizens. Right now, we have imposed upon our children a debt the size of which has not been seen in the history of the world. Through a combination of spendthrift policies where our nation's military is concerned, reckless tax givaways which threatened to bankrupt our Treasury, and heedless entitlement growth benefitting indiscriminately all income groups among our retirees, this elite has succeeded in leading us into what may become the worst financial situation our nation has ever faced. But presented with an electorate which has been discouraged from "staying in the ring," as Perot would put it, and which has failed to use its power as voters to keep our elite leaders on the straight and narrow, those leaders have chosen to pander to the basest desires and fears of that narrow minority which DOES vote, and votes consistently. As long as our Republicrat leadership continues to show no courage or backbone where these issues are concerned, our nation will drift inevitably toward financial collapse and fiscal ruin.
And what makes this whole matter so frustrating is the fact that the solutions are not in any wise mysterious or even complicated. Our elected elite depends too much on the campaign largesse of organized special interests, and not enough on the support at the ballot box from the average citizen. Solution: Ban the overweening financial influence of those special interests, and enfranchise the average citizen by holding Election Day either on a holiday or over Saturday and Sunday, as so many other democracies do. Our elected elite refuses to bite the bullet on runaway entitlements, and allows millionaires to collect taxpayer-funded retirement pensions by gouging from the average worker's paycheck. Solution: Means-test entitlements, and raise the retirement age over the next decade or so.
Not mysterious or complicated, yes; but virtually impossible for the average politician to implement, or even to support. Every so often some poor courageous soul from one or the other party stands up and points out the need to restore political rectitude and/or fiscal sanity to our nation. But the lone pleadings of a Russell Feingold or a Linda Smith for political probity, one liberal Democrat, the other conservative Republican, are quickly mown down by the Republicrat establishment juggernaut. The quixotic efforts of realists like Alan Simpson and Paul Tsongas to restore a sense of love and respect for our children's patrimony seem always destined to drown in a sea of demagoguery and fearmongering.
Which is why we need a third party, a party not beholden to tobacco or oil money, and not trapped by the monolithic strident demands of the organized entitlement presence at the ballot box. Where will that third party come from?
It is not that I believe that Ross Perot, in the scary event that he actually becomes president, would be able to confront these problems effectively. His ego is too strong, his temperament too dictatorial and inflexible, to allow him to manage these problems successfully, or to lead the Congress into implementing viable solutions to them. What is needed is an organized political presence THROUGHOUT OUR HALLS OF GOVERNMENT. So what is needed is the nurturing of such a political presence.
I believe the Reform Party can be that presence. Of the five most active minor parties, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform, and U.S. Taxpayers, Reform is the only one which has combined a call for political cleanliness with fiscal responsibility. Without denigrating the members or leaders of the other parties, the fact remains that this combination of radical leftist political reform and moderate conservative fiscal reform is not present anywhere else on our political scene today; yet I believe it is the only platform which, if followed, can successfully lead us out of the treacherous bogs through which we find ourselves slogging on the eve of the new millenium.
But for the Reform Party to provide us with that leadership several things must happen; it must, first of all, become a legitimate, grassroots, self-sustaining organization, a true political party in every sense of the word, totally independent of volatile and eccentric billionaire Perot. That is why the meeting just concluded last weekend in Schaumburg, Illinois, was so critical to the future of this party. In that meeting, we created a genuine, nationally based, central committee, capable of speaking for the party on a country-wide basis, and of making plans on its behalf, without the support, influence, or interference of the Texas tycoon. That committee will shortly file with the Federal Election Commission as the National Reform Party. It has also been directed by the the event which brought it into being to start planning for the founding Reform Party convention which will probably take place some time next spring. Out of all the states which were invited to the event which brought this committee forth, there were six delegations representing state Reform parties which completely accepted without contest those delegations' rights to speak for them; consequently, those states are the ones currently represented on this fledgeling National Steering Committee. Those states are Delaware, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia. My own state, New York, sent no official delegation, but my party's national liaison, Laureen Oliver, sent a letter expressing regret that no New York delegation was available at this time, but also expressing support for the aims and goals of the National Steering Committee, as well as those of the Reform Party National Caucus, the sponsoring body of the Schaumburg event, which facilitated the birth of this national committee, and of which I am a proud member. It is my hope that in very short order, maybe even before the election, my new party, the New York Independence/Reform Party, will see fit to send an authorized delegation to join this promising new national committee.
Yet preparing for a future independent of Ross Perot will avail us little in terms of our future political credibility and viability if we do not even get out of the starting gate. Ross Perot may be a flawed, imperfect messenger, with daunting negatives in the minds of most voters. But if our Party is to grow and spread roots beyond this year, we all must focus on another enemy, besides Perot's egotism, and that is that scary magic number, 5%. If Perot manages to squeeze out that percentage, our party can endure and prosper and, most importantly, qualify for federal funding in the next presidential cycle. If Perot should fail to meet that challenge, then the most promising source of electoral and fiscal reform on our political scene in decades will find itself back at Square One. I cannot bear to see that happen; to the best of my capability, I will see to it that it WILL NOT happen.
So yes, Ross Perot, for the second time in four years, I will vote for you as president. I recognize that you are not the selfless and patriotic reformer I thought you were in '92. I recognize that in most ways you are in fact an inferior human being to your chief rivals for the highest office in the land. But I also recognize that, however unwittingly, you may open the door for a new age of reform and renewal, as Governor Lamm has put it, similar to that wave of reform we enjoyed during our last turn of the century, when monopolies were busted, women were given the vote, and senators became elected by popular vote. If some of my readers feel a vote for Ross Perot will not begin to accomplish any of my goals, and that my foregoing words establish definitively that I am now insane, so be it. Or maybe I have even succeeded in making clear to you the strength of the case for Perot's 5%. But either way, I would like to hear from you. You are cordially invited to fill out the boxes below and express yourself. Bear in mind that I reserve the right to quote statements sent to me in this manner, in whole or in part, in subsequent Musings. Also, be sure to indicate in the Title of your Message the name of the Musings, "...And Tough Choices," to which you are responding. Thank you.
Of course, if you prefer to contact me privately, off-the-record, feel free to do so at
