ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 16, 1996 TAG: 9607160085
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
CONFUSION ABOUT the prospect of a major third-party presidential candidate on Virginia's ballot this November mirrors the confusion that Ross Perot is stirring, clearly with pleasure, on the national political scene.
But current machinations' impact on the body politic, if now uncertain, could prove beneficial.
Formed by Perot supporters, the Virginia Independent Party two years ago endorsed Marshall Coleman's independent candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Because Coleman garnered more than 10 percent of the vote, state election law guarantees a spot for the party on the 1996 ballot. The question is: Whose name will appear?
Richard Lamm, former Democratic governor of Colorado and former friend of Bill Clinton, announced last week that he's running for the presidential nomination of Perot's national organization, the Reform Party, with which the Virginia Independent Party is at least informally aligned.
Within two days of Lamm's announcement, Perot had upstaged him. After years of insisting he was starting a political movement, not pursuing an ego trip, Perot claimed on a TV talk show that "the American people want" him to run.
Unfortunately, the eccentric billionaire and unlikely populist has to be the favorite, considering the millions of his own money he's willing to shell out, and the fact that he has largely bankrolled the Reform Party whose nomination he wants. If the Cassandra-like Lamm were to get the nomination, he'd enrich the national debate more than would Perot. But either candidate could helpfully force the Democratic and Republican nominees to talk about issues they'd rather evade.
Perot's personal baggage makes the benefits of his candidacy harder to imagine. But don't forget that four years ago he helped put deficit-reduction at the center of the national agenda. He continues to support entitlements reform and a higher gasoline tax, both of which also need to be on the agenda. And his support for meaningful campaign-finance reform still distinguishes him from Clinton and Bob Dole.
Lamm, who was western coordinator for Clinton's 1992 campaign, is now openly disdainful of how the president has improved his position in the public-opinion polls, in part, by "pandering to the elderly" on Medicare. The blunt-talking iconoclast earned the nickname "Governor Gloom," and now warns of a budgetary apocalypse if the nation fails to come to grips with entitlement spending and the debts being passed on to America's youth.
Lamm proposes, among other things, means-testing Social Security benefits and Medicare premiums and raising the gas tax - all necessary reforms that you won't hear Clinton or Dole proposing.
Perot and Lamm are both scheduled to make political appearances in Virginia later this week. Already, Lamm has played a helpful role by testing Perot's insistence that the Reform Party is more than a vehicle for Perot's oversized ego. After all, a third party less democratic than the two major parties is less likely to grow as a meaningful force for political reform.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB