ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611050007
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: VOTER'S GUIDE
Bill Clinton, Bob Dole and Ross Perot are all household names. But when Virginians enter the voting booth on Nov. 5, they'll find three lesser-known candidates on the presidential ballot as well. Here's a look at who they are:
HOWARD PHILLIPS
U.S. Taxpayers Party
Hometown: Vienna, Va.
Education: Harvard College, 1962
Family: Wife, Peggy; six children, six grandchildren
Current job: Chairman, The Conservative Caucus, 1974 - present
Top policy priorities: The Taxpayers Party hopes to restore American jurisprudence to its ``heritage of biblical liberty,'' abolish the Internal Revenue Service and eliminate federal income taxes, capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes. Phillips' party also supports ending legalized abortion and reducing ``the reach, the grasp and take of the federal government.'' The party platform says that while the United States should be a friend to liberty everywhere, it should only invest and fight to guarantee it for the United States. Phillips, 55, a Republican-turned-independent, supports dismantling the Education and the Housing and Urban Development departments and ending government support of the arts. He is on the ballot in about 40 states.
JOHN HAGELIN
Natural Law Party
Hometown: Fairfield, Iowa
Education: Dartmouth, A.B.; Harvard University, M.S., Ph.D.
Family: Unmarried
Current job: Physicist; heads a doctoral program in physics at Maharishi International University (on leave)
Top policy priorities: On the ballot in 48 states, the Natural Law Party hopes to ``bring the light of science into politics.'' Its platform includes prevention-oriented health care, renewable energy and sustainable agriculture without pesticides. The party also wants a cost-effective government with a safety net that promotes well-being, including a 10 percent flat tax by 2002. Hagelin, 42, is one of the party's founders. In 1992 he garnered fewer than 40,000 votes. The Natural Law Party advocates Transcendental Meditation, contending it can lower the crime rate by setting up meditation groups in prisons, and can serve as a foreign policy tool by supporting groups who practice it in other countries.
HARRY BROWNE
Libertarian Party
Hometown: Franklin, Tenn.
Education: No college degree
Family: Married to Pamela Lanier Wolfe; one daughter
Current job: Investment advisor, author, public speaker
Top policy priorities: A best-selling investment writer, Browne is on the ballot in all 50 states. He says the Libertarians ``believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government.'' The party seeks to end the income tax and ``to reduce government to the absolute minimum possible.'' Browne, 63, opposes Internet censorship and supports a repeal of the assault weapons ban. The Libertarians have been around for about a quarter of a century. Their platform includes proposals to deregulate the health-care industry, privatize Medicare and Medicaid and legalize drugs.
ELSEWHERE IN THE COUNTRY . . .
The best-known of the minor-party candidates isn't on the ballot in Virginia: Ralph Nader, the nominee of the Green Party.
The party's primary concerns are environmental, but Nader, 62, is best known as a consumer advocate. His name is on 21 state ballots, but Greens failed to collect enough signatures to get his name listed in Virginia. Nader burst on the national scene in the 1960s with his book on dangerous automobiles, ``Unsafe At Any Speed.'' The founder of Public Citizen, Nader is running a shoestring campaign. He is not accepting campaign contributions. Nader's key issue is corporate power over the nation's political institutions and the economy, and he is equally disgusted with the Republicans and Democrats. Neither of the major party candidates, he says, is talking about issues like the concentration of power in the health and telecommunications industries, or the corrupting influence of big money in politics.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 4 headshots. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB