The end of Reform

The Reform Party — heir to $12 million-plus in federal election funds — is in a shambles. Its highest-ranking elected official, Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, abandoned it last week, calling the party “dysfunctional” and questioning exactly what the Reformers wanted reformed.

Last weekend, a schism tore the party apart, with pro-Ventura members losing control in favor of those who back the views of Pat Buchanan, a conservative commentator whom many now believe will become the party’s presidential nominee. On Monday, billionaire real estate and casino magnate Donald Trump officially announced he would not seek the Reform Party’s presidential nomination, condemning the party’s leadership and direction in even stronger words than those Ventura used.

One could almost see such a collapse approaching. Ever since H. Ross Perot first built the party on his 1992 presidential bid, the issues that the party stood for — more attention to workers’ issues, the end of NAFTA, term limits and lower tax burdens — have either been marginalized or resolved.

Such is the fate of populism. The issues of the day last only for a day; and once they are gone, what do you really stand for? That’s the point that Gov. Ventura and Mr. Trump made when they announced their defections. The Reform Party no longer has clear, core beliefs or a cogent strategy for addressing them.

As Mr. Trump noted, avowed racist David Duke and noted Marxist Lenora Fulani are now associated with the Reform Party, as is Mr. Buchanan, an archconservative. No tent is big enough to hold all those views at once.

The base elements of political parties are people who are united behind an encompassing political philosophy, or just cranky about a related set of important societal problems. The objective of any party — from Communists to Libertarians to Democrats and Republicans — once so united or collectively cranky, is to have workable, consistent remedies that would make party members happy. Absent forming a reasoned, relevant and coherent platform, the Reform Party can only look forward to more defections and inevitable collapse..