For those of you who have forgotten or never really cared: The "Reform Party" was formed as a vehicle for Texas Billionaire Ross Perot to launch his own presidential campaign back in 1992. His emphasis was on "good government," which touched an exposed nerve at the time (especially when it came to the federal deficit, a serious issue that both major party candidates where trying to ignore, thereby leaving the door wide open for Perot's candidacy), and his personal wealth enabled him to get his "message across" to the American public via a series of now legendary "infomercials"...

After initially posing what looked like a serious threat to WIN the election, Ross soon began to wither under the bright lights of the Press, who successfully painted him as a "nut-job" (a tag that is inevitably given to ALL third party candidates). Perot also did himself no favors by obsessing over such pet issues as MIAs and POWs — as well as taking a stand against Free Trade, which most Americans support in spite of the supposed threat it poses to the number of mind-numbing and/or dangerous blue collar jobs that fewer and fewer people in this country WANT, let alone NEED to take (although one Buchanan delegate warned me that once the economy goes sour "we're gonna wish we had those jobs back!" Such optimism! We all better start honing our hunting and gathering skills as well, I suppose).

Still, a considerable number of folks voted for him YET AGAIN in 1996, and this odd hodge-podge of don't-trust-the-Feds types are determined to continue on under the Reform banner that Ross Perot started.