For Lamm, Disillusion in Perot Challenge

Richard D. Lamm had grand visions of raising the level of civic debate with a “no BS agenda” as he sought the presidential nomination of Ross Perot’s Reform Party.

But in the two-plus weeks since Lamm announced his candidacy, the 60-year-old former Democratic governor of Colorado has become increasingly disillusioned about what it means to take on Perot in the party the prickly billionaire founded and bankrolled.

“One could say Perot suckered me into this race,” said Lamm, who heads a think tank at the University of Denver.

“This is like playing chess with someone who makes up the rules unilaterally as he goes along,” Lamm said.

“I may well lose,” said Lamm. “It’s tough running against a billionaire in his own party,” he added. “But I’m not quixotic. If I can beat Perot, it will capture the attention of the nation, and people will give me a chance to present my views.”

With the Reform Party’s nominating convention in Long Beach only two weeks away, Lamm has only $50,000 in his campaign war chest and is planning to refinance the mortgage on his house to raise $30,000 to help finance an effort relying mainly on radio talk shows, television appearances and availability on the Internet--all out of Denver.

Lamm, who plans to remain in the race, said he is especially frustrated by an argument with Reform Party leaders hired by Perot over whether the party would turn over to him a list of its 1.3 million members so that Lamm can target them for mailers.

Russell Verney, who is the party’s national coordinator, but also a top aide to Perot, said this week that federal election rules prevented him from turning over the list. Lamm disputes that.

Other disagreements involve Perot’s initial reluctance to reveal whom he had hired to count the Reform Party’s votes, confusion over balloting rules and the fact that many party members--including Lamm himself--have not received the ballots that all members are supposed to have gotten in the mail.

Given the Lamm camp’s perception of mischief-making on the part of Perot and his paid party workers, some Reform Party members wonder whether the party will survive beyond the presidential election. At stake, they say, is the future of a viable third party in American politics.

“I’m on fire over this because I’m one of the people who asked Lamm to consider becoming our candidate,” said Nelisse Muga, 53, a party member in San Diego.

“I kept thinking it’s all just a misunderstanding and glitches in the process. But right now, the people who stood in front of department stores in the rain and snow to collect signatures for an honest and open third party are being insulted.”

Nancy Couperus, 54, of Los Altos Hills in Northern California said: “Over the past two weeks, I’ve gone from being an ardent supporter of Ross Perot to feeling deceived.

“This is not the start we had hoped for,” she said, “and we are trying to express to Mr. Perot that this secrecy stuff looks really bad.”

Sharon Holman, a spokeswoman for Perot, said such concerns are misplaced. “The process is open, fair and filled with integrity,” Holman said. “While there will be some bumps along the road, the majority of them will be corrected by the time [nomination] ballots are mailed out on Aug. 1” and the party convenes in Long Beach Aug. 11 to hear speeches from those seeking its nod.

For Lamm, whose 12 years as governor ended in 1987, the chance to represent the Reform Party in November’s election loomed as a way to focus attention on the challenges he sees facing America’s future.

Critics say he is only looking for another soap box from which to exhort his controversial “prescription of hard choices”--rationing Medicare, raising the retirement age to qualify for Social Security, limiting immigration and balancing the federal budget.

Friends portray him as an amiable prophet and philosophical Calvinist with a heartfelt belief that the nation must buckle down to economic realities.

Lamm turned heads a few years ago by suggesting that people have a “duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts . . . and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.”

Leaning back in a chair in his Denver office recently, Lamm smiled and said, “It’s classic Dick Lamm to point out that no other nation would take a 90-year-old man with congestive heart failure out of a nursing home and put him into an intensive-care unit.

“America’s got to be able to talk about these tough subjects,” he said. “What I have to offer is not a perfect but an impressive record of anticipating the problems of society. . . . “

“My son has climbed 52 of the 54 tallest mountains in the state of Colorado, but this race is the toughest mountain he’s ever encountered,” said Lamm’s 88-year-old father, Arnold, a former certified public accountant and coal company executive.

Lamm edged toward the race as Perot, after launching the Reform Party last September, repeatedly insisted the movement was “not about me” and that he would prefer not to repeat the run he made for president in 1992.

On June 2, the Lamm camp made a final attempt to get Perot to tip his hand. Lamm’s brother, Tom, a lawyer, asked the crucial questions in a small room at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“Mr. Perot, my brother does not want to run against you in your own party. Are you going to run?” Tom Lamm asked. “Perot looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I don’t want to be the candidate.’ ”

“I said, ‘I understand that, but it’s not an answer to my question. Are you going to be a candidate?’ ” he implored. “Mr. Perot said, ‘I hope I don’t have to be a candidate.’ ”

“I smiled and said, ‘That’s still not an answer to my question.’ To his credit he never gave me a clear answer. So, I can’t claim in any way that we were misled.”

An agreement forged later between the candidates to avoid personal attacks has not kept Lamm from blasting what he considers serious flaws in the Reform Party nomination process.

In a recent televised confrontation with Verney, Lamm complained about his problems in obtaining the list of party members. He also challenged party leaders’ demands to screen letters he mails to members, calling it “censorship.”

Lamm clings to the hope that a majority of Reform Party voters “do not want Perot as a candidate.”

But regardless of what happens, he said he has no intention of dropping out of the race.

“I’m rolling big dice here and I’ve put everything on the line,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’m going to see this through. We’re in a fight for the future of the Reform Party.”