Reform Party Official Ponders Life After the Convention

As he talks Reform Party politics, Michael Farris deflates like a leaky balloon.

He glumly ponders party heavyweights such as Pat Buchanan, Jesse Ventura and John Hagelin--a physicist who says he can run the country by harnessing the laws of nature--and wonders where it all went wrong.

The Newbury Park resident, who is chairman of the party’s nominating panel, was once a true believer. He was among millions who fell under the spell of Reform Party founder Ross Perot when he burst onto the scene in 1992 vowing to clean up politics, balance the budget and protect American jobs.

Farris jumped right in, helping to found Reform Party chapters in Thousand Oaks and West Los Angeles. He also headed the state party for two years and sat on the national executive committee.

“I felt I could be a part of something,” he said wistfully. “I didn’t get involved in this to play minor-party politics.”

Now the 31-year-old who once ran for state Assembly is thinking of leaving the party after its Long Beach convention, which begins Thursday.

The party is in turmoil, and the candidates leave him uninspired.

He said Buchanan is far too conservative, and Hagelin, a former professor at Maharishi University, is not considered a serious candidate.

Even the party’s one success, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, doesn’t excite him.

“It’s unfortunate he continues to focus on himself instead of leading the party,” Farris said.

A former Republican, Farris has learned the hard way how tough it can be building a national party from scratch.

“We don’t have a tier-one candidate like a Sam Nunn, Gary Hart or a John McCain,” he said. “They are repelled by the uncertainty. Entrepreneurship is not rewarded in politics.”

In his role as chairman of the nominating panel, Farris makes sure the rules of the process are followed.

“It’s starting to be such a big deal that I can’t even stop to reflect on it,” he said.

The phone rings constantly.

The press asks if Texas billionaire Perot will appear on the ballot, Buchanan partisans want to monitor the vote count, and Hagelin’s supporters suspect unfairness at every turn.

“Hagelin’s people are very nice and nonconfrontational, while Buchanan’s are confrontational with a capital C,” Farris said.

Buchanan’s candidacy is shrouded in uncertainty. The Reform Party’s executive committee accused him last month of submitting 500,000 invalid names on petitions and voted to keep him off the ballot. That decision, Farris said, is likely to be overturned this week by the party’s national committee.

“A zoo is a kind way of describing the situation,” Farris said with a sigh. “It’s going to be a wild and woolly convention.”

The Reform Party’s slide from its heyday of Perot-mania to its current motley collection of candidates is not unusual, said Robert Dallek. Dallek, a history professor at Boston University and author of numerous books on American politics, said the Reform Party is likely to disappear after this year.

“This is typical of reform parties. They have their moments, seize them, then fade away,” he said. “Buchanan will probably win the nomination. He’ll get 4% or 5% of the vote and that will kill off the Reform Party.”

The party has not been inconsequential, Dallek said. After all, many people believed Perot voters robbed then-President George Bush of crucial votes, which helped elect Bill Clinton.

“There will always be another reform party,” Dallek said. “That is the nature of American politics.”

This year’s Reform Party convention, which runs through Sunday, will host about 3,000 people, Farris said.

The nominee will get $12.5 million in general election funds, allowing him to continue what is most certainly a losing battle.

According to Farris, there are 85,000 Reform Party members in the state and about 1,500 to 2,000 in Ventura County.

“It is a very small percentage of the voters,” said Jackie Rodgers, head of the Ventura County Republican Party. “They have no effect on elections here in Ventura County.”

Farris believes the Republicans or Democrats will eventually pick up the mantle of reform. As for the Reform Party itself, he worries it will be doomed to the fringes of the political debate.

“We failed in our mission to get candidates elected and in reforming politics,” he said. “We had a great opportunity this time. [Al] Gore and [George W.] Bush are hardly energizing candidates.”

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At the convention, he predicts, “we’ll either skyrocket or tank.”

Farris is married and has an 8-month-old daughter. He is director of business development at Elanix, a software company in Westlake Village, and sits on the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., Farris holds a master’s degree and a PhD in space physics from UCLA. In 1998, he ran as a Reform Party candidate for Republican Tony Strickland’s Assembly seat and lost.

To relax, Farris enjoys science fiction--he’s an avid “Star Wars” fan--and books on the Revolutionary War.

“They fought for ideas they truly believed in, and through a quirk of history won independence and founded a nation,” he said of the founding fathers.

Should he quit the Reform Party, Farris said he may seek elected office in one of the major parties.

If so, he’ll always have a home with Hank Lacayo.

“He’s young, articulate and outspoken,” said Lacayo, chairman of the Ventura County Democratic Party. “He seems more Democratic in his outlook than Republican. I would invite him to join us. He belongs with us.”

Farris is thinking it over.

“He may be right,” he said. “Maybe I ought to give Hank a call.”