THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100477
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Local backers of H. Ross Perot, the quixotic Texas billionaire who may run for president again this fall, will have the chance to support whomever Perot's movement places on the ballot through an alliance with the Virginia Independent Party.
The VIP has qualified for the statewide ballot as an official third party, its organizers said this week, and will serve as the Virginia vehicle for nominating and supporting a candidate from Perot's nationwide Reform Party.
Perot has declined thus far to reveal his intentions for the race, but Stephen Merrill, a Hampton Roads lawyer who is the VIP's membership chairman, said Perot is expected to attend the party's statewide convention in June. The Virginia independents will nominate delegates to Perot's Reform Party national convention on Labor Day.
``The Virginia Independent Party has affiliated with the Reform Party for smaller government, lower taxes and a desire to keep the government out of our personal lives,'' Merrill said. He will host meetings this weekend to register delegates to the party's 2nd District and statewide conventions.
``There will be a big surprise coming out of the Reform Party's convention,'' said Louis Herrink, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates from King George who is the VIP's state chairman. He declined to elaborate, other than to say that well-known people other than Perot have expressed interest in running as the Reform Party's presidential nominee.
Herrink said the VIP hopes to provide a home for Virginia voters who have found the Democrats too liberal and the Republicans too conservative.
``There is a split here,'' Herrink said at a party organizational meeting Wednesday night at the Virginia Beach Central Library. ``Our objective is to provide a vehicle for the broad middle and to enable all of us to examine new ideas.
``The Republicans and the Democrats have been too tied into tried- and not-necessarily-true programs. We hope to shake the system up.''
Perot's nationwide party has formed a number of alliances like the one evolving in Virginia. Reform Party organizers have linked with a diverse array of independent and third-party movements to fight restrictive laws that make ballot access difficult in some states - like Virginia - and to gain a ballot slot for the Reform Party nominee.
The VIP gained ballot access in Virginia because Marshall Coleman, running as the party's candidate, drew more than 10 percent of the statewide vote in the 1994 U.S. Senate election.
In linking with other political movements, Perot operatives, according to a report in the April 22 issue of The New Yorker magazine, have allied in some states with such fringe organizations as the Green Party USA, a Chicago-based environmental splinter group; and the National Patriot Party, which grew out of longtime Manhattan political activist Lenora Fulani's New Alliance Party. That party, according to the magazine, described itself as a ``black-led, women-led, multiracial, pro-gay, independent political organization.''
As such, National Patriot Party adherents would find themselves the strangest of political bedfellows with the Virginia Independent Party, whose platform calls for comprehensive overhaul of the welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs, and a list of election and tax reforms most often associated with conservative political philosophy.
At the organizational meeting, which drew two dozen people, Herrink offered state and local representatives of the Libertarian, Democratic and Republican parties an opportunity to ``explain what their parties have to offer the voters.''
Angered by a pointed, and at times personal, attack by a Libertarian party representative from Fairfax, the representatives of the two dominant parties argued strenuously that the traditional political system still represents the best avenue for reform.
``We have a grass-roots party,'' said David Hummel, 2nd District chairman of the Republican Party. ``And the only way to bring about positive change is to have a grass-roots party and not have so many of them that none of them are effective.''
Saying that he ``did not come here for any crackpot discussions,'' Ken Geroe, the 2nd District Democratic chairman, said: ``I am sorely disappointed. I did not expect to walk into this room and find attacks and insults heaped on me.''
``If you decide,'' Geroe said, ``that your future, and my future, and the future of our nation lies with us becoming a bunch of individual cowboys who get on our horses and ride into the sunset, you'll be surprised to find that none of us are John Wayne.'' ILLUSTRATION: H. Ross Perot hasn't revealed his plans for a presidential race,
but he is expected to attend, in June, a state independent
convention.
ABOUT THE MEETINGS
The Virginia Independent Party's mass meetings in the 2nd
Congressional District - which includes Virginia Beach and most of
Norfolk - will be held Saturday. Any registered voter may attend.
The Norfolk meeting will be at 10 a.m. at the Ghent Law Offices,
2019 Llewellyn Ave. The Virginia Beach meeting will be at 2 p.m. at
the Kempsville Law Offices, 5233 Princess Anne Road. Call 623-4200
for details.
by CNB