• QUESTION How do you see the Reform Party developing over the next few years?

 
• QUESTION Isn't there a way you can jump-start it though, by getting two or three big name people who can get into Congress and give you the visibility you need? 

 
• QUESTION Can you talk about your job as chairman of the party?  What does that require of you?  

 
• QUESTIONWhat's given you greatest satisfaction in your job? 

 
• QUESTION Do you have a framework for the challenges the Reform Party faces?  How do you categorize...are there three or four main challenges? 

 
• QUESTION The money--"It's the money," as Jerry Brown used to say.  A lot of candidates here are having trouble raising any amount of money.  What seems to be working?

VERNEY: My vision for the Reform Party is that within the next 15 to 20 years we make America a multi-political party country once again.  

Up until the 1920s America was a multi-political party country. To prevent the growth of the communist party in this country and the socialist party the Republicans and Democrats started building barriers to access to the ballot in the 1920s and '30s.  Then they found them to their comfort in 1948 with Henry Wallace's run, '68 with George Wallace--they wanted more protection against these races.  1980 with John Anderson was the first time you see them start to tear down barriers.  John Anderson challenged some of the barriers to ballot access.

I think we have to re-establish America as a multi-party country so we have a vigorous debate, not a polarized debate, as we have today from two extremes, and the entire center of the American political spectrum [is] left unrepresented.

To get there--for the Reform Party to become a major party, when we're back to a multi-political party country--we're going to build this a step at a time.  We're not going to dance to the tune of the Republicans and Democrats and chase ballot access, chase uncompetitive races for governor or U.S. Senate and try and get 3-percent or 5-percent of the votes every election...pour all your resources into that just so you remain alive in their minds.  

What we're going to do is field candidates for municipal, county and state legislative offices who are people who personalize the Reform Party to their neighbors, to their friends, to their communities, and bring in more activists. And that's the broad foundation--those tens of thousands of municipal, county and state legislative offices--are the broad foundation of a party--not your president, not your governor candidate, not your ballot access. And we know that we can get ballot access through the petition process as we need it.  We've done it twice nationwide in very short periods of time.  So our goal is to build this incrementally, as we go along step by step from the bottom up, running local candidates.
 

VERNEY: All of those things would be nice to have.  But the function of the people that are gathered here this weekend are to be like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts: "Be prepared."  Build the infrastructure of the party.  Organize at the state level, congressional district, county level, municipal level and down to the precinct level.  Build communications--internal and external.  Do the fundraising, so that we have the resources.  Recruit good candidates for local office, recruit good candidates for statewide office and train them how to run campaigns.

Now there are lots of things that can speed this process up. For instance, Blue Dog Democrats don't belong in the Democratic Party, but they're not comfortable in the Republican Party.  Moderate Republicans don't belong in the Republican Party that's intolerant, but they'd be uncomfortable in the Democratic Party.  Well there's a new home for them.  So should some of them migrate over here it speeds up the building process.

Some of our great candidates this year, like Jack Gargan of Florida, who are competitive candidates, have a chance of winning.  That gives a national or a more national message of who the Reform Party is, and a role model for people in the Reform Party that they can see, but it is not the building block.  The building block is the municipal, county and state legislative offices, because they control the rules under which parties exist and how elections are conducted and how campaigns are run.  You can change all the dynamics of the political process at the state level.
 

VERNEY: I'm a Vietnam vet.

...an air traffic controller...

VERNEY: I spent 11 years in air traffic control... 

Have these experiences prepared you for what you're doing now?

VERNEY: I think every one of my life experiences has prepared me for the challenges of this job.  I've learned the skills necessary to establish a vision, set goals, maintain realistic expectations--because if you expect too much, if we expect to take over Congress in 1998, we're going to be disappointed and go away frustrated. Have realistic expectations as you go along, keep a clear focus, and provide genuine leadership.  And I think I have those skills to bring to this task, and together with all of the representatives from around the country, we have the power to map out the right plans to succeed over the next few years.

VERNEY: The greatest satisfaction I get is waking up in the morning and knowing that I have the honor of representing the people who are gathered at this convention.  These are America's heroes. If I went to a Republican party meeting, everybody at that meeting would be there to get something--a chance to run for office, a campaign contribution, appointment to a position, a contract--it's about them, what do they get out of it?  When I go to a Reform Party meeting, it's folks from the center of the ethical playing field--people who work hard all day and just expect a fair shake from government--who are saying what can I give to make my country better for the next generation. It's about giving as opposed to taking.  It's just an honor for me every morning when I wake up, and a thrill to realize that I represent these folks.
 

VERNEY: We know that creating a new political party is very much like creating a new human--it's not born fully mature.  It starts in an infancy and matures along the way.  So we have challenges all day, every day, and we have huge opponents who would prefer never to have competition from us, who've set up barriers against our existence.

So we have the internal maturing process, the learning to build consensus and learning conflict resolution among ourselves, we have organizational and administrative challenges that are normal to any organization, and then we have these huge barriers to climb over that are placed there by Republicans and Democrats against competition.

Which is more difficult?

VERNEY: We have accepted all of them as a matter of the course we've taken.  We've found none that are disheartening; they're just a matter of prioritizing at that moment where your resources are best placed for the maximum results.  Whether it's challenging through the courts the barriers they've put up or recruiting more volunteers to jump over that barrier, whether it's holding more meetings to gain consensus or to resolve conflict, it's just a matter of the building process.  It's all done in a very positive attitude and a very can-do attitude and with just tens of thousands of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  We've been very successful.
 

VERNEY: Our folks have never in the past been involved with fundraising activities in a large scale to finance a multi-thousand dollar or hundred thousands of dollars campaigns.  It's all brand new to them.  And it's a learning process that we're going through now.  Since we don't accept any special interest money or political action committee money, we raise our contributions from people who are willing to give $15 and $20 at a time, not $15,000 and $20,000 at a time.  It's difficult to amass the equal resources of the Republicans and Democrats, but we substitute shoe leather and elbow grease from volunteers for the money that they have to have to pay for their advertising. 

What seems to be working?  There are people here from New Hampshire doing a raffle for a computer, little things like this, or are you going to try to do some kind of national fundraising effort as well?

VERNEY: The national committee is doing fundraising constantly.  But...two principles of fundraising.  First you're never going to get any money unless you ask for it.  So we're out asking for it.  We're doing it through telephone calls, we're doing it through direct mail solicitations to previous supporters and people who have some more interest to us.  So we're out asking for money.  [Ed. note.  According to Reform Party treasurer Mike Morris, at the time of the convention the national party had raised about $200,000 since its inception in late 1997.  After accounting for the convention, telemarketing, and other expenses, it had about $90,000 remaining].  And the second thing is discipline--that when the money comes in don't spend it.  Reinvest it in more fundraising.  So we keep churning our money over.  We don't have money to help finance our candidates this year because if we took it out of that fundraising stream, we'd cripple ourselves for many years to come.  We're just churning over; any money that we do raise we put right back into the fundraising activities again.