Ottumwa (IA) Courier
July 7, 2000
NEW YORK'S REFORM PARTY GIVES SUPPORT TO HAGELIN
NEW YORK (AP) - Positioning itself firmly against Pat Buchanan, the state branch of the Reform Party endorsed a little-known physicist for president Thursday.
"I never knew being so far behind was such an asset," joked John Hagelin, who hopes to wrest the nomination from front-runner Buchanan in the nationwide, mail-in primary that started this week. "I think I like New York."
Since party founder Ross Perot has decided against running, Hagelin has emerged as the sole challenger to Buchanan for the nomination and $12.6 million in federal election funds.
"It's a referendum on what the character of the Reform Party will be," said Lenora Fulani, a leader of the New York Independence Party, the state affiliate of the national Reform Party. "Pat Buchanan wound up with a narrow and ideological campaign."
Hagelin, 46, is a founder of the Natural Law Party.... He advocates preventive health care, the elimination of political action committees, and the application of scientific thinking to policy problems....
At a midtown Manhattan news conference, Hagelin and Independence party leaders said Buchanan's conservative views on social issues like abortion and immigration did not fit with the Reform Party's goals of cleaning up campaign finance, making government more accountable and fixing the health care and educational systems.
"We don't want to see this effort to reach out perverted by some narrow and exclusive candidacy," Hagelin said.
He said the major party presidential candidates, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, weren't different enough to offer voters a real choice.
"Just two wings of the same bird of prey," he said. "If you want the Republicans and Democrats to listen--compete with them."
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