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Tax in the cradle
With his tax cut pledge Thursday night, Bush has tried to step away from his father's "no new taxes" broken promise.
By Jake Tapper
[01/07/00]

GOP rivals get nasty at latest debate
With Bush and Bauer sparring over Jesus and McCain fighting charges that he helped a campaign donor, the race for the Republican nomination is heating up.
By Jake Tapper
[01/07/00]

Who -- me? A reformer?
Maybe nobody's noticed it yet, but nominating sex-mad tycoon Donald Trump for president would violate the Reform Party's first principle -- not to mention, common sense.
By David Corn
[01/06/00]

Round 5
Bradley and Gore bob and weave through their latest debate in New Hampshire.
By Jake Tapper
[01/06/00]

Putin's assault
An expert on post-Soviet Russia explains how former spy leader Vladimir Putin is using the war in Chechnya to lock in the presidential election -- and why the U.S. doesn't mind a bit.
By Fiona Morgan
[01/06/00]

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"Russ Verney?" asked Dean Barkley, director of Minnesota Planning under Ventura, to a coven of national newsies (there were more than 70 news outlets there) in reference to the Reform Party's former national chairman. "He ought to find another job. He's not an official anything." Barkley, along with most of the folks who worked on Ventura's campaign, backed Jack Gargan's successful bid for party chairman last year to wrest control away from the Perot faction in Texas.

Barkley, dressed in a tan suit and a white mock turtleneck that seems to be some sort of recurring Team Jesse uniform, reserved most of his bemused spite toward the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD announced the day before that 2000 presidential candidates must be polling at 15 percent, "as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations" to be allowed into debates. "It's the same thing they tried to do to me in Minnesota," said Barkley -- a former Reform Party Congressional and U.S. Senate candidate. "It's the same ridiculous politics, but we're used to protesting outside on sidewalks if we have to."

But The Donald, who flew to Minnesota in January in his private jet, certainly isn't used to such grass-roots gestures. So the question hung in the lobby while the 600 members of the Metro North Chamber of Commerce ate dessert in a banquet room and waited for Trump to take the podium: Why was Trump coming here now? The standard reasoning was that he had been asked by the chamber, which smartly aligned with the Jesse Ventura Volunteer Committee to turn the whole day into Ventura's first post-victory fund-raiser. There was a table full of new Ventura merchandise -- including three new dolls ($22 each), "Citizen Jesse" videotapes ($10), "Jesse Ventura and Minnesota Music ... Rock On!" compact discs ($10), coffee mugs ($6) and key chains and refrigerator magnets ($4). Under a Minnesota campaign finance board ruling from last March, Ventura is allowed to sell these wares as long as a majority of the profits go to charity, but some can still be retained for the volunteer committee.

Trump also got into the marketing act, with a table full of copies of his new book, "The America We Deserve" (Renaissance books, $24.95) in a hallway surrounded, ironically, by the Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Laura Ingalls Wilder conference rooms. "And if you're trying to get people into your hotels and casinos and shine up your halo a bit," Barkley said, gesturing to the news babes and camera dorks, "this is the way to get them here."

Suffice to say there were no bombs dropped: Trump is still not running, and Ventura is still not endorsing anyone. Would Barkley support Trump if he ran? "Well, I have a good job here," he said, motioning to the black-with-green Ventura banner hanging on the wall. "But if he came to me and said he wanted me to work for Trump, I'd do it."

But other Ventura veterans, all of whom were relishing the attention, feel Trump is their best chance to get the Reform Party established nationally. "There's nothing wrong with the faction of the party that's with Perot," said Phil Madsen, who is the webmaster for the Ventura volunteer committee and director of Internet communications for the Trump exploratory committee. "But it will fade away, because they don't have anything to stand for. It's pure personality spite because they lost the chairmanship. They're just jealous."

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