"I accept, with humility and with pride, the mantle of H. Ross Perot."
John Hagelin

Those were the words of the candidate who was elected at the Reform Party's breakaway convention. That's right. The breakaway convention. At the "official" Reform Party Convention, Pat Buchanan (who currently holds the title of America's Creepiest Politician) defeated Hagelin by a 2-1 margin and accepted the nomination. Sound a little confusing? Welcome to the self-destructive end of a third party in American politics.

But first, let me take you back to the beginning. It was an autumn of poverty way back in 1991. America had mowed down Saddam and the Iraqis in the early winter months of the year, but by then, everyone realized that while we could destroy any country on the planet we still couldn't keep people employed within our borders. Recession, unemployment, and grunge music from Seattle were on the rise. A scrawny rich business man with big ears started spending money for people to pay attention to him complain about the deficit. A broke America listened to him.

Ross Perot was crazy. We all knew he was crazy, but he paid for his campaign with his own money. We loved the fact that the crazy rich were blowing their own money (Forbes has tried the same approach a couple times but doesn't come across demented enough). Dana Carvey perfected his imitation of the billionaire, and by the spring of 1992, the United Stated had three white men with legitimate chances to be elected. People were so broke that they liked Perot. The guy may have been nuts, but he still made as much sense as Bush and Clinton. Polls showed Perot with 20 percent of the vote and rising, and then he did what only a crazy man would do. After blowing millions of dollars and becoming a viable candidate, Ross Perot dropped out of the race.

He blamed the media circus for delving to much into his personal life and their harassment of him and his family in general. Clinton, being the smooth smooth that he is, appealed to the rejected Perot fans much better than Bush and took the lead. After some time off, Perot decided to run for President again, but once you quit, you can't come back expecting open arms. In the end, Perot garnered the most popular votes of any third party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt in his Progressive Party days, but Clinton won the election.

It's now the year 2000. The Reform Party, which Perot created so he could run for president any time he wanted, now has equally crazy but less appealing individuals controlling the party. Unlike other third parties which have specific albeit selective party platforms, the Reform Party's purpose has always been to accept any radical figure who can't find a home in major political parties. It worked for Jessie Ventura. It hasn't worked for anyone else. Even Jessie doesn't like to admit he's related to the Reformists.

With no solid direction, a bunch of ego trips consolidated in Long Beach, Calif., this week to elect the Reform Party Candidate. People who didn't like Buchanan ran across the street to make their own club. "We don't like the Originals, so we'll be the New Originals!" All of this is to see who will get the 12.5 million dollars that is up for grabs for campaigning. Perot pissed away more than that on the graphs he used in his prime-time infomercials.

The Reform Party Convention made for dramatic political theater, but it also spelled doom for the party as a whole. While a few hundred people yelled at each other, the rest of the country shook their head or completely ignored the silliness altogether. The Reform Party will probably stick around for years to come, but it will take its place beside Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, Natural Law and every other party which helps fill out the also-rans in the voting booth.

My prediction is that Buchanan will end up with the 12.5 million. He will continually stick his foot in his mouth during his campaign and complain about being misquoted and misunderstood. Hagelin will purchase the biggest blow horn at Wal-Mart but quickly return it claiming that no one could hear him.

Somewhere, Ross Perot is chuckling to himself, and he has absolutely no idea why.

Chris Jungle concedes that he will probably never write about the Reform Party ever again.