After Tom Luce left the White House to join the Supreme Court, President Perot focused again on national politics. Only the terrible recent events had brought him to foreign affairs which never interested him much, and he left administrative issues to the new Chief of Staff, Ed Rollins, whom Perot never liked for reasons dating back to the presidential campaign. He focused instead on the prospects of the new party.
The failure of the Balanced Budget Amendment had upset him very much, and even if his bills on internal security had been passed, President Perot had become disillusioned with his attempts at bipartisanship. Some elements of each party supported his agenda, others remained loyal to the party line and made everything to make the President a lame duck. President Perot knew however that almost a third of the American voters had supported him six months ago, and that he could take advantage of his popularity and found a loyal party.
He remained steady with an idea of a big tent party, targeted at the moderates, and even the growing fringes of American public life, such as the libertarians, the greens, and even the socialists ; the most moderate ones, of course. In one word, all the people disatissfied with the current party system. When we came to the problem of party funding, he told me he would ask Ross, Jr. to use the resources of Perot Systems and the family fortune to fund congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial candidates across the country and recruit electable people.
He played for a while with the names of Reform or American Party. It’s Frank Luntz, then a White House staffer, who came with the final name.
-From The President’s Son-in-Law : Memoirs from Washington, by former White House Counsel Clay Mulford
« We have accomplished much these last eight months, but a lot of things haven’t been passed due to the partisan and obstructionist system that currently Congress, by the Republicans and the Democrats who can’t agree on anything and become Tweedledum and Tweedledee. When the American people will go to the polls in November 1994, I will ask him to manifest their support to me once again, and this time for a true American party, who will listen to their deeds and needs. And this party will embody the valors of reform, and even so, our most important belief : the belief in freedom. My cabinet and I have become members of the Freedom Party ! »
-Press conference of President Ross Perot announcing the founding of the Freedom Party, August, 1 1993
-« I’m becoming too old for this shit. I will retire next year. »
-Overheard comment of Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-ME), August, 3 1993
« The founding of the Freedom Party sparked immediate manifestations of support throughout the country, and enlistments came mostly from New England, the West Coast and the Rust Belt. Most of the new members of the Freedom Party were former Republicans, in particular in areas known for their moderatism, also known as Rockefeller Republicans. On an interesting take, the moderate and conservative Democrats also joined the party. The Freedom Party became the party of the dissatisfied, who wanted to change the things, who refused to choose between Clinton and Bush in 1992. The liberal-to-moderate Republicans and the moderate-to-conservative Democrats : those who recognized themselves in the social liberal, economic conservative line of the party.
Liberals remained with the Democratic Party, but the effets of the new founding were most important on the Republican Party : the Freedom Party had a limited influence in the Midwest and the South, the former which had voted en masse for Perot in 1992, always attracted by the populist speech and who now viewed him as a to-be Washington insider ; and the Deep South grew highly infuriated with his gun control stance, in violation to his campaign pledges. So the Republican Party finally retained his most loyal and/or most conservative members, prompting moderate House Minority Leader Robert Michel from Illinois to retire and paving the way to Minority Whip Newt Gingrich from Georgia, who embodied the conservative and agressive wing of the GOP…
-From The Perot Revolution : Founding the Seventh Party System, by former White House Chief of Staff James Carville, 2010
« As I already supported President Perot’s agenda, I can announce you that I have decided to run for re-election next year in my district as a member of the Freedom Party.
(inaudible question)
Yes, I have also convinced my cousin, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island’s first district, to join the new party. And I don’t think that my uncle Ted will be willing to join the party of his two defunct brothers. »
-Rep. Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (F-MA-8), August, 9 1993
« Perot is the man the Independants in Minnesota have expected so much ! And now that the Independance Party has joined them, we will go to Washington and win ! »
-Former Congressional candidate Dean Barkley (F-MN), August, 11 1993
FREEDOMITE SURGE IN SENATE : DEMOCRATS LIEBERMAN (CT), NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL (CO), BOREN (OK), REPUBLICANS MCCAIN (AZ), SPECTER (PA), JEFFORDS (VT), CHAFEE (RI) JOIN
-Washington Post, August, 15 1993
« The situation in the United States has become desperate. Therefore, I will join the Freedom Party to promote reform and synergy. »
-Rep. James Traficant (F-OH-17), August 17 1993
IND. GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE ANGUS KING ANNOUNCES ENLISTMENT INTO FREEDOM PARTY
-Portland Press Herald, August, 19 1993
NY INDEPENDANCE PARTY JOINS FREEDOM PARTY ; CHAIRMAN TOM GOLISANO ANNOUNCES CONGRESSIONAL RUN
-New York Times, August, 22 1993
GOV. DEAN, REP. SANDERS, SEN. JEFFORDS AND WHOLE VERMONT PROGRESSIVE PARTY JOIN FREEDOM PARTY
-Burlington Free Press, August, 23 1993
« It’s impossible to enact a true liberal revolution in the current Democratic Party ; I have more hope in President Perot’s new party to run a decent congressional campaign aimed at reform. »
-Fmr. Mayor of Cleveland Dennis Kucinich (F-OH), August, 24 1993
« Saying that I can’t recognize my beliefs in the current Republican party, which was the party of my father, is a mere euphemism. But, with the Freedom Party… »
-Rep. Susan Molinari (F-NY-13), August, 25 1993
« I have refused President Perot’s offers to become his running mate, and later his HUD Secretary, but I will not pass my chance to become the Freedom Party’ senatorial candidate for Ohio. »
-Head of National Institute of Health Bernadine Healy (F-OH), August, 29 1993
FREEDOM PARTY RALLY : PETE UEBERROTH ANNOUNCES RUN FOR SENATE, REP. SONNY BONO JOINS, FMR. REP. PETE MCCLOSKEY ANNOUNCES RUN
-Los Angeles Times, September, 2 1993
ALASKAN INDEPENDANCE PARTY JOINS FREEDOM PARTY
-Anchorage Daily News, September, 5 1993
« Yeah, I’m planning to run as a Freedom Party candidate next year in my former congressional district. This party has the most chances to become a viable third party in the United States. »
-Fmr. Rep. Ron Paul (F-TX-22), September, 9 1993
« Brooklyn can’t pretend to be represented by the obstructionnist clique in Congress. President Perot proposes true change and is interested in the cause of the coloured man. That’s why I will run for the 10th District. »
-Rev. Al Sharpton (F-NY), September, 12 1993
« Of all politicians in the United States, President Perot and his Freedom Party is the only one to be interested in research and true harmony for life on Earth. That’s why I, and my fellow members of the Natural Law Party, have decided to join the Freedom Party, and that I will form a commitee to test the waters for a congressional run. »
-John Hagelin, Ph.D. (F-IA), September, 15 1993
« Republicans, Democrats… Since I retired from the Major League, they have all turned to me for running a campaign for elective office, and I was never convinced by their platforms and arguments. But with a true Texan cowboy like President Perot, it’s different ! When Senator Lloyd Bentsen will retire next year, he will find a valuable successor in my person ! »
-Nolan Ryan (F-TX), September, 19 1993
« I will use the assets of the Trump Organization and my own personal fortune to fund the Freedom Party in New York and my own gubernatorial campaign next year as a member of the new party.
(inaudible question)
WHAT ?! Who said I decided to run due to financing problems and bankruptcy ? Tell me your name, you coward ! Do you want to be fired ? »
-Press conference of Donald Trump (F-NY), September, 25 1993
« No historian will be ever able to measure the effort put by the Perot administration to search for electable candidates for the Freedom Party and even important people sympathetic for their cause. Hell, in 1993, I had just failed with my MTV show, You Wrote It, You Watch It, and I was waiting for news, if I would replace Letterman on NBC. I wanted to continue talk-shows, that’s why I returned to them after my political career was over. And then I see members of the Freedom Party in New York, with their badges « Trump for Governor », coming at my apartment. All because I had said in an interview that I considered more Independant than Democratic ! AAnd then they made all the fuss, about serving my country and my state, representing Manhattan in Congress… I must confess that their main argument was money, I wouldn’t pay a single cent for my congressional campaign. When I said : Why not take a leave from TV and try my stand in politics… That’s funny to think that the first ones with which I confered were Anthony Weiner and Stephen Colbert, with whom I worked in TV. The first one was furious after me, the other was amused with the prospect of a comedian running, more seriously than Pat Paulsen. The former went on to become Mayor of New York, the other Senator for New Jersey. And both remained Democrats...When we think of all that, comedians as politicians. Why not Al Franken for Senator? »
-Fmr. Rep. Jon Stewart (F-NY-8), interviewed in How Ross Perot and the Republican Party Screwed America, a documentary by Michael Moore, 2010
« And when I saw Führer Ross Perot’s goons on my doorstep, I just thought : « What the fuck ? » Hell, the Secret Service knows about my trafficking, I should have took my gun. But no, they go on to order to serve my fucking country, to run for a congressional district in SF, speaking of my popularity in youth and young adults, and of my San Francisco mayoral run fourteen years ago, of my green activism. Fuck, I had a lot of fun doing that, with all the bullshit with Dan White and all, but I was never being serious ; all it resulted was prohibiting candidates to run under a pseudonym. Fuck, I was the most different person ever from the redneck comboy in the White House, I was a filthy communist, I would have been shot by a firing squad under McCarthy. And when I came to be convinced by not having to pay anything for the campaign, and that I would have a lot of fun to do that, and possibly proposing bullshit in Congress… To create a true revolution, be a bit like Trotsky. No one could have thought, me first, that I would grow interested by the game. »
-Governor of California Eric R. Boucher (F-CA), quoted in California Über Alles : The Incredible Story of Jello Biafra, a documentary by Martin Scorcese, 2012