For these next parts I included the county maps, which is something super difficult to pull off so I rarely do it. This is because in Indiana and Iowa the 1992 results don't change any counties and Kansas has been so important to the party that I felt like it was worth doing all that work. Hope you enjoy this part!
Indiana
Governor: Becky Skillman (R) (2005-)
Senators: Richard Lugar (R) (1977-) Evan Bayh (D) (1999-)
The state of Indiana has an interesting history stemming from the fact that it being a fairly rural state in the middle of the Rust Belt. Its population centers do not compare to their neighbors in Illinois, Michigan, or Ohio and its politics reflects that. In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was a Republican-leaning swing state where no candidate received more than 55%. The Democratic candidate only received less than 45% in 1904, during Theodore Roosevelt’s landslide re-election. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson won the state with just 43.07% of the vote but less than the combined totals of Theodore Roosevelt (PROG) and William Taft (R), who collectively earned 47.86%. The Democrats would not win the state again until Franklin Roosevelt’s first two terms and then in Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide. The last time they won the state was in 1996, when Bill Clinton won a landslide re-election over a divided opposition. Besides those instances, Democrats have struggled to break 40% in the state post-Great Depression. Today it is a Republican stronghold, with the Democratic and Reform Parties both struggling to maintain statewide relevance. Reform has never broken 30% in a statewide race and the strongest result they and their affiliates ever saw was in 1992. Ross Perot earned 29.77% of the vote in the state but his support was fairly equally distributed and he failed to win a single county.
Despite the strength of the Republican Party in the state, winning the Presidential and the Senate election by strong margins, they never came close to unseating Governor Evan Bayh, who won all but two counties. Perot’s Campaign didn’t get involved in many downballot races in ‘92, but the Reform Party itself endorsed candidates in many races that it didn’t participate in. In 1996, Governor Bayh was term-limited and the Republican Party knew now was their chance. Stephen Goldsmith had been the Prosecutor of Marion County from 1979 to 1991 when he was picked as the Republican Candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1988, the bottom name on the ticket that lost two Bayh during his first run. Goldsmith went on to be elected to two terms as Mayor of Indianapolis, winning in 1991 and then winning re-election in 1995. A year later he ran for governor and won. The Reform Party was impressed by Goldsmith’s record and history of moderation while they saw his opponent, Lieutenant Governor Frank O'Bannon (D) as a straightforward Democrat. The Reform Party of Indiana endorsed Goldsmith and supported his campaign, even though Perot and the national party remained neutral in the race. Goldsmith proved victorious but the state Reform Party came to regret their support. Despite their support of an economically conservative platform, Reform was by and large opposed to austerity, which was seen as too severe. Goldsmith put an immediate freeze on hirings or providing raises to state employees, which he would maintain his entire time in office. There are factions within the party that felt differently, but most of the politicians and voters who identified with Reform saw those policies as too far. In 2000, the state party convention narrowly voted to not endorse Goldsmith’s re-election, but he won without them. It became a low-level scandal for the state party leadership, who worked to distance itself from the governor during his second term. During this time, they moved away from endorsing major party candidates altogether and, by some accounts, became the modern Reform Party of Indiana.
There are three figures of note in the Reform Party of Indiana today, Tim Roemer, Jocelyn Tandy-Adande, and Andrew Horning. The three of them came from different factions within the Reform Party, but are also close political allies who exemplified how these disparate groups can come together to form a cohesive political party. Tim Roemer had been a moderate Democrat when he took part in the Earth Day Party defection. The former Congressman remains the most public and popular member of the Reform Party in the state, having been a major surrogate for the presidential campaigns of Dick Lamm and Jerry Brown even though he had supported neither in their respective primaries. It came as a shock when he lost re-election in 2000, but since then he has remained a very public and well known figure and actually became more involved in statewide politics, rather than concern himself with what happened nationally. In late 2004 he announced his intentions to run for Senator Richard Lugar’s seat in 2006, beginning his campaign early. He has also gotten heavily involved in the state party apparatus since his defeat in 2000. He was a big supporter of Jocelyn Tandy-Adande’s gubernatorial candidacy in 2004, championing her nomination as “right for this moment” and appearing side by side with her across the state. Tandy-Adande was closer to the progressive faction of the party, having defected from the Democrats in 2000 after finding Lamm’s campaign to be more focused on bread and butter issues. She lost her own re-election as Marion County Clerk by under 100 votes to her Democratic challenger, which drew the attention of the state party who began to actively recruit her to run for statewide office. Tandy-Adande agreed with some reluctance, as her actual ambitions lay in local politics. It was well known that she intended to run for Mayor of Indianapolis in 2007 but in 2004 when she ran for governor to raise her profile, she did unexpectedly well, surpassing 26% of the vote. This was the first time a Reform candidate did so well in the governor’s race and it was the party’s third best result in statewide history, if you count Perot’s 1992 independent campaign. Her running mate is the third most important figure in the statewide party, Indianapolis CIty Councilman Andrew Horning. Horning was a libertarian and had served as the Reform Party’s 2003 candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis, coming in a distant third with just over 17% of the vote. The moderate Roemer, the progressive Tandy-Adande, and the libertarian Horning all had distinct politics and supported different candidates on the national stage but were united in party solidarity. They were political allies who supported each other’s ambitions and together were attempting to make the Reform Party a true political force within the state.
Iowa
Governor: Tom Vilsack (D) (1999-)
Senators: Chuck Grassley (R) (1981-) Jim Ross Lightfoot (R) (2003-)
Iowa is another state where the Reform Party has struggled for relevance. In the 1990s their bench of politicians was very thin, with the only truly notable member being Jim Hennager. Hennager had a varied political career, getting elected to three different city councils in the state of Iowa over the years, in Fayette, Volga, and then Cambridge. He was the state director of Ross Perot’s United We Stand organization and ran for governor in 1998, winning the nomination but failing to earn more than 3% of the vote. He became state party chair soon after, serving in that role to this day. While serving as the party chair, he would be asked why Reform hasn’t been able to break out in this state, to which he stated “the Democrats and the Republicans are both very strong here.” This was true back in 1992 and is readily apparent in recent political elections.
Senator Chuck Grassley was elected as part of Reagan’s 1980 landslide and has consistently won by large margins ever since. The other senate seat has been only a bit more within reach. Senator Tom Harkin (D) was elected in 1984, defeating the incumbent Republican by a wide margin, exceeding Reagan’s margin of victory over Mondale in the state. He was re-elected in 1990 and 1996, but that year saw his first race against then-Congressman Jim Ross Lightfoot (R). Even though he won re-election, it was by a far smaller margin than his earlier wins and in 2002, Harkin went down in defeat in their rematch. Still, the voters proved themselves to not be particularly partisan, with Governor Tom Vilsack (D) easily winning re-election after narrowly taking office in 1998. Vilsack was elected over Secretary of State Paul Pate (R). In all of these elections, the Reform Party ran a no-name perennial candidate who national figures didn’t even bother endorsing.
Until the most recent election year, there was only one success story for the Iowa Reform Party. David Johnson served from 1997 to 2000 as a Republican member of the Iowa House of Representatives. He has been briefly discussed before, so long story short, he is a center-right Reformer who endorsed Frank Fasi in 2000 before eventually backing Lamm and was a staunch supporter of Ron Paul’s campaign. He endorsed Jerry Brown as the candidate with a lot of reluctance, with Brown’s pick for VP being the decisive factor. Jim Hennager successfully recruited him to run for Congress in 2000, where he won the open seat being vacated by Greg Ganske as he went over to the private sector. Despite his conservative lean, Johnson was consistently considered a “team player” who backed the Reform Party establishment in most cases. Because of this, he was tapped to run for Senate against Chuck Grassley. Nobody thought he could win, but the fact that he essentially tied with Democratic candidate Arthur Small, winning 336,187 votes to Small’s 339,138 proved the party’s viability statewide. Johnson was the only success story in Iowa up until 2004, when that all changed.
Jim Hennager believed the statewide party as a whole needed to move to the right to become electorally viable and the result of this strategy in 2004 proved that to be the right move in Iowa. He recruited two Republican-affiliated politicians to run for Congress, alongside the standard libertarian perennials. Iowa’s 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts would have these libertarians as their party standard bearers, but its 3rd and 4th would have actually competitive candidates. Bill Salier was a former Marine and close political ally of Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO-6), managing his campaign in 1998 and 2000. Tancredo is one of the most right wing members of the House of Representatives, but had declined to endorse anybody for president in 2000. He praised Richard Lamm’s immigration position but said “that’s where our commonality begins and ends” and had been critical of John Kasich’s foreign policy on the campaign trail, calling him “too soft.” He had initially supported the Cuban War, but had since come out against it, stating that “we are letting our boys die over there for nothing.” Salier shared Tancredo’s views on immigration and was personally supportive of a “Peace with Honor” strategy. Out of all the Reform Party candidates elected to Congress that year, Salier was the only one who had flat out refused to endorse Jerry Brown, stating “nobody on the ballot is qualified.” Beyond the above mentioned, Salier held moderate views overall, particularly on economic issues. He and Tancredo were both very much in favor of marijuana legalization and early in 2005 they would jointly propose an act in Congress that would legalize it nationally. Julie Hosch was a farmer from Cascade, Iowa and was elected to the State Senate in 2002. Before taking office, she was President of the Iowa Cattlewomen’s Association. As a freshman, she stood out for her undogmatic focus on local issues, with a voting record that included calls for more federal support for the state’s Medicare recipients, limiting the death penalty, supporting veterans issues, and helping to found a response team to clean up hazardous waste in the state. While in office, she would also support socially conservative causes, such as supporting a resolution urging Congress to ban gay marriage, but never touched on abortion through legislation. With a reputation for reaching across the aisle, she faced a primary challenge for re-election in 2004 and, fearing defeat, decided to not seek re-election. Thinking her political career was over, she was intrigued when Jim Hennager reached out to her about running for Congress. Nobody imagined anybody would unseat Leonard Boswell (D), but she succeeded at outpacing the Republican candidate and making herself a known figure statewide.
Kansas
Governor: Bob Knight (R) (2003-)
Senators: Jim Ryun (R) (2003-) Greg Orman (REF) (2005-)
Kansas was always an interesting case for the Reform Party, being a state they consistently performed well in during presidential elections but one they struggled to take other offices in. Ross Perot won it twice and Dick Lamm and Jerry Brown both carried the state as well, yet they’ve only won two statewide races here in over a decade.
Former Senator Richard Fink was elected in 1996 in a race that most of the public considers “stolen” to this day. Former Senator Richard Fink is a businessman and academic who was mostly known for teaching at Rutgers University and founding the Mercatus Center in the 1970s before becoming closely associated with Koch Industries and its owners during the same decade. He would teach at George Mason University in the 1980s and continue to promote libertarian ideas. In the 1990s he relocated to Kansas where he served as an executive for Koch Industries until he decided to run for Senate. He won the Reform Party nomination without any real challenge but lagged behind in the polls heading into the general election. He was an untested outsider candidate up against Kansas State Treasurer Sally Thompson (D) and former Kansas Secretary of Agriculture-turned-Freshman Congressman Sam Brownback (R-KS-2) when the Libertarian Party nominee Steven Rosile stepped down and was replaced by billionaire David Koch. Koch was a close friend of Fink and had been his boss just months before. The billionaire campaigned heavily against the two major party candidates, attacking them as political insiders beholden to special interests while never directing any attacks against Fink, even as he climbed in the polls. Nothing has ever been proven, but there was said to be collusion between the Fink and Koch campaigns with the goal of getting Fink elected by dragging the other candidates down. Whether or not this was true, it worked and Fink was elected to the US Senate, where he received an unbelievably important platform from which to push his ideology. He would lose re-election in 2002 against Olympic Silver Medal winner-turned-Congressman Jim Ryun (R-KS-2), who had directly succeeded Brownback in the House. Ryun was a social and economic conservative but had a more moderate set of beliefs and positions compared to many others in the Senate, which helped him win over swing voters to unseat Fink. After his defeat, Richard Fink remained a major figure within the state party and was an important surrogate for Ron Paul in 2004.
The main effect the Reform Party had on Kansas statewide politics was forcing the Republican Party to pick candidates with broad appeal. Ryun wasn’t the only moderate Republican to hold statewide office, there was also Governor Bob Knight. Knight had been Mayor of Wichita for seven two year terms, first in 1980-81, then 1984-85 and 1987-88, and finally 1995-2002, when he was elected Governor of Kansas. A popular and moderate figure, Knight was well liked across the political spectrum. Some even described him as “the only Republican that could govern Kansas.”
By the year 2004, three of Kansas’ four seats in the House were represented by the Reform Party: Jim Sherow (REF-KS-1) and Dawn Bly (REF-KS-3) were considered establishment Reformers while Tim Owens (REF-KS-4) was a right-leaning populist. All three were fairly established local figures before winning Congressional elections. Jim Sherrow was the Mayor of Manhattan, Kansas, Dawn Bly was a member of the City Council for Olathe, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, and Tim Owens had served a single term in the Kansas House of Representatives, representing the 19th district. All three had been backed by Richard Fink and associated libertarian organizations even if they themselves were not dyed in wool libertarians. The only Reformer to ever represent Kansas from outside this coalition was elected to the Senate in 2004.
Greg Orman had first gotten involved in politics as a student attending Princeton University when, in 1988, he worked for then-Vice President George Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign. He was a member of the College Republicans but grew disillusioned with Bush during his presidency. In 1991 he graduated magna cum laude and in 1992, he campaigned for Ross Perot and joined the Reform Party later that year, when it was first founded. Out of every elected Reformer in Congress, Orman is the only one to have been a member of the party that early on. He also showed his convictions from an early time, opposing Fink’s candidacy by campaigning his primary opponent, David Wittig. He again campaigned for Perot in ‘96 and did the same for Lowell Weicker in 2000. That was just his activism, he briefly found work at the consulting firm McKinsey and Company, which has a very bad reputation, before founding his own company at age 23, called Environmental Mental Lighting Concepts LLC, which focused on energy efficient lighting systems. Kansas City Power and Light purchased the company and put him in charge of their Energy Services division in 1996. He worked there until 2002, increasing the revenue generated almost tenfold. His business success at a young age made him a fairly well known public figure and he would use that to pursue his true dream. Orman had always wanted to seek political office and had wanted to accumulate some personal wealth to do so. His family and friends tried convincing him to aim for a lower office first, but he had his eyes on the Senate. Bob Dole had represented Kansas in the US Senate since 1969 and had announced his intentions to retire in 2005 fairly early on. He was a massive figure in the state and his retirement truly marked the end of an era. Orman easily won the primary to succeed him, defeating libertarian perennial candidate Tom Oyler by a massive margin. His platform included tax cuts, Congressional term-limits, an end to the Cuban War, campaign finance reform, expanding citizenship for undocumented workers, and making abortion rights federal law through an act of Congress. Despite this, he received endorsements from dozens of local Republicans and Democrats, both current and former officeholders. In the general election, he defeated Republican Sheila Frahm by over 5 percentage points (65,340 votes) and was even praised by Senate Party Leader Douglas Wilder as “the future of the party.”
