Below: Florida's "Butterfly Ballot"
Ezola Broussard Foster, August 9, 1938 (Maurice, La.) – May 22, 2018 (Boulder City, Nev.)
VP candidate for Reform Party of the United States of America (aka Independent aka American Party aka Citizens First aka Independence Party aka Right to Life Party aka Freedom Party) (2000)
Running mate with nominee: Patrick Joseph Buchanan (b. 1938)
Popular vote: 438,032 (0.42%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
"Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it."
--a military captain in Hamlet, attempting to explain the cause of a battle
The Reform Party had become low-hanging fruit for carpetbaggers in 2000. Thanks to Ross Perot's appeal and the hard work of his activists, the Party was at the turn of the century an organized network with (and here the starting gun for the political equivalent of the Oklahoma Land Rush is fired) over $12 million in matching funds.
There were two potential candidates who had an honest claim to the nomination. Ross Perot himself declined to run. Jesse Ventura, who had made history when he was elected Governor of Minnesota as a member of the Reform Party in 1998, would also have been a legitimate contender if he had wanted.
John Anderson, the former Republican who had run as an Independent for President in 1980 and Ron Paul the Republican who was also briefly a Libertarian when he ran for President under that banner in 1988, were also names that were bandied about as potential Reform Party nominees. Another name that had come up was Lowell Weicker, an ex-Republican who had served as Governor of Connecticut as a member of the independent Connecticut Party.
But when announcements were made there only three big names that were put forward: Donald Trump, John Hagelin, and Pat Buchanan.
Trump had been encouraged to run by Ventura. A Democrat until 1987, he had toyed with the idea of running for President as a Republican in 1988. In 1999 Trump campaigned for the Reform Party nomination on a conservative platform but did endorse universal public health care and was more liberal on some social issues than he would be later in his political career. He said he wanted Oprah Winfrey as his running-mate. Roger Stone was his campaign director. By Feb. 2000 Ventura left the Reform Party and Trump withdrew from the race. Trump re-registered as a Democrat in 2001 and then as a Republican in 2009.
John Hagelin was running for President as the Natural Law Party nominee for the third election in a row. He was attempting to merge with the Reform Party and came close enough that his delegates from the latter party held their own convention. Unfortunately for Hagelin, the courts sided with Buchanan but that didn't stop the NLP candidate from sometimes showing up on ballots under the Reform Party label. In some states both Buchanan and Hagelin were on the ballot under the Reform Party name.
In 1992 and 1996 Ross Perot tended to avoid taking strong stands on cultural or social issues that created deep divisions among Americans. His main focus was economic. Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, had established himself as a Right wing "cultural warrior" when he ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1992 and 1996. When he began his campaign for President as a member of the Reform Party, he changed the entire premise for the existence of the organization, making it more of an affluent version of the Constitution Party in 2000. Rather than attempting to unite people with issues they had in common, Buchanan hammered away on divisive hot button social problems such as opposing abortion, Gay rights, Affirmative Action. He held views some called racist on non-white immigration. Using the slogan "America First" (which had previously been employed by fascist sympathizer, anti-Semite, white supremacist, and Holocaust denier Gerald L.K. Smith in his Presidential campaign), Buchanan offered no original ideas that were not already in the platforms of other Right wing political parties concerning foreign relations or the economy.
In spite of this he was able to elicit the support of former New Alliance Party Presidential candidate Lenora Fulani (later withdrawn) as well as future Socialist nominee Brian Moore. Klansman David Duke also hopped on board the Buchanan campaign, as well as members of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, bringing a contingent of White Nationalist support.
In New York he ran under the banner of the Right to Life Party and in Colorado under the American Party.
After considering James P. Hoffa and others, Buchanan selected Ezola Foster, one of his co-chairs from the 1996 campaign. The California-based Foster had made a name for herself as an extremely conservative African American activist. Foster was known for her views against immigration, abortion, and Gay rights. She defended the display of the Confederate flag. She said God brought slaves from Africa to America so "their descendants would know freedom." Her placement on the ticket confused several of Buchanan's more racist followers.
Foster became a controversial pick. Her membership with the John Birch Society was more than simply carrying the card, she was also part of their lecture circuit talent pool. She described the civil rights movement as a "revenge and reparations movement" and didn't think segregation was really all that bad even though she grew up in Louisiana as part of the oppressed community. Rev. Jesse Jackson and his ilk were "Leninist race-baiters" according to Foster.
Foster said "government schools," i.e. public education, were "socialist training camps." She opposed AIDS education in schools because she felt it promoted homosexuality. Foster was outspoken and hardline about illegal immigrant children. As a high school teacher she said she was persecuted for her conservative beliefs and was forced to accept worker's compensation 1996-1998 until she retired because of stress. She later said the "mental disorder" claim was faked but reporters uncovered she had suffered from depression since the 1970s and had recently been prescribed antidepressants.
The Buchanan/Foster team alienated many of the veteran Reform Party members including Perot himself. The 2000 ticket generally placed 4th around the country, behind Ralph Nader and the Greens. In Oklahoma and South Dakota they placed third but in both cases Nader was not on the ballot. There were 45 states with Foster as the VP. In Massachusetts for some reason the running-mate was William J. Higgins Sr., in Oregon no VP was apparently listed, and in Michigan Buchanan was a write-in.
Top results for Buchanan/Foster ticket: North Dakota 2.53%, Alaska 1.82%, Idaho 1.52%, Montana 1.39%, Wyoming 1.25%, Utah 1.21%, South Dakota 1.05%, Minnesota 0.91%, Louisiana-Arizona 0.81% each, Arkansas 0.80%, Nevada 0.78%, Indiana 0.77%.
On Election Day the notorious Florida "butterfly ballot" was thought to be partly responsible for taking votes away from Al Gore and giving them to Pat Buchanan.
By the 2004 election Pat Buchanan was back in the Republican camp, leaving the Reform Party in a state of wreckage. Foster ran for US Congress in 2001 as a member of the Reform Party but in 2002 joined the American Independent Party, explaining, "I'm a Constitutionalist, and it's the only party that recognizes the kingship of Jesus Christ. I'm 100% for that."
Election history:
197- - California State Assembly (Democratic) - defeated
1984 - California State Assembly (Republican) - primary - defeated
1986 - California State Assembly (Republican) - defeated
2001 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Reform Party of the United States of America) - defeated
Other occupations: high school teacher, author, President of Black Americans for Family Values, lecturer
Buried: Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery (Boulder City, Nev.)
Notes:
Catholic
Winner of the 1984 and 1986 races was Maxine Waters.
