Free Republic

During the 1992 election, Texas billionaire Ross Perot managed to get on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate in all 50 states and garnered 19 percent of the vote. It was a remarkable feat that — in the eyes of some Republicans, including President George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush — tipped the election to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Keep in mind, that percentage of voters chose the third-party candidate even after it was reported that Perot, who loved conspiracies, claimed he saw five men with rifles on his front lawn and, later, that the Bush...

With a little help from his friends, former congressman Virgil Goode has taken a key step toward getting his name on November’s presidential ballot in Virginia, submitting more than 14,000 signatures to the State Board of Elections.... ..Goode was a Democrat for much of his career, then became an Independent and finally a Republican for his last six years on Capitol Hill. Now Goode is getting assistance from yet another party, the Independent Greens, whose members have collected thousands of signatures for him.... ...“Virgil supports rail, and that’s our big issue and he’s with us on that,” said Carey Campbell,...

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- As the 10 GOP candidates gear up for their first debate tomorrow night here, two other Republicans with potential White House ambitions had dinner 2,300 miles away. In an eyebrow-raising move, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- both independent-leaning Republicans -- supped together at the see-and-be-seen Palm Restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C, according to another diner. That the two would share a meal together would alone be noteworthy, but that it would come on the night before their party's first debate and at such a conspicuous venue is downright mischevious. Said...

When Bob Hunter, a Riverside, Calif., businessman, would hear of a conservative's campaign that needed volunteers, he would pile his family into the station wagon and drive off to ring doorbells. Hunter's son Duncan grew up believing in retail politics. When Hunter returned home after serving as an alternate Goldwater delegate at the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco, he told Duncan about chatting with another alternate, an amiable fellow, some actor, named Reagan. Who two years later was elected governor. Duncan learned early on about rapid upward mobility in politics. In 1969, he dropped out of college, joined the...