T. PAUL - Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, the Reform Party's marquee name and top officeholder, cut his ties to the national organization yesterday, branding it a ''hopelessly dysfunctional'' group that drags down independent politicians like him.
His departure was another setback to the already limping third-party movement born as a gleam in the eye of billionaire Ross Perot.
Ventura encouraged Minnesota Reform Party officials to abandon the organization too, and move to reclaim the Independence Party name of the early 1990s. Ventura said he may become an independent unless an Independence Party is formed.
In making his decision, Ventura conferred with Donald Trump, the New York developer he is urging to run for president under the new party label.
Trump distributed a statement saying he was considering that and would announce a decision Monday. He said he wanted to see whether other states' Reform Party committees would affiliate with the Independence Party, but added that he was not worried about losing national Reform Party money.
The party stands to receive $12.6 million in federal matching funds because of Perot's support in the 1996 election.
The Reform Party has been hampered for months by squabbling between allies of Perot and Ventura supporters. They sparred over the 2000 convention site, presidential candidates, and the party's money.
Ventura made it clear he would not run for the White House and dismissed the best-known contender for the Reform nomination - former Republican Patrick J. Buchanan - as ''an antiabortion extremist and unrealistic isolationist.''
''In Minnesota, we cannot maintain our socially moderate identity while a right-winger heads our national ticket,'' Ventura said. The former professional wrestler often says his Navy SEAL background taught him never to quit, but he said, ''There comes a time when you have to cut bait and go. I believe very strongly this is the time.'' He called the national party ''unworthy of my support and the support of the American people.''
Ventura, wearing a Rolling Stones jacket, was flanked by Minnesota Reform Party officials and Lieutenant Governor Mae Schunk as he made the announcement outside the governor's mansion on a raw, 13-degree day. He said he wants to help build a ''strong third-party movement here in Minnesota'' and has been stung by top politicians' decisions not to join the party.
His move came a day before a meeting in Nashville, at which Perot loyalists plan to try to oust Jack Gargan, the national chairman and the governor's ally.
In a letter to state party members, Ventura ally and state chairman Rick McCluhan said he plans to ask the Minnesota State Central Committee today to call a convention March 4 to vote on disaffiliation.
Ventura and his supporters have never been close to the national Reform Party. Perot, who ran for president in 1996 under the party's banner, provided no help in Ventura's 1998 gubernatorial victory.
The party has been struggling ever since, not only to settle on leadership but to find a unifying set of beliefs apart from a common disenchantment with the two established parties.
Former party chairman Russell Verney, a close Perot ally, said Ventura provided ''zero'' leadership for the party so his departure will have a minimal impact.
''It means that we're free of threats and we can once again go back to grass-roots democracy where every elected leader of the party can respond to their constituents instead of to ultimatums,'' Verney said.
Indeed, Ventura has never shown much interest in building the Minnesota or the national Reform parties. Some political observers considered yesterday's move merely the latest in a continuing sideshow.
''It would be comical if it weren't so pathetic: the range of candidates considering a Reform Party candidacy, the squabbling, the egomania,'' said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank.
Former independent presidential candidate John Anderson called the Reform Party ''badly fractured,'' but he held out hope for Ventura's role in a third-party movement.
''I think he could be the modern-day equivalent of the leader of a populist revolt against the two-party system,'' Anderson said. Anderson added that he, at 77, would consider another presidential bid.
