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Reform Party welcomes new guys Buchanan, maybe Trump, add stature By PAUL FATTIG The Reform Party in Oregon doesn't care one whit about conservative presidential candidate Pat Buchanan's views on abortion or other controversial social issues, says the state party chairwoman. Phoenix resident Micki Summerhays, who attended Buchanan's announcement of his switch from the Republican Party to the Reform Party Monday in Falls Church, Va., says the point is that Buchanan's views on subjects like foreign trade and immigration square with the party's platform. "His speech was right in line with most of our issues," she said upon returning to the Rogue Valley from Virginia Tuesday afternoon. "His issues that are attractive to us are his stand on foreign relations, on fair trade versus free trade, his stand on revising our immigration policies, his stand on on our relations with the United Nations. "And we really like his stand of getting government decisions down to the lowest local level possible," she added. "They are all key issues with us." What aren't central to the party's concerns are his abortion and religious views, she said. "Abortion? We don't ask and we don't care," she said. "That goes for both Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. We've got a lot of people on both side of those issues." "We tell people that if social issues and right-to-life are their key issues, then join a party where those are the key issues," she added. "We're leaving some of the socially controversial issues on the table." Buchanan may visit Southern Oregon during the first week in December, said Summerhays, who talked with Buchanan about a visit to the region. "His candidacy -- and Donald Trump, if he runs -- is really going to boost interest in the party," she predicted. The Reform Party lost status as a minor party in Oregon when its 1998 candidate for governor, Roger Weidner, fell about 900 votes short of the necessary 1 percent of the total vote. The party must now collect 16,697 signatures and hold a nominating convention by Aug. 29 to put candidates on the 2000 ballot. Buchanan and Trump's presence in the presidential race will spark interest in the party and make it easier to collect the needed signatures, she said. "We're very optimistic," she said. "Oregon's reform party reflects both sides -- we've got liberals and conservatives. We welcome differing views." The American public has grown weary of elections dictated by a few in the Democratic or Republican parties, she said. "There are so many of us who have looked at the Democrats and Republicans and decided they don't represent the key issues," she said. "The Reform Party is going to be a voice for the people." The Reform Party of Oregon started as the Independent Initiative Party, formed in 1992 to put presidential candidate Ross Perot on the ballot. Perot received 23 percent of the vote in Oregon. In 1993, the party changed its name to the American Party and ran candidates in the 1994 election. Two years later, when Perot ran again, he tried to unify the state organizations his candidacy had spawned across the country. That led to the creation of the Reform Party of Oregon in 1996. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA