Ross Tossed

Ventura declined a request for an interview for this story. Paul Moore, his spokesman, says he believes Perot and Ventura met only once. That was during the 1998 Reform Party convention in Atlanta, when Ventura asked Perot for financial support for his campaign. "Nothing ever came of it," Moore says.

Ventura has stated publicly that he appreciates all Perot has done for the movement, "but he cites the fact that Perot got half as many votes in 1996 as he did in 1992 [8 percent versus 19 percent] as a downward trend he'd like to reverse, and that it was time for him to step aside for another presidential candidate," Moore says. Ventura is encouraging Lowell Weicker, a former senator and governor from Connecticut, to be the party's presidential candidate in 2000.

The Washington Post reported that Ventura's endorsement of Gargan as party chairman, as opposed to the candidate backed by Perot loyalists, came with a threat. The newspaper said Ventura posted an Internet notice: "If the convention delegates are not willing to elect and support the best person for the job, I'll remain reluctant to fully embrace the National Reform Party. I'll keep my national party options open."

Gargan and other Reform Party members bash the media for casting the power-shift as the result of a battle royal between Ventura and Perot. But at the convention Gargan himself anointed Ventura as the new star of the party when, according to the Post, he told delegates, "If you don't realize that Governor Ventura's victory is our ticket to party survival Š then don't vote for me."

Many of the same people who once held Perot up as an example of the perfect leader are now doing the same to Ventura. To them, Perot once was an airtight anti-Washington politician. But over time, they saw he could be just as sanctimonious and self-serving as the other guy.

The reformers say they want someone as their leader who is beyond reproach. But no human, let alone politician, can ever be perfect in the eyes of these malcontents.

Perot had seven years to disappoint his blind followers. Ventura has had only eight months. Yet doubts about Ventura already are starting to percolate. Newspaper reports of the convention included some grumblings from delegates accusing Ventura of being heavy-handed and forgetting that, yes, the Reform Party is not about him, it's about the people. It's the same accusation leveled constantly at Perot.

Welch of Sugar Land says: "Jesse Ventura is a great wrassler, a good [Navy] SEAL and a great patriot, but this is the same guy who thinks we should support Lowell Weicker, a socialist, for president. When you listen to Weicker, it's like Looney Tunes."

How Perot feels about this shift of power is anyone's guess. He's not giving political interviews. Not even to Larry King. P>

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Phil Madsen remembers vividly how the Perot Minnesota campaign chairman suddenly motioned at him from across a large room and mouthed the word for him to come "now." It was July 16, 1992, and Madsen and other volunteers were busy preparing for Perot's presidential campaign stop there the next day.

"He had a very concerned look on his face," recalls Madsen, 45, of Lino Lakes, Minnesota. "He told me he had received a call from Dallas indicating that Perot was dropping out of the race."

Only four months before, Madsen had experienced his own Perot epiphany while eating a macaroni-and-cheese lunch in front of the TV. While channel-surfing, he stopped on a CSPAN telecast of a Perot speech to the National Press Club. Madsen was a financial planner who helped clients exploit tax loopholes, but hated himself for doing it. He was an only occasional voter and had never been politically active.

That changed when he heard Perot's no-nonsense message. Madsen ended up playing a leading role in gathering the signatures to put the candidate on Minnesota's 1992 presidential ballot. Perot had taken over his life until the devastating truth came out: Perot was a tease.

Perot, saying he couldn't win and that he did not want to disrupt the political process, abruptly pulled out of the race. Madsen was at a loss. He thought Perot's purpose was to do exactly what he now said he wanted to avoid: shake up establishment politics. And although Perot's standing in the polls had fallen since leading one month before, Madsen believed his man ultimately could win.

Perot would reveal later, after he had re-entered the race, that his reason for dropping out was in part due to his belief that Republican dirty-tricksters were planning to smear his daughter with a doctored photo and ruin her wedding. Perot's wild allegations were unsubstantiated, leading some political wags to coin the term "Perotnoid."