The surest proof of the decline of the Reform Party wasn't its Feb. 12 national commit-tee slugfest in Nashville. Nor was it Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's bitter departure a day earlier. Instead, it can be found in the attitudes of ordinary folk like Paul Biery, a 65-year-old Vietnam vet from Columbia, S. C. "I voted for [Ross] Perot twice. I loved his craziness," the retired U. S. Army officer says. But now, Biery has a new populist champion—Republican John McCain. "Reform Party people will definitely vote for McCain," predicts Biery, as he catches a McCain event at Columbia's Beth Shalom synagogue.
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