In the summer of 1998, Jesse Ventura, who was running for governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party ticket, wanted to obtain a loan from the party's national headquarters to pay for political advertising, but he couldn't get the national organization on the phone. National Chairman Russell Verney later explained to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "The Reform Party really does not have an office. We have a virtual office."

This fall, Bill Clinton threatened to veto tax cuts, an abortion ban, environmental riders, cuts in foreign aid, education funding directed at the states rather than directly at schools, and reductions in a community policing measure. But when the $288.8 billion defense appropriations bill—representing the largest increase in military spending since the first Reagan budget in 1981—came across his desk, Clinton signed it without a whisper of criticism. According to Chris Hellman of the Center for Defense Information, if Congress continues to fund the programs included in this budget, the United States will be spending more on the military by 2005 than it spent in an average year during the Cold War. And it will be doing so without any compelling public justification.