article on Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman, both members of the Transnational Radical Party

New York Times (front page) 08-21-96

by Frank Bruni

In a loft downtown Manhattan scattered with mementos of Che Guevara, Dr. Fred Newman paid tribute to a new revolutionary hero, a man he would like to see in the White House next January.

Dr. Newman, the founder of the New Alliance Party, saluted this man as someone who would "open the door to democracy," and would "create a new public philosophy."

A few hours later and a few miles uptown, Leonora B. Fulani, Dr. Newman's comrade-in-arms and a perennial pie-in-the-sky candidate, pledged an identical allegiance.

Ms. Fulani ran for President herself as an independent in 1988 and again in 1992, but she said there was no sense in doing so this year because she and Dr. Newman had found another candidate to lead their crusade.

His name is Ross Perot.

Dr. Newman and Ms. Fulani were the principal players in the New Alliance Party, a flamboyant fixture on the margins of national and local politics for a decade and a half. Preaching minority rights and a redistribution of wealth, it amassed millions of dollars in contributions and placed candidates in a variety of elections.

But along the way it was repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism for its support of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. It was also accused of operating like a cult, using Dr. Newman's unusual psychotherapy practice, where patients received therapy in large groups, to enlist political supporters.

Dr. Newman, Ms. Fulani and their supporters have now thrown their energy and organizational skills behind Mr. Perot Reform Party. The Reform Party, in turn, has deployed the New Alliance's experienced troops in the petition and voter registration drives crucial to gaining a place on the ballot in the 50 states.

It is an odd partnership even in the landscape of strange bedfellows. And it marks a new chapter in the controversial careers of Dr. Newman and Ms. Fulani.

Political analysts and scholars say the emergence of Dr. Newman and Ms. Fulani in the Reform Party, whose open-tent policy may be creating an untenable eclectic three-ring-circus.