Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm announced Tuesday that he would seek the presidential nomination of Ross Perot's fledgling Reform Party. "America has to ask itself not what it wants, but what it can afford," Lamm said.

The 60-year-old Lamm, a registered Democrat, said he would campaign on a platform of restoring fiscal sanity to the federal budget by dramatically controlling goverment spending on social programs, including popular entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security."The New Deal, in my mind, has become a raw deal for my children," Lamm said in launching a scathing attack on both major po

litical parties for what he said were calculated, cowardly decisions to avoid tackling the nation's major problems and instead passing on the bills to future generations.

Lamm said the Democratic and Republican parties were "petrified into inaction" because they were afraid to alienate powerful voting blocs or deep-pocketed special interest groups.

"This will be politically traumatic," he said of his own effort.

As Lamm became the first official candidate for the Reform Party nomination, the giant question was whether Perot himself would seek to carry the banner of the party he has spent millions to build over the past year.

Perot has said he will run if nominated by Reform Party members, but it is unclear if he will actively seek the nomination.

America, Lamm said, "just doesn't need a new president. It needs a whole decade of reform and renewal."

Lamm said Perot had created "a movement that is bigger than himself" and said he wanted to take it a step farther and make it a powerful alternative to the existing two-party system.

"I really want to create a whole new political coalition and dedicate it to reform and renewal," Lamm told his audience at a University of Denver library. "What America needs in short, is a `No B.S. Agenda," Lamm said. This new coalition, he promised, would be fiscally conservative and socially moderate.

Lamm joked about being short of funds for his campaign, and urged supporters to make hand-made signs and organize their neighbors. He said he would not have high-paid consultants or pollsters but would rely on the power of voter disenchantment with the major political parties and their national government.

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Tuesday's announcement caps a monthlong flirtation with a candidacy that the blunt-talking former law professor has cast as a national "teach-in" on pet issues: a balanced budget and drastic curbs on entitlement spending and im-mi-gra-tion.

"We owe this to our children, their children and all of America's future," Lamm said at the close of his announcement speech.

He is realistic about his chances: Little name recognition, little money - he's raised just $6,000 so far - and a late start are considerable hurdles for any independent party campaign, which, historically, is given little chance of success.

Perot and Lamm were the only potential candidates named in a Reform survey mailed this week to about 1 million party supporters in order to determine which candidates will appear on the nominating ballot at an Aug. 11 party convention.

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