Dear Sam,

    This letter is sent to you for the expressed purpose of urging you to
offer yourself as a candidate for the U.S.Senate seat from Montana in
the year 2000. After careful and sober deliberation, the ARP
Congressional Strategy Special Committee (CSSC) has recommended this
action. With due diligence, the American Reform Party Executive
Committee (ARP-EC) has approved the recommendation. The letter in front
of you is the next course of action.

    The ARP feels that Senator Conrad Burns is a very vulnerable incumbent. As
you indicated to a member of the CSSC during a phone discussion, 1996
Reform Party candidate Becky Shaw was a poor candidate and unworthy of
ARP backing in 2000. You also indicated that you saw no viable centrist
candidate on the political horizon, either Republicrat or third party.
The CSSC and ARP feels that you would be the best hope for a centrist
upset victory in Montana, one that may well send "Ventura-like"
political shock waves around this country. We have come to this decision
for the following reasons: 1) your independent, centrist credentials are
unquestioned, 2) you were an early and active supporter of the
Schaumburg movement and the subsequent formation of the American Reform
Party in Schaumburg, Illinois, 3) you have displayed an unwavering
ability to buck the two-party system in Montana, 4) you know the state
demographically and politically better than anyone we can see, 5) you
appear to support most of the ARP's "core issue planks", at least as
they are presently being formulated, and lastly 6) the name and legacy
of the "Rankin" name in Montana will prove to be a magnet for the
disillusioned Republicrats AND centrist Independents. Rankin has always
meant "reform" in Montana.... your candidacy would be building on that
great heritage and tradition.

    That concludes our presentation to you. We trust you to choose under whose
banner you run: we would prefer ARP but Reform or Independent
would be acceptable as well.

    Thank you very much for your time and consideration. It is hoped that
this letter will give you the renewed vigor and spirit to undertake this
endeavor. The ARP is behind your candidacy, and the "common-sense
middle" centrist national political agenda yearns for patriots like you
to take that next courageous step to make a difference. We hope to hear
from you in the very near future.

    Yours respectfully in reform,
    Ted Muga
    Chairman: American Reform
    Party Executive Committee