One day after former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm announced he would seek the Reform Party’s presidential nomination, party founder Ross Perot says he, too, will take the job if asked. Perot says he will make a second White House bid if he’s nominated by the Reform Party, which he created in the wake of his 1992 run. Four years ago, Perot spent $60 million of his own money and took 19% of the vote.

Speaking of money, a former vice chair of Bob Dole’s campaign finance committee has agreed to pay a record $6 million in fines for funneling illegal contributions through his employees to the Dole camp and other political causes. If the plea agreement entered by Simon Fireman is approved by a federal judge as expected, it would be by far the largest penalty in U.S. history for illegal campaign contributions. Fireman, the owner of Aqua-Leisure Industries in Boston, was accused of getting employees of his company to make contributions, and then reimbursing them through a cash flume running to Hong Kong and then back to the United States. Fireman is the uncle of Paul Fireman, the CEO of Reebok. A similar bundling scheme occurred in the 1998 Dole presidential campaign. Employees reportedly were ordered to contribute, and later got reimbursed by the Kansas firm Birdview Satellite Communications. I’m reading now from “The Buying of the President,” a new book on the presidential campaigns. It says, when the story broke in the midst of the 1988 presidential primaries, Dole’s staff denied that he had done anything wrong. The senator, who said he knew nothing of the donations, called for an internal and a Federal Election Commission probe into the matter, and the staff promised that if any illegal money was received from Birdview employees, it would be returned. FEC officials, however, have no record of any request from Dole to look into the Birdview matter.

And Bob Dole is getting some criticism for a speech he didn’t make. Black members of Congress yesterday said Dole was wrong to decide against attending the annual convention of the NAACP. New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne says Dole has sent a loud and clear message that he’s not interested in the concerns of Black Americans. President Clinton did address the NAACP convention yesterday. He talked about gun control, gang control, welfare reform, civil rights and the burning of Black churches.

President Bill Clinton: “I know that even though we desegregated our schools and threw racism out of public facilities and elected African Americans and Hispanics and Asian Americans to Congress, passed civil rights laws, this job is a never-ending job, here and around the world. It’s a never-ending job. That’s why, notwithstanding the political movement of the moment, after I studied it for several months, I thought we should — could and should make some changes in the affirmative action laws, but that we should mend them and not end them. I thought it would be a mistake to end them and walk away. I think it’s a mistake not to try to keep working for voting rights and greater impact of voting rights, and notwithstanding the recent Supreme Court decisions, which, of course, we will all honor, we still have to be on a mission of making sure that the Congress of the United States represents the American people in a fair and full way. And it’s why we have to keep standing against this rash of church burnings.”

And that, of course, President Clinton yesterday addressing the NAACP convention.

And finally, denying that he still harbors any racist or Nazi views, David Duke entered the race for the U.S. Senate yesterday, pledging to fight to preserve America’s white Christian heritage. He joined two major Democrats in Louisiana and four other Republicans filing as candidates for the seat held by retiring Senator Bennett Johnston.