Pat Choate

Pat Choate (born April 27, 1941) is an American economist who is most known for being the 1996 Reform Party candidate for Vice President of the United States, the running-mate of H. Ross Perot. Following the 1996 election, the Federal Election Commission certified the Reform Party as a national political party eligible for federal campaign matching funds, a historic first.

Life and career

Choate was born in Maypearl, Texas, the son of Bettie Lee (Simpson) and Frank William Choate.^[1][2] He is the director of the Manufacturing Policy Project, which studies long-term U.S. economic policy. He previously worked as Director of Research and Planning for the Oklahoma Industrial Development Commission; as Tennessee’s first Commissioner of Economic and Community Development; as the Director of the Appalachian and then Southern Regional Offices of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA); as Director of the EDA Office of Economic Research; as the Senior Economist in the Office of Management and Budget’s Trade Reorganization Project; as a Fellow at the Battelle Institute’s Academy for Contemporary Problems and as Vice President of Public Policy at TRW, Inc. He has served on several Presidential and Congressional commissions on education, infrastructure and national security.

He was a co-founder of the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute (CELI) in 1986 and served as its Chair or Co-Chair for 18 years. Choate is married to Kay Casey and has one grown stepson. Pat Choate and his wife live near Washington, Virginia. He has a B.A. from the University of Texas at Arlington and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, all in economics. In 1994, the University of Oklahoma named him the Arthur Barto Adams Alumni Fellow in recognition of his continuing scholarship. He has taught a course called Advanced Issues Management at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. He is known for work on development economics, including infrastructure and intellectual property, and his strong stance against unfettered globalism. Choate serves on the board of directors of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the largest and oldest immigration reform organization in the U.S. He is also on the Board of Directors for the American Innovators for Patent Reform.^[3]

He hosted a weekly radio show called The Week Ahead from 1994 to 1996 and the Pat Choate Show from 1997 to 2000.

Electoral history

United States presidential election, 1996^[4]

• Bill Clinton/Al Gore (Democratic) (Inc.) – 47,402,357 (49.2%) and 379 electoral votes (31 states and D.C. carried)
• Bob Dole/Jack Kemp (Republican) - 39,198,755 (40.7%) and 159 electoral votes (19 states carried)
• Ross Perot/Pat Choate (Reform) - 8,085,402 (8.4%) and 0 electoral votes

Bibliography

He has authored and co-authored dozens of reports and several books, including:

• Agents of Influence ISBN 0-671-74339-2
• The High Flex Society with Juyne Linger
• America in Ruins with Susan Walters
• Thinking Strategically with Susan Walters
• Being Number One: Rebuilding the U.S. Economy with Gail Garfield Schwartz
• Save Your Job, Save Our Country: Why NAFTA Must Be Stopped Now with Ross Perot
• Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization ISBN 0-375-40212-8
• Dangerous Business: The Risks of Globalization to America (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. August 2008)
• Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong

References

External links

• CNN's All Politics Profile of Dr. Choate
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Choate on Agents of Influence, October 28, 1990.