was the longest-serving governor in state history (his successor, Roy Romer, matched this record). Later political campaigns In 1990, Colorado Democratic state party leaders tried to get Lamm to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. William L. Armstrong, a Republican, but Lamm declined. In 1992 he ran for the U.S. Senate but suffered his first political defeat. Ben Nighthorse Campbell beat him in the Democratic primary and went on to win the seat. (Nighthorse Campbell later switched to the Republican Party. In 1996 Lamm, while noting that he was still a registered Democrat, criticized both his own Democratic Party and the Republican Party, saying "I think both political parties are controlled by special interest money, and I've had enough of it." and "The Democrats are too close to the trial lawyers and the National Education Association. The Republicans are too close to the radical right." On July 9, 1996, he formally announced his intention to run for the nomination of the Reform Party for the U.S. presidency. Less than 48 hours after Lamm announced his candidacy, Ross Perot, who built the Reform Party from his United We Stand America organization, said he would run as the Reform Party nominee if drafted. In early August, Lamm picked former California Republican congressman Ed Zschau, a high-tech millionaire and proven fund-raiser, to be his running mate on his would-be presidential ticket. Ultimately, however, Perot won 65.2 percent of the 49,266 votes cast by party members nationwide, Lamm winning just 34.8 percent. Writer and novelist In 1985, while still in the governor's office, Lamm tried his hand as a novelist. The resulting novel, 1988, is a story about a former Democratic governor of Texas running for U.S. President on a populist, third-party ticket, declaring himself a "progressive conservative." The main character bore a number of similarities to Lamm himself, in his stated political positions, his background as a Democratic governor, as well as presaging Lamm's own unsuccessful run for the Reform Party nomination in 1996. However, the main character in 1988 was also portrayed as a pawn of an international conspiracy to capture the White House. A voluminous writer, Lamm's other works include Population and the Law (1972), Some Reflections on the Balkanization of America (1978), Megatraumas: America at the Year 2000 (1980), Energy Activities in the West (1980), The Angry West: A Vulnerable Land and Its Future (1982), Campaign