Buchanan marches into Reform camp

By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff, 10/26/99

FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- Trailing badly in his race for the Republican presidential ticket, Patrick J. Buchanan yesterday left the GOP and summoned his "peasant army" to pursue the Reform Party nomination -- and its $12.6 million bounty of federal campaign funds.

The latest victim of Texas Governor George W. Bush's richly financed campaign, Buchanan cast his repudiation of the Republican Party as a divine calling "to rescue God's country from the cultural and moral pit into which she has fallen."

The conservative commentator, setting up a possible showdown with billionaire developer Donald J. Trump, portrayed his Reform Party candidacy as "our last chance to save our republic before she disappears into the godless New World Order that our elites are constructing."

Republican leaders, fearing Buchanan could damage the GOP's quest for the White House, assailed his defection as a selfish act by a faltering candidate. And GOP leaders wasted little time attacking Buchanan's recent assertions that the United States may have rushed too quickly to war with Nazi Germany.

Buchanan's departure "is not surprising because Pat obviously has drifted from the Republican Party and its principles," said Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee. "Speaking as a veteran, I find his views on World War II both historically inaccurate and disturbingly misguided."

Trump, who yesterday quit the Republican Party for a possible run for the Reform nomination, has also criticized Buchanan's views on the war.

In dropping out of the GOP race, Buchanan joined a parade of failed Republican hopefuls, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Red Cross chairwoman Elizabeth Dole, former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, and Representative John R. Kasich of Ohio.

All were stymied by Bush's vast name recognition and financial muscle. But Smith was the only other dropout to renounce his GOP membership, opting to seek the presidency as an independent. Yet Smith has yet to align himself with a third party as potentially potent as the Reform movement, as Buchanan did yesterday.

"Only the Reform Party offers the hope of a real debate and a true choice of destinies for our country," Buchanan told about 300 supporters in a hotel outside Washington.

For Buchanan, though, the Reform Party also offers opposition from Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, the group's highest elected official. Ventura, who has designs on the Reform Party ticket in 2004, has criticized Buchanan's conservative social agenda and his futility as a GOP candidate.

"Buchanan is not a winning candidate, and it's time for the Reform Party to stop running losers," said Phil Madsden, a top Ventura adviser.

Buchanan embraced several key Reform issues in announcing his candidacy, most notably by assailing the two-party system, the campaign finance laws, and recent international trade agreements. He called for phasing out foreign aid, erasing the nation's "cancerous trade deficits," and shifting power from Washington to state and local governments.

But Buchanan also trumpeted his conservative social themes that clash with more libertarian views held by many Reform members. He advocated abolishing racial quotas, called for a "time out" on legal immigration, and urged reversal of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

Indeed, Buchanan all but called for an armed revolt against the high court. "As our fathers threw off a tyranny of kings, let us throw off this tyranny of judges and let America be America again," he said.

Still, Buchanan maintained the support of Lenora Fulani, a self-described leftist from New York who controls a large bloc of Reform members. Even though she disagrees with him on "every social issue in the history of the world," Fulani said after Buchanan's announcement, she is intrigued by his ability to help expand the party's membership.

The party's founder, Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, has yet to endorse a candidate or indicate whether he may seek the nomination in 2000. But Pat Choate, who ran as Perot's vice presidential candidate on the 1996 Reform ticket, said he was "very confident" Perot will not run again.

"Unless there is some sort of national calamity, like a depression or a war, he would prefer not to run," said Choate, a Buchanan supporter.

As Buchanan prepared to head to a rally last night in New Hampshire, Choate expressed concern about the possible Trump/Ventura alliance, particularly Trump's wealth. "It's not helpful," he said, "but it will not keep Pat from getting the nomination."