ALISBURY, Md. - After spending nearly four decades on the national stage as a thundering tribune of cantankerous conservatism, Patrick J. Buchanan might have been expected to exit the stage to the flaming strains of Wagner's ''Die Gotterdammerung'' (Twilight of the Gods).
Instead, Buchanan's credibility as a candidate seems to be flickering away, and his once formidable political persona shrinking this fall as he pursues a presidential campaign based on the expulsion of illegal immigrants, the restoration of America as a ''Christian nation,'' and a prohibition against same-sex marriages.
Drawing little more than 1 percent support in national polls, Buchanan has not only lost much of the following he won in two previous campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination; he has effectively abandoned the Reform Party nomination he won during a raucous convention two months ago. Noting that the Reform Party had been devalued by the chaos, Buchanan now refers to his movement as a ''new party'' or a ''third party.''
Russell Verney, a Buchanan critic and former chairman of the party founded by Ross Perot, says the Reform Party may not survive the ravages of Buchanan. ''The name has been so tarnished it may be worthless,'' Verney said in a telephone interview. ''After Buchanan's campaign of bigotry and intolerance and hatred, it may not be worth going back to it.''
The Perot group has dropped its efforts to deny Buchanan the $12.6 million in federal funds he won as the Reform nominee. ''It's all gone anyway,'' already largely invested in a radio advertising campaign, said Buchanan, cackling as he discussed his political predicament during a campaign trip to Maryland. ''Talk about getting blood from a turnip!''
As Buchanan poked last week through such remote areas as the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland and northern Vermont, he reached for new extremes, his message symbolized in a 30-second TV spot in which a man chokes on a meatball after hearing a news report ''that English is no longer our national language.'' Gagging, the man dials emergency number 911 only to hear a recorded message: ''For Spanish, press one; for Korean, press two; for Bengali, press three.'' The final scene shows the victim lying on the floor while the voice from 911 intones: ''For Swahili, press 12.''
Defending the commercial, Buchanan said that a Dallas advertising company ''came up with the idea. I laughed my head off when I saw it.'' He said the spot was not as outrageous as earlier political ads, such as the infamous Willie Horton ad that Republicans used against Michael S. Dukakis in 1988. ''This one makes a point with humor,'' Buchanan said.
But for all his laughter and cheer, Buchanan's theme carries a hard edge of nativism. During a speech to several hundred supporters at Salisbury State University in Maryland, he warned that illegal Mexican immigrants had infiltrated the chicken processing plants of the Eastern Shore and suggested that the influx of outsiders was weakening the values embodied by the nation's Founding Fathers - men with European backgrounds, he observed.
Unless the tide is stopped, Buchanan said, ''We will lose our heritage, and I fear we'll lose our country.''
He accused the Supreme Court of purging ''God and the Ten Commandments and moral teachings out of the public schools of America.'' With the court rulings, Buchanan said, ''Easter has disappeared, and now we have Earth Day so we can all worship dirt.''
In Vermont, Buchanan excoriated the state's passage of legislation permitting same-sex civil unions and called upon Vermonters to ''roll back the rising tide of decadence that threatens to engulf our once-godly nation.''
After a week in which he revisited the battlegrounds of the ''cultural war'' he declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Buchanan said in the interview that he is concentrating on these sensitive subjects because the economic populism issues he once raised against his GOP rivals, President George Bush and Bob Dole, are not as relevant in times of prosperity.
''In Vermont, same-sex is explosive. It's all they're talking about,'' he said. ''I'm hitting immigration harder since it's a national issue, acute in California and Arizona. '' These are all national issues, everything from preserving the right of the Boy Scouts to bar homosexuals ''to taking back Vermont, to going out to Denver and denouncing the attack on Columbus Day'' made by American Indians who object to celebrating Christopher Columbus. Before the explorers arrived in North America, Buchanan said, ''the Aztecs were deep into human sacrifice - that's how deep was their culture.''
Asked if he would apply the same strict standards to illegal Irish immigrants in Boston that he advocated for Mexicans, the candidate, who is Catholic and of Irish and Scottish heritage, said he would begin by repatriating illegal immigrants in federal prison.
''I think you've got to treat all people equally,'' he said. ''The first place I'd go would be to the prisons and get them out of the country as soon as they get out. Then I'd go to the employers who have a chronic habit for hiring illegal immigrants and punish these employers severely ... I'd tell people: Go home. I understand why you want to come here, but you've got to go back and get in line.''
Buchanan said he persists in talking about a ''Christian nation'' because the Supreme Court has ''de-Christianized America.'' He said more than a million students have enrolled in Christian schools over the past decade. ''They are refugees from what they see as godless public schools,'' he said.
Buchanan called RU 486, an abortion pill approved by the Federal Drug Administration, ''a human insecticide'' and promotes the term ''America First'' with enthusiasm. He said the practice of sending billions of dollars a year to Israel in economic foreign aid is ''preposterous.'' Because of such unrelenting criticism of Israel, Buchanan has often been accused of anti-Semitism. He does not back away from the controversy.
Asked why he refused to assuage critics by referring to ''Judeo-Christian'' principles rather than a ''Christian nation,'' Buchanan said: ''Harry Truman used the phrase. Woodrow Wilson used the phrase. Do you want to use accurate words or politically correct language?
Buchanan acknowledged that he had become politically marginalized, reduced to campaigning in states that the Republican nominee, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, had already written off.
He conceded that he might not reach the 5 percent threshold in November that would make him eligible for federal funds in a future campaign. Reflecting on his age, 62, and his long record as conservative speechwriter, commentator, and candidate, Buchanan added, ''My movement is based on ideas and issues. I think the ideas and issues will one day prevail, whether I do or not.''
