epublicans have been acting much too nervous about Patrick Buchanan's decision to leave the GOP for a Reform Party that is split between factions beholden to Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura. Speaking on ``Face the Nation'' Sunday, Pat Robertson explained the Republicans' nervousness as a fear that enough voters may follow Buchanan into the Reform Party in the general election to deliver the White House to the Democrats.
Robertson could turn out to be right, but it is too soon to know what the electoral effect will be of a Buchanan run from a third party. Buchanan's fiery opposition to free trade might draw more voters from the Democratic ranks than from the Republican. In any case, Buchanan has already demonstrated, in primary contests against George Bush and Bob Dole, that when acting from within the Republican Party he is quite capable of wounding the party's nominee.
Buchanan's departure from the GOP is a classic case of addition by subtraction. Although he had never been elected to any post, had never administered anything, and had never served in the military, Buchanan derided George Bush in 1992 as a wimp, a warmonger, a liar, and an elitist who was out of touch with the common folk. The success of Buchanan's negative rhetoric was astonishing to foreigners who viewed Bush as the leader responsible for creating the coalition that drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and as the statesman who presided over the bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany.
In defecting to the Reform Party, Buchanan subtracts from the Republicans someone who functioned as the enemy within. Donald Trump, speaking in his New York tabloid style, summed up what Republicans have lost when he called Buchanan a ``Hitler-lover'' on ``Meet the Press'' and predicted that the TV commentator would receive 4 or 5 percent of the ``really staunch right wacko vote.''
The Reform Party, with Buchanan, Trump, Perot, and Ventura as its leading lights, may soon be regarded as the klatch of kooks, cranks, and egomaniacs. The sooner the better.
