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| REPUBLICAN NO MORE | |
 October 25, 1999 
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After weeks of speculation, Pat Buchanan announces that he has left the Republican Party to seek the Reform Party's presidential nomination. After a background report, Margaret Warner discusses the Buchanan switch with two Republican strategists.
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| Buchanan exit - a blessing or a blow? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Furthermore, to be candid -- let's get it out in the open. I don't know what's in Pat Buchanan's heart but I know most of my Jewish friends think he's anti-Semitic, most black friends think he's racist; most of my Hispanic friends think he's anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic. He's a liability to the Republican Party. When a company sheds a liability, the market says that's good news. We've shed a liability today. It's good news for the Republican Party. MARGARET WARNER: Good news, good riddance?
VIN WEBER: That's right. |
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| Buchanan's political stance | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RALPH REED: Well, two points. Number one, it is the Republican Congress
that passed a ban on an abortion procedure at the federal level in the
House of Representatives by a margin large enough to pass a constitutional
amendment. That would not have happened without a Republican Congress.
Number two, the number of abortions has declined in Michigan, for example,
under VIN WEBER: A part of a sentence. MARGARET WARNER: Yes. On Roe V. Wade. RALPH REED: I think Buchanan is really toning down the emphasis on those issues in order to fit himself into the mold of the Reform Party. MARGARET WARNER: But he is saying, isn't he, Vin Weber, that -- he used the word "fraud" in terms of a two-party system, that in a way that both parties have become so centrist at least in terms of their national candidates that there's not as big a difference as there used to be? |
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| A "rigged" primary season? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, he has another criticism which we heard from Lamar Alexander and Elizabeth Dole too, which is that both parties have rigged their - he used the word "rig" -- primary schedule and system as to, as he said, protect the favorite candidate. RALPH REED: Well, I mean, that -- it depends on how you really look
at how that calendar plays out. I can tell you one thing right now.
Walter Mondale was darned glad in 1984 he didn't have today's calendar
after Gary Hart beat him in New Hampshire. And I'll tell you something
else - I think if he'd have had today's calendar and MARGARET WARNER: All right. I don't want to get into a Bush versus McCain debate here. VIN WEBER: We're ready to - MARGARET WARNER: I know. I can tell that. RALPH REED: That's another night. |
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| Campaigning on a Reform platform | ||||||||||||||||||||
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VIN WEBER: That's a good question. I don't think there's any chance of getting into the presidency barring some unforeseen catastrophe in this country. The question of where he draws votes is an interesting one. My own view is that he at the end of the day is not going to draw a lot of votes. If he were to run a strictly social conservative campaign, he probably would draw from Republicans but as Ralph pointed out, first of all our candidates are all social conservatives of varying accents but they're all social conservatives. We're going to retain that constituency of the Republican Party. Furthermore, again Ralph pointed out, he didn't make any mention to speak of, of that agenda. He's going to campaign for the Reform Party nomination on issues that he calls economic nationalism, trade protection, isolation, nativism. That kind of an agenda conveyed to the American people over the course of the next year doesn't necessarily appeal anymore to Republicans than it does to Democrats. And I think he could end up drawing from both to the extent that he draws at all. MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, that it really depends if he runs more with the Reform agenda, which is more the economic populism, versus his own deeper held socially conservative beliefs?
MARGARET WARNER: Another big issue is he said his top priority would be to get in the debates but Ross Perot, who was in the debates in '92, was denied a place in the debates in '96. VIN WEBER: I was involved, and I was part of the negotiating team on the debates for Senator Dole. I don't know how that's going to play out this time, Margaret. One of the things last time was that we had an incumbent President of the United States who was way ahead, only one challenger that had any chance of seriously competing with him, Bob Dole. And our argument very strongly was you needed to give that challenger at least a one-on-one shot in the country. I'm not sure how it plays out this time. It will depend on frankly what both parties think is their own interest. |
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| Republican reaction | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RALPH REED: Well, I would say that we need to stick to our message. We have a very good message of a governing conservative party. Let me tell you what we should not do. We shouldn't make the mistake of -- as we did in '92 -- both attacking and lurching too far right to try to get the people back. We have a good message. We can keep them. We don't need to attack Pat Buchanan. It's a free country he can run. If we'll run on lower taxes and strong families, we're going to win the White House back in 2000. VIN WEBER: But we do need to stand up very strongly against Buchananism. The next President who is going to be a Republican; he is going to want to be an international leader. He's going to want to complete free trade agreements. We don't want a Congress that gets elected having listened to this Buchanan message of isolation and protection and thinking we have got to throw votes in that direction because there's a little swing vote that Pat Buchanan and commands on those issues. That's not a governing strategy. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you both very much. JIM LEHRER: We're planning a Newsmaker interview with Pat Buchanan Thursday evening. |
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MARGARET
WARNER: To assess the impact of Buchanan's decision to bolt the Republican
Party, we turn to two leading Republicans. Ralph Reed, president of
a political consulting firm in Atlanta, is the former executive director
of the Christian Coalition. In the 2000 campaign, he's an informal advisor
to Texas Governor George W. Bush; and Vin Weber, a political strategist
and partner in a Washington lobbying firm, is a former congressman from
Minnesota. He's advising Senator John McCain. Welcome, gentlemen. Vin
Weber, is this defection a real blow to the Republican Party? 
VIN
WEBER: No, this is a blessing to the Republican Party. It's nothing
against Pat Buchanan personally but Pat Buchanan began his statement
today by attacking GATT, NAFTA and the expansion of NATO -- all ideas
that have really been championed by Republicans, President Ronald Reagan,
President George Bush and other Republican thinkers. Pat Buchanan --
whatever he may at one time may have been -- has become a voice of dark
pessimism about the future, about a future built on Republican policies
of international leadership and removing the shackles of government
so that capitalism can spread the flowering of the free market around
the world. And his statement today says that's all horrible, it's going
to lead to terrible things; so at the heart of what Pat Buchanan has
become is a rejection of what the Republican Party stands for. It's
a good thing that he's gone. It's a good thing we don't have to compete
with that. 
RALPH
REED: I wouldn't disagree with Vin that there's a blessing there but
it's a mixed blessing. Obviously, you know, Buchanan leaving the Republican
Party will say to some grass roots conservatives if we, the Republican
Party, don't do our job right that you're not welcome here, that this
party isn't a vehicle for your aspirations anymore, that it doesn't
fight for your issues anymore -- that is a potential problem if we don't
do our job right. I do think we'll do our job right. I think we'll run
a conservative campaign. I think we'll run it on conservative themes
of reducing government spending, lowering taxes, promoting stronger
families, safer neighborhoods, tougher laws against crime and drugs.
I would just make one point -- you don't leave a party in which your
views are prevailing. I mean, it's sort of the elephant in the parlor.
But the fact is the reason why Pat is leaving is because the views that
Vin just talked about, with which I disagree, have not prevailed. 
MARGARET
WARNER: But he says that...he has a couple really tough criticisms of
the party. He says the party is toning down essentially its core beliefs
whether on cultural issues, economic issues, trade, out of political
expediency. And you think there is something to that? 
Republican
Governor John Engler by 47 percent because of what he's done to reduce
the availability of abortion. The issues that Pat Buchanan cares about,
the moral issues-- by the way I would just observe he only made one
reference to the moral agenda, it was very oblique - it was three-quarters
of the way through the speech. 
VIN
WEBER: Sure, he's saying there's not a huge difference between the candidates.
There is a degree of truth to that but I think that Ralph is right.
We're going to articulate whether our nominee is George Bush who Ralph
supports or John McCain who I support, we're going to articulate a difference.
But the point I would make is to the extent that there appears to be
less difference between the two parties today it's because Republicans
have prevailed. The Democrats aren't arguing anymore that we should
increase deficit spending to boost the economy, they're not arguing
that we should raise taxes anymore. The Clinton administration - if
not the Democratic Party -- have embraced basically the freed trade
agenda of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. There are differences. They
need to be accentuated in the course of the campaign. But the closeness
that Buchanan complains about is a triumph of conservative ideas not
a capitulation to liberal ideas.
Buchanan
had done better in South Carolina, he had a shot at the nomination then
after coming in a very close second in Iowa and winning New Hampshire;
look, the fact of the matter is that however you change the calendar,
Pat Buchanan came in a distant fifth at the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, which
is one that should have worked to his strength. He was not doing well
financially. Most of his field organization that had supported him in
'92 and '96 had gone elsewhere. And George W. Bush has the support of
158 House members, 24 governors, 22 Senators and about 140,000 donors
who have given him an average contribution of $385. Now, that is not
a beltway elite. That is the most spontaneous outpouring of grass roots
support for a presidential candidate, non-incumbent in modern presidential
political history.
MARGARET
WARNER: That's another night. That's right. Let's look at the impact.
First of all, any chance he could win the presidency? If not -- this
is Pat Buchanan I'm talking about -- if not, who does he potentially
siphon more votes from?
RALPH
REED: I think if that's what happens and I think that that is almost
forced upon him by the contours of the Reform Party primary process
- I mean, in other words, he's not going to be able to run as Pat Buchanan,
the social conservative pro-life candidate who ran against George Bush.
He's going to have to run as a more Reform-oriented economic nationalist.
That's good news for Republicans in this respect. If we get to a fall
2000 campaign and he is the Reform Party nominee, what it means is,
is that he'll be able to draw not as many but almost as many hard hat
union Democrat votes as he will Republican social conservatives. That's
bad news for Al Gore if he's the nominee of the Democratic Party.
MARGARET
WARNER: All right, briefly, because we're almost out of time, how should
the Republican Party-- I understand there's a debate within the party--
work to try to neutralize Buchanan if that's the aim? In other words,
do you think we're going to see attacks on him now early or just ignore
him? 
