Buchanan Puts Pesky Issues On Gop Plate
Bob Dole tumbled into the Valley of Flat Brain Waves the day before the New Hampshire primary.
The one-time Republican presidential front-runner was touring an electronics plant in Rochester, N.H., when he blurted out a confession. “We didn’t plan it this way. We didn’t think that jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big issue in the last few days of this campaign.”
Dole, like most Republican Party elders, wanted to run an issue-free primary campaign in 1996. The idea was to put pesky topics - abortion, Medicare, Social Security, immigration, quotas, school choice and welfare reform - “off the table” to avoid undue controversy on the way to a showdown with President Clinton.
But then along came Pat Buchanan, who tossed those unspeakable matters back on the table, saying, “Deal with it.”
GOP establishmentarians like Dole and Lamar Alexander reacted predictably: They assumed the fetal position, called Buchanan names - and lost.
Now, the talk in GOP circles turns to the question of how to stop Buchanan. The short answer is to winnow the field down to two candidates and let Buchanan have his 25 percent to 30 percent of the vote.
But the better reply is to learn from the guy.
Pat Buchanan has vaulted to the top of the GOP field because he understands that something truly profound is going on in American public life.
People have had it with suffocating government and messianic politicos. They know the welfare state no longer works, and they’re tired of surrendering their pay to support it. But every day, Congress passes new laws - new curbs on their freedom - robbing them of their dignity and sense of destiny.
Buchanan has come swaggering onto the scene like a playground bully, promising to whack the large, impersonal forces that hurt the little guy. He doesn’t promise a program; he vows vengeance - swift, sweet and sure.
A Buchanan rally is a high-tech tent meeting. He calls audiences “friends,” refers to the nation’s capital as “Washinnon” and trembles with rage when an out-of-work mechanic asks for somebody to explain how and why the jobs have gone away. The Buchanan Beatitudes not only cast blessings on the meek, but they also promise to introduce bigwigs to the virtue of humility.
This performance leaves Dole and Alexander agog.
Dole has wasted his entire campaign mumbling about the balanced budget and blowing chances to get reformists on his side. He snubbed U.S. Term Limits, which offered its help; ditto for the National Right to Work Committee. In trying to stamp out Steve Forbes’ flat-tax plan, he even rejected the handiwork of his own tax-reform commission.
Alexander hasn’t done much better. He reprised Gary Hart’s empty mantra about “new ideas” while dressing up like Monty Python’s lumberjack - as if a shirt change constitutes an intellectual breakthrough. To make things worse, some people now suspect that his slogan, “Alexander Beats Clinton,” refers to his ability to wheedle more money out of his old pals than Hillary Rodham Clinton could from hers.
Ironically, Buchanan’s breakthrough helps two old pillars of the Republican Establishment.
The first is House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who got whacked last year for trying to do too much too quickly but now looks like a jolly old elf in comparison with Mr. Pat.
The very night that New Hampshire voters were delivering a slim primary victory to Buchanan, Gingrich and his closest allies were huddling together in a retreat designed to map out a GOP political strategy for 1996.
They have decided to blaze their own trail since neither Alexander nor Buchanan nor Dole seems likely to support their ideas. They want to lead a free-market, limited-government, multicultural liberation movement - and pitch it with Clintonesque skill. If the presidential nominee goes along with the agenda, fine.
Beneficiary No. 2 may be Jack Kemp. Old Reagan and Bush administration hands have begun begging the old quarterback to get in the game, and the notoriously indecisive Kemp could enter into the fray in early March.
Even failing that, however, he could honor an old promise to jump on the Forbes bandwagon and use his considerable popularity to got Kempian ideas back in play.
Buchanan’s boom could prove to be a boon for the Republican Party. Nobody ever got stronger in politics by running away from a brawl over principle, and Buchanan has forced his foes to dirty their hands with social issues and the cares of working people. He wants a clarifying debate, and he’ll get it.
So let the fun begin. Buchanan’s primary opponents warn that they’re going to wage a pitched battle to define the party’s heart and soul. Now, they have only to acquire the weapons necessary to win such a fight - hearts and souls.
xxxx