Buchanan’s Truce Has No Hint of Surrender

Blocked from speaking this week at the GOP’s national convention 30 miles away in San Diego, maverick conservative Patrick J. Buchanan gave a passionate speech in exile here Sunday night, calling for a new Republican Party imbued with a “conservatism of the heart.”

“Our dream was to create a new Republican Party of Main street, not K Street [in Washington], of the union hall as well as the Legion Hall, of the bleachers as well as the sky boxes,” Buchanan said in a voice that dripped with disappointment. “But it was not to be.”

While conceding that his hopes of bringing his own brand of Republicanism to the White House will not be fulfilled this time, Buchanan was far from admitting defeat. Although his spirited primary campaign did not result in a nomination, he asserted that it was already changing the party at its core.

“Before our eyes, this party is becoming a Buchanan party,” he said, as several hundred enthusiastic supporters roared in approval.

In the end, he told them, his cause, and theirs, would prevail.

Buchanan resisted loud requests from the crowd that he split off and lead his own party, urging them to stick with the GOP even though some of its leaders “call us dreadful names” and “will not even let you speak at your own convention.”

Looking Back

Four years ago, Buchanan sent shock waves through the Republican convention in Houston with a powerful prime-time address on the “cultural war” gripping America. After then-President Bush lost the election, many Republicans grumbled that that speech--and their failure to muzzle Buchanan--contributed to that defeat.

“The perception was that it was far too harsh and it was a big mistake,” said Craig Fuller, Bush’s former chief of staff. “I have not aligned myself with that view, but we live in a world where it’s perception that counts.”

This time around, the GOP establishment and nominee-to-be Bob Dole did everything possible to keep Buchanan and his resonating rhetoric as far from center stage as possible. Organizers denied him an opportunity to speak directly to this year’s convention.

But Buchanan could not be silenced that easily. In fact, his speech in exile, coming on the eve of the convention, may end up receiving more attention than whatever he would have said to the delegates in the five-minute videotaped message that had been offered by convention organizers, according to many political commentators.

“It is not just their party; it is our party too,” Buchanan said, explaining his decision to stay in the GOP instead of breaking off and running under the banner of a new party. “America does not necessarily need a third party. America needs a fighting second party, a party that means what it says and says what it means. We need a party that not only preaches, but practices, a conservatism of the heart.”

Echoing a major theme of his campaign, Buchanan attacked corporate greed and recent trade policies--the most recent of which are the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade--that he says have sacrificed America’s sovereignty, driven good jobs out of the country and left behind families plagued by economic insecurity.

“Across America, company towns are becoming ghost towns,” Buchanan said at the California Center for the Arts, a performing-arts center here. “Families are being uprooted, forced to move out, to find new work. You women who want to stay home with preschool children are being forced into the labor market to make the money to keep up the family standard of living.

If conservatives are not willing to conserve families, neighborhoods and communities, he said, “what is it we conservatives are trying to conserve?”

Buchanan, who surprisingly defeated Dole in the New Hampshire primary, only to watch his presidential hopes dwindle throughout the rest of the primary season, never formally gave up his bid for the presidency. Even on Sunday, he stopped short of endorsing Dole by name.

He did, however, declare a “temporary truce” to his disputes with other GOP leaders, calling on his followers to focus their attention on defeating President Clinton this fall.

Change in Tone

Despite earlier talk about a walkout or protests by his delegates at the convention, Buchanan had struck a much more conciliatory tone in recent days.

Appearing before a crowd of several hundred people at an antiabortion prayer breakfast Saturday in Anaheim, Buchanan said he and his wife could be found at the convention this week, in their assigned seats in “row 149, seats Y and Z,” watching the podium action. “I’ll have the opera glasses on,” he joked.

Although Buchanan seemed to be reconciled to the GOP’s decision concerning a convention speech, his supporters said they felt snubbed by their own party.

“For them to close the doors on him is a slap in the face,” said Cheryl Conrad, 36, a homemaker attending the Anaheim event.

Despite the lack of a speaking role at this convention, Buchanan is much better represented among the delegates than last time around. Four years ago, he had only 18 delegates. This time, he has 141. Although the numbers may seem insignificant compared to Dole’s 1,477, the delegates say their party cannot afford to ignore them.

Buchanan and his supporters have already declared victory in the fight concerning the party platform, which drafters completed last week. At the insistence of Buchanan’s supporters and other antiabortion Republican groups, the platform maintains the party’s strong support of a proposed constitutional ban on abortion. Despite the efforts of abortion-rights supporters to alter that plank, their views were relegated to an appendix to the document.

Triumphs and Defeats

“Because the Buchanan brigades would not compromise, and because we would not quit, the Republican Party remains tonight a pro-life party,” Buchanan said Sunday night.

Buchanan’s clear, colorful message during the early primary season accentuated what was seen by many as a vision vacuum in the Dole campaign. Although Buchanan failed to parlay his win in New Hampshire into a nomination, he set the campaign’s tone, largely with his appeal to the millions of voters in America who are struggling to make it economically.

He attacked corporate greed and trade policies that he blamed for robbing America of its well-paid manufacturing jobs, declaring a revolt of the “peasants with pitchforks.”

Despite his defeat, Buchanan made it clear that he does not intend to give up. While stopping short of announcing his intentions to run again, he hinted at the possibility in his Sunday night appearance.

He also referred to his past political disappointments--supporting conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964, only to see him crushed in the general election, helping Richard Nixon win the White House, then watching as the Watergate scandal drove him from office. But he said he has not given up hope that his “cause is going to prevail.”

“The stone the builders rejected, may yet become the cornerstone,” Buchanan declared, and the crowd roared its approval.