Vowing to Reshape GOP, Buchanan Joins the Race

Pat Buchanan, whose raucous candidacies jolted the Republican establishment in the last two presidential campaigns, on Tuesday launched his third bid for the White House, pledging to reshape the GOP as a bastion of economic nationalism.

The security of middle-class Americans is being threatened by the addiction of U.S. trade policies to “the narcotic of cheap imports,” the conservative commentator and former Reagan and Nixon White House aide told cheering supporters in Manchester, N.H.

“The yellow brick road that once took millions of poor and working Americans into the middle class lies in ruin,” he said.

Buchanan’s denunciation of “a global elite” that profited from exploiting workers echoed the rhetorical thrusts that helped him to embarrass incumbent President Bush in the 1992 New Hampshire GOP primary and defeat front-runner Bob Dole in that contest in 1996.

But most analysts predicted that Buchanan’s stark message of economic travail will find a less receptive environment among voters enjoying the current economic boom.

“He speaks to the politics of discontent,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. “He needs bad times, or for people to be angry about something.”

For their part, Buchanan’s strategists said their candidate can find support among those Americans who have not shared in the benefits of the general economic upswing. As an example of the continuing potential for Buchanan’s message, his advisors cited this week’s announcement by Levi Strauss & Co.--which had resisted the clothing industry trend to shift manufacturing abroad--to close half of its U.S. plants.

“I feel confident we can build on the base we established in 1996,” campaign manager Jay Townsend said.

But current polling data raise doubts about whether the voters making up that base have remained loyal. Surveys in New Hampshire show Buchanan in the low single digits among Republican voters.

In Tuesday’s announcement speech, as in the utterances of his past campaigns, Buchanan blended his economic jeremiad with a call for patriotism that rejected internationalism and for a moral reawakening to cleanse “a polluted and poisoned culture.”

Claiming that the Clinton administration had “mothballed more warships, air wings, Army and Marine divisions than it took to fight Desert Storm,” Buchanan demanded that the U.S. reduce its commitments abroad while rebuilding its armed forces.

At home, he urged a moratorium on immigration, an end to bilingual education and abolition of the “un-American practice of hiring and promoting individuals based on race or ethnic origin.”

Another potential problem for Buchanan in the 2000 campaign is that he likely will face more competition for the votes of those who oppose abortion than he did in 1996, particularly from former Vice President Dan Quayle, conservative activist Gary Bauer, and New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith, none of whom ran in 1996.

Buchanan’s speech left unclear how much emphasis he will put on abortion in this campaign. He did not mention the subject until nearly the end of his speech, but then stated his opposition with particular passion.

“As long as Pat Buchanan is fighting in the arena, there will be at least one major political party in America that dares without apology to stand up for the rights of the unborn,” he declared.

In fund-raising, Buchanan’s advisors said they will follow the pattern established in 1996, when he relied heavily on small contributions, most of them through the mail.

Meanwhile in Austin, Texas, Gov. George W. Bush, the front-runner in all early GOP polls, told local reporters he would take the first formal step toward joining the race on Sunday, by establishing his own exploratory committee.

Bush cautioned that the announcement did not mean he had made a final decision to run. But he said: “Those of you who cover me every day know I don’t make this decision lightly.”

Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.

Video of Buchanan announcing his campaign is available on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/politics