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Hair-brained politics
Braiding is an age-old tradition in the African-American community, but California cosmetology regulators are cracking down.
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[09/11/99]

Another U.N. disaster
United Nations ineptitude has paved the way for the current East Timor crisis.
By Ian Williams
[09/11/99]

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For Buchanan, this prospective defection is a win-win proposition: Either he scares some respect from a GOP establishment that disdains him as a two-time loser, or he can enjoy burning the $12 million in federal election funds to which this year's Reform nominee will be entitled. But the Buchanan embrace will not necessarily do any favors for a Reform Party trying desperately to expand its electoral base.

True, Buchanan's anti-immigration oratory and economic protectionism resonate with Ross Perot's original constituency -- one reason Perot's deputy Pat Choate is reportedly supporting a Buchanan nomination. But Buchanan's hard-line anti-abortion rhetoric, the fundamentalist Christian politics of his supporters, and the overall nastiness of his campaign helped convince legions of moderate voters to support Bill Clinton in 1992. The same angry moralism of which Buchanan is the preeminent national spokesman -- the current incarnation of what historian Richard Hofstadter once called "the paranoid style in American politics" -- led the Republican impeachment faction to humiliating defeat in the Senate just months ago.

It's a measure of the present disarray of the Reform Party -- Perot's surrogates contending for primacy with the socially moderate, civil libertarian constituency of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura -- that the leading alternative to Buchanan is his ideological nemesis for nearly three decades: former Connecticut Sen. and Gov. Lowell Weicker. Weicker and Buchanan first collided during the 1973 Watergate hearings, when Weicker denounced Richard Nixon's abuses while Buchanan wrote Nixon's speeches; then later during the Reagan years, when Weicker battled his own party over abortion, civil rights and school prayer. Once contending for the soul of the Republican Party, Weicker and Buchanan may now take their profound battle over the purpose of American politics and government to the Reform arena.

I have been pondering the dynamics of a possible Weicker candidacy ever since Ventura wrested control of the Reform Party from founder Ross Perot this summer, and floated word that he wouldn't mind seeing Weicker, one of his mentors and advisors, as the party's presidential candidate. With Buchanan's near-announcement, the question gains some urgency -- both for the Reform Party and the electorate as a whole. Will Lowell Weicker run -- and what sort of a candidate might he be?

Weicker himself declines to be quoted, just yet, on Buchanan, and has given himself through mid-autumn to make up his own mind about running. Regardless of his own decision, as a student of third-party politics he sees the Buchanan question as a defining moment for the Reform Party: "How they handle this will really show whether the Reform Party is serious about expanding its base. They can't afford to stumble by nominating someone with a narrow agenda. The Republicans and Democrats have enough money and people that they have room for error. Not the Reform Party; this party can't afford to make a mistake."

At the same time, Weicker talks about the eerie continuity of replayed political battles, not only within the Reform Party but this year's campaign as a whole. George W. Bush's recent call to channel social-program funding through churches, for instance, infuriates Weicker, and inspires a moment's reflection about "this historic battle between me and conservatives" on church-state relations. One gets the distinct feeling that if Weicker were leaning against running, the prospect of Buchanan turning the Reform Party into a vehicle for the politics of religion would be almost enough to change his mind.

Next page | Mopping the floor with Prescott Bush Jr.