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Reform party leaders, however, seemed to buy the new warm-and-fuzzy Pat.

"I'm Jewish, and I'm very sensitive to anti-Semitism," said David Goldman, chairman of the Reform Party of Florida. "If I were advising Pat Buchanan, I might say 'You might want to say something different, or add some other names in there, too'" among the lists of Jewish-American names Buchanan has historically trotted out in his implications of nefarious Jewish elites.

"But in all fairness to Pat Buchanan, he's spent 20 years being a columnist and a political commentator on shows like 'Crossfire,' where you make somewhat exaggerated statements to prove your point, where it's something of a political food fight."

All of which is beside the point, says Goldman. "I see his input as being 100 percent constructive in terms of building the party. The Reform party can't just be a small club of political activists. It has to become a major party."

Goldman adds that he was pleased by two items he heard in Buchanan's speech, which indicate to him that Buchanan is coming around to the Reform Party and not the other way around. One was Buchanan's opposition to political soft money. The other was "hearing him talk about the need for diversity, the need for all people to come together, regardless of race."

"The statement about how Americans have to work together -- I thought that was pretty good," seconds Nancy Ross of the Independence Party, Reform's New York arm. "Seeing where he'll go in the next few weeks will be very important toward making the decision" about whether she'll endorse Buchanan's candidacy, she says.

Many Reformers argue that their party's "huge tent" philosophy make Buchanan's racial baggage inconsequential. Social issues, after all, aren't the point. Political reform is.

Cathy Stewart, chair of the Independence Party of Manhattan County, says that as a supporter of abortion rights, she has "many disagreements with Mr. Buchanan on social issues ... But in a way, that's the point of Reform party, to bring together divergent Americans to engage in the process of reshaping the political culture so we can have a meaningful debate and dialogue. And that debate is going to go forward. Because the American people need a better political process to participate in, so I don't see [accusations of Buchanan's bigotry] as a problem. I will be evaluating Mr. Buchanan's candidacy in terms of his agenda for political reform."

Stewart notes that she's the county chair for none other than Donald Trump, who today was likewise scheduled to change his party registration to Reform in anticipation of a presidential run. But other than "a lot of bombast," Bay Buchanan responds, there is no indication that Trump is serious about actually running. There has been no move to organize in the states, no offer to assist the party in securing ballot status and no declaration of candidacy.

"You're starting to see Pat Buchanan changing," says third-party commentator Jackie Salit. His speech indicated a "focus on changing the process of American politics," Salit says.

"He put aside the old language, approach and political perspective of Republicanism. Compare the speech today with the talk he gave at the Iowa Straw Poll, which was a very, very hardcore conservative, jingoistic talk designed to appeal to the base of the Republican party." Monday, however, "Pat Buchanan was emphasizing his populism more than his conservatism. In some ways he's been freed up to do that, freed up by joining the Reform party."

Regardless of his motivations, the new, freed-up Buchanan is throwing himself into his new party and race with characteristic hustle, says Bay Buchanan. The campaign is reaching out to Reform Party state chairmen around the country, working to raise an additional $4 million, and trying to secure a presence on the November voting ballots of the 30 states where the Reform Party has yet to secure ballot status.

Because the Reform Party convention next August will allow anyone, of any party, a vote, the Buchanan campaign will try to recruit the 75,000 members of the Buchanan brigade. In an attempt to block mass defections of Buchananites, Republicans who heretofore have remained mum on Buchanan's questionable views on World War II finally mustered the gumption to speak out against their leader.

"Pat Buchanan is leaving the Republican Party because Republicans rejected his views during his three failed attempts to earn the Republican Party's presidential nomination," sneered Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Seconded Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson: "In the past, Pat has been an ardent Republican ... [but] Pat obviously has drifted from the Republican Party and its principles. Speaking as a veteran, I find his views on World War II both historically inaccurate and disturbingly misguided."

"I have said from the beginning that Pat Buchanan left the Republican Party the day he questioned America's involvement in defeating Nazi Germany," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "Unlike so many others" -- most notably Bush and Nicholson -- "I have made no attempts to convince him to stay in the Republican Party and I do not mourn his departure. Too many of my party's leaders made the mistake of trying to appease Buchanan. His actions today prove that their efforts were wrong."

But Bay Buchanan points out that her brother seeks voters from other sources as well. "There's enormous support for Pat if you go through the industrial base of our country," she says. These Democrats, she hypothesizes, may feel "more comfortable coming into the Reform party than they might have been coming all the way over" to the GOP. Buchanan will be also reaching out to the self-disenfranchised voters who gave the Reform Party's one statewide office holder, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, his victory.

After all, Bay Buchanan joked to a circle of reporters, "anyone who requests a ballot can vote, anyone who wishes to vote, including all of you gentlemen."

This hunger for votes may be at least part of the reason for Buchanan's Kumbaya. "What we're talking about is not only the white working class, but the Hispanic and the black working class," says party elder Pat Choate, who rode shotgun to Perot in '96 as the party's choice of veep. "It's the sort of goal that Dr. Fulani put together, so we're going for that segment of the vote."

"I think the American people [want to] move beyond the politics of remarks," Fulani says when she's asked about Buchanan's borderline racist insinuations.

"Pat Buchanan was on the stage today, and he made a major move from being an important insider in the two-party system to become the leading figure inside a national third party. So he said a lot of things. I think that we have to move beyond [lists of past remarks] and allow [Buchanan] to do what he's doing, which -- if he does it well -- is helping to build a national political party for ordinary Americans. That's what I support, that's what I'm standing by, and that's what I think is important."
salon.com | Oct. 25, 1999

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