Aquarian Weekly 1/26/00

RAGING AGAINST THE MACHINE:
Political Pit Bull, Pat Buchanan Takes Off The Kid Gloves in His Grass Roots Run for President

Less than 24 hours after The Commission on Presidential Debate put a hard limit of at least 15% of the popular vote for a candidate harboring any chance of participating in the general election debates this fall, Patrick J. Buchanan—armed with less than 10% in the polls—tooled into New Jersey with a rather large chip on his already weighted shoulders. Just three months ago Buchanan fought off charges of anti-Semitism, isolationism, and outright insanity after the release of his latest book, “A Republic, Not an Empire” and engineered a bitter separation from his beloved Republican Party in which he served two presidents. His leap into the wild fray known as the Reform Party, although expected for more than a year, caused more than a stir in the two other major parties.

Buchanan welcomes the moniker of outsider, even radical, yet harbors a great respect for conservative values he feels have been ignored inside the GOP. He confuses many prominent members of his former party while striking fear in the main political establishment because he simply doesn’t possess the polished abilities to cower from an old-fashioned verbal brawl. Jesse Ventura, the only elected member of the Reform Party, has refused to accept him and founder, Ross Perot has all but ignored him; but despite diminishing political options, Buchanan gears up for yet another improbable run for president.

When I caught up with him at a fund raiser in New Jersey he had already made a run of radio and television shows accusing everyone but the chosen few in his ever-entertaining Buchanan Brigade of railroading him. But when he addressed the crowd none of the usual sound bite rhetoric which made him an infamous speech writer for Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan was present. Instead, he barked like a man desperately trying for one last shot at shaking the foundation of a stagnant political system.

No one in the political arena has been more vilified or romanticized than Pat Buchanan. Although many of his statements have pierced the heart of political correctness, there is something sincere about Buchanan’s honesty and anger. And although he has mastered the fine art of hyperbole, he pulls no punches when defending his causes and skewering his enemies—of which in the landscape of this the first presidential race of the 21st century, there are many.

jc: So The Commission on Presidential Debate, whatever the hell that is, is squeezing you out?

Buchanan: That we are not allowed in the debates because of some standard set up by the other two parties is an outrage. They’re afraid of us. And who runs this commission which decides this threshold? Paul Kirk, former national chairman of the Democratic Party and Frank Fahrenkopf, former chairman of the Republican Party. And you know what Fahrenkopf does for a living? He’s a million dollar lobbyist for the gambling industry! And who represents us? Nobody. I feel like a guy who comes into court and there’s two guys in the jury box deciding whether he’s going to be hung, and both get his estate if he’s hung. Now how do you think they’re gonna vote? (laughs) I told “Inside Politics” on CNN yesterday that this was a conspiracy to corner the market on the presidency of the United States, and Frank Fahrenkopf is leading that conspiracy. So, Frank was unhappy with me until he went on with my sister Bay on “Equal Time” about an hour and a half later. I think he and Bay almost got into a fist fight afterward. He does not want to mix it up with my baby sister.

From what I understand this is a case of taxation without representation since our money goes to matching funds for all political parties. I’m paying for your right to run for office, but I won’t get to hear from you.

That’s correct. The Reform Party is recognized by the government. It gets money for its convention. It gets matching funds for the general election, just as the other parties do. Why the other two parties have a right to deny our party a right to be heard by the American people is simply ludicrous. Listen, we can’t win the election if we can’t get our message out through a hostile media in the three national debates. We are going to fight this battle.

How do you plan to do so?

We’re going to fight it in court, we’ll fight it before the FEC on legal grounds, and we’re going to fight it in the court of public opinion. I think we’re going to win in the court of public opinion because the American people are first, fair minded and they know that your opponent shouldn’t be the ones who decide how often you ought to speak to them. Secondly, I think the American people themselves are gonna want to hear our views. They’re different, they’re strongly presented, and I think they’re right for the country. The American people have their own interest at heart, so we’re going to win this battle. Rely upon it.

Since the Reform Party seems divided into three or four factions right now, do you think this issue will unite the party?

This will unite the Reform Party. Every member of the party will agree we deserve a roll in the presidential debates to decide the next election. All Reformers can agree on that one.

Have you spoken to Ross Perot?

No I haven’t talked to Ross Perot. We tried to get in touch with Jessie Ventura when I was up in Minnesota and we will again.

There’s been some animosity there. Do you foresee pulling this thing together or will it be a rumble all the way to the convention?

We should all work together and get behind me. (laughs) Look, we’re going after this nomination even if we have to go up to Minnesota and body slam the big fella. We’re gonna do it!

None of the front men for this party seemed too thrilled with your conversion.

I saw the Donald (Trump) up there the other day, and he isn’t doing very well advancing the football from the sidelines, frankly. There has to come a time when you get down on the field, and right now nobody’s down on the field with us.

The word is that Trump could buy enough ballots to win the nomination.

The Donald’s got a hundred million dollars, just like Forbes has got a hundred million, and Bush has his hundred million, so I’ve got to do the footwork and get out there and get those people onto the ballots. You know I was out at that Iowa straw poll and I ran into Forbes and his tent had French doors on it! (laughs) I’m not kidding! I told him Bush raised $36 million in his first two months, and he says, “You know Pat, don’t worry about that, I can get that out of the petty cash drawer.” (laughs) But I know even with that and only 15% of the money in the general election, I’ll go on the television shows no one will go on, and we will make our case.

You’ve made a concerted, if not predictable, effort to trash the two party system since you left.

The Democratic party and the Republican party—at the national level, at the Washington level—have become Xerox copies of each other. And neither of them stand up and do what they say they will do. Both of them have the same agenda. Let’s take that war in Kosovo. In my judgment that was an illegal and unconstitutional war launched by the President of the United States in part to get him out of his latest jam. Seventy-eight days of bombing. They said it was genocide, and they’re in there now and they haven’t found any genocide. What happened is Serbia was bombed for 78 days and we’re right now boycotting heating oil, and people who never did a thing to this country are freezing to death in the winter. Now that’s not the kind of country I grew up in, and that I revere and that I love. And I regret to say the Republican establishment were as much for it as Mr. Clinton.

But most of this country’s involvement in fracases abroad are conducted by the UN. Do you expect the most powerful nation in the world to sit idly by while ethnic and religious cleansing goes down?

Mr. Kofi Annan says only the security council can decide when force may be used in the world. He now says that the sovereignty of any country can be brushed aside if the UN determines that human rights are being violated. Let me tell you something, the last time foreign troops violated the sovereignty of this country was in the battle of New Orleans and they ran into a fellow named Andrew Jackson. We cannot surrender our right to govern ourselves to any global new world order.

Now that gets into the issue of appearing what you have been accused of, and that’s an isolationist.

(smiles) That’s one of the sweeter things they call me. I write in my book that America has never been an isolationist nation. From our first days we were one of the greatest trading nations on earth. But our foreign policy has not been isolationist, it’s been independent. What the founding fathers said was no permanent or entangling alliances. During the American Revolution George Washington welcomed the alliance with France in 1778, but after the war was over we got out because we did not want get entangled in their war. You take care of your own family, your own people, first before you go around doing good. On that issue Bush, McCain, Bradley, Gore, they all disagree. They are global free traders. They’re all pro NAFTA, pro GAT, pro WTO. We have two parties that give us the same agenda, so we want to offer the American people a choice. This country’s never been an isolationist, and I am not an isolationist.

About your book, do you think the furor over it helped you for mere publicity alone?

I told my publisher there is no way that book is getting any attention. It’s a diplomatic history book. After my first book all anyone wanted to talk about at the time was Monica Lewinski, and this time I expected everyone to focus on the third party issue, but you know something? Thanks to Chris Matthews, Alan Dershowitz, and Bill Safire screaming their heads off about that book I was on the New York Times best seller list! (laughs) First time in my life!

Can you pinpoint the very moment when you were sure you were no longer a Republican and had to leave the party?

Look, I’ve got a warm spot in my heart for the grass roots of the Republican Party. I think it’s a good party at the grass roots, a lot of conservatives. My concern is I just had no loyalty to its hierarchy anymore, and I think they’ve walked away from their own grass roots and their own people, and their own best ideas and platform. And I’m just not going along with it. It’s gone on long enough.

If Reagan were running today would he do so as a Republican or a Reform Party candidate?

Well, if Ronald Reagan ran as a Republican it would be a far different story than what they’ve got now.

George W. Bush?

Bush doesn’t know who he is or what to think other than what he’s been programmed. What I’m planning to do on the way to my podium in one of the debates is pass by W. and say, “George, who is prime minister of Estonia?” (laughs) I’ll knock him off his game before the thing even starts!

Could you have envisioned another tussle inside the GOP for a nomination?

Not my concern anymore. I think Bush is going to win this thing fairly early. I think he could have it wrapped up by February first. And I think Mr. Gore is going to win, if not by February first, then latest, March. And all you press guys pumping up McCain and building up Bradley are going to be very unhappy your heroes have lost. And your going to complain that these other guys are boring. And when the general election comes around then you’re going to look out there and see that old troll is still under the bridge. And if you think you’ve come after me before, wait ‘till you come after us this time!

How would the king of debate, Al Gore stack up against you?

I’m a little nervous going up against a guy that invented the Internet. (laughs) You know Al said he and Tipper’s romance up there in Harvard served as the inspiration for “Love Story?” It’s true! He has this Wolf lady, or whatever it is, telling him he’s got to be an alpha man. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be anymore.

What do you think might have been accomplished during that mess of a demonstration against the WTO in Seattle?

Now you might not have seen me, but I was out there at the Battle of Seattle. I was out there all five days. The WTO didn’t see me because I was disguised as a sea turtle. (laughs) Moving around the imperial troops.

Imperial troops?

The cops.

What was the point of that mess?

There were environmentalists, Buchanan Brigaders, Ralph Nader was there, economic populists, traditionalists; and we were all saying the same thing:That this issue is not about trade, in the way they’ve framed it, but it’s about the sovereignty and the independence and the liberty of the United States of America. Who is this World Trade Organization to tell us what laws we can and can’t pass in the United States of America? What they are doing in Washington is giving away what the founding fathers of this great country fought and died for in Concord and Lexington when they stood up against the greatest empire in the world and said to the imperial troops of the British army that we will be masters of our own house. If we’ve gotta die to be it, we’re gonna die to be it. And they did it. And that is what we’re fighting for.

You’re planning on causing a ruckus, aren’t you?

I think we have pretty much astonished the establishment so far. We’ve been out there fighting battles, and the more they call me names and the more they say this and that it just tells me that we’re in this thing for the long haul.

Reality Check | Pop Culture | Politics | Sports | Music