Buchanan Might Be Reform Candidate
By WILLIAM C. MANN
05:22 PM ET 09/12/99
WASHINGTON (AP) - GOP presidential contender Pat Buchanan came closer than ever
Sunday to saying he would quit the Republican race and campaign for the Reform Party's
nomination. ``The door really is wide open,'' Buchanan said. ``We are very close to making
that decision.''
For weeks, the Reform Party's Jesse Ventura, the Minnesota governor, has
discounted suggestions the party should nominate Buchanan for president.
Ventura has said the party founded by Ross Perot is based on conservative
economic principles, not Buchanan's social conservatism on abortion and other issues.
As recently as Friday, the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill published an
interview in which the governor ruled out ``a retread from another campaign or another
party'' as the Reform Party's candidate.
But Buchanan, appearing on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' said his sister and
campaign adviser, Bay Buchanan, is ``talking ... to people in the Reform Party'' for him.
``We are taking a hard look at leaving the Republican nomination run and running
for the Reform Party nomination,'' Buchanan said. ``The decision has not been made yet ...
but I tell you honestly we are leaning in that direction right now.''
A telephone call to the party chairman-elect, Jack Gargan of Cedar Key, Fla.,
went unanswered Sunday.
Buchanan said he is being swayed by the belief that ``my party at the national
level has become a Xerox copy basically of the Democratic Party. ... I think what we have
is a one-party system in Washington that is masquerading as a two-party system, and I
think what we need is a real opposition party.''
The idea of a third-party candidacy by Buchanan is making the Republican
front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, nervous, Time magazine reported in its issue on
newsstands Monday. It said a private poll conducted by Frank Luntz, a GOP
consultant, found Buchanan would win 6 percent of the vote in a three-way contest with
Bush and Vice President Al Gore, leading for the Democratic nomination. Two-thirds of the
Buchanan vote, the poll indicated, would come from Bush supporters.
Bush aides last week discussed ``how to make Buchanan feel wanted in the GOP''
and a senior Bush adviser told Time: ``We're surrounding him with love.''
Another Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CNN's ``Late
Edition'' he hopes Buchanan decides to stay a Republican.
``He represents a wing of our party, in fact he represents a viewpoint, that I
thoroughly disagree with,'' McCain said, but ``we need to have that debate within the
party.''
