WND talks to Pat Buchanan

Editor's note: This is the third in a five-part WorldNetDaily
series running all this week on those third-party presidential
candidates that will appear on most state's ballots Nov. 7. They are:
Harry Browne, Patrick Buchanan, John Hagelin, Ralph Nader and Howard
Phillips. Today's report profiles Reform Party presidential candidate
Patrick J. Buchanan.

By Julie Foster

© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.

TRENDING: Prof rejects calls to resign after rebuking his 'woke' university

Patrick Buchanan with running mate Ezola Foster

The differences between running for president as an
anti-establishment Republican and a third-party candidate are "very
dramatic," said

Reform Party presidential nominee Patrick Buchanan in an exclusive WorldNetDaily interview.

This year's campaign is Buchanan's third presidential bid. Now leader of the Reform Party after breaking away from the GOP earlier this year, he challenged President George Bush for the Republican nomination in 1992, almost beating the president in New Hampshire's primary. In his second attempt in 1996, Buchanan captured that state's primary, but it was downhill from there and the national party's nomination was ultimately won by Sen. Bob Dole.

The candidate's relative success as a Republican office seeker has not yet shifted to his bid as a Reform Party candidate. In a telephone interview from the campaign trail, Buchanan explained this is partially due to a "media blackout," he said, which "is a major problem."

"I think what the difference this time is, we are running not only against the Democratic Party of Clinton and Gore, but the entire Republican Party of Bush and Cheney," he said. "And we are running against the entire national establishment -- conservative, liberal, Republican and Democrat, rather than being a part of one of those parties. So it's much more difficult."

"It is very different," he continued, "because in the Republican primary race where I ran, your focus is completely on two or three or four states: Alaska, Louisiana, Iowa and New Hampshire. And you can spend, say, 60 days in Iowa and 60 days in New Hampshire and maybe three weeks in Louisiana, because they were state primary battles -- single battles in individual states which then decided whether you had the momentum to continue or whether you had to drop out."

Now championing the third-party effort, Buchanan may find himself at the helm of a sinking Reform Party. Though the political veteran was ultimately given $12.6 million in federal matching funds after a dispute with presidential hopeful John Hagelin, should Buchanan not gain 5 percent of the vote in November, his party will not qualify for federal campaign funds in the next election cycle -- a potentially fatal blow to the party founded by Ross Perot.

RELATED: Civil Rights Commission
perpetrated 'Haiti crimes'?

"Because we're late getting our money, we find ourselves in a six-week battle over the entire nation, so it's a very different proposition. You have to travel all over the country," said Buchanan.

Nevertheless, he will press on. "I've made a commitment to the third party effort and to build the Reform Party, and that's the cause to which I'm going to commit my political career, such as it is. But everything clearly will depend on how well we do in November, what we do after November, and how we proceed. But I am committed to the third party effort," he said.

Buchanan began his career as a journalist at 23, after obtaining his master's degree in journalism from Columbia in 1962. He traveled with former President Richard Nixon's campaigns in 1966 and 1968, and later served as special assistant to the president through Nixon's final days of Watergate. Buchanan's wife, Shelley Ann Scarney was also a White House staff member during the Nixon administration.

With the president's resignation after the Watergate scandal came a temporary end to Buchanan's days as a White House staffer. But 11 years later, from 1985 to 1987, he was the White House director of communications under President Ronald Reagan. In the meantime, the Washington, D.C., native returned to journalism. Moving from print media to the broadcast world, the writer and analyst began co-hosting CNN's "Crossfire." Now known not only to political insiders but to millions of Americans who heard his fiery comments from their living room televisions, Buchanan earned a following of his own, attracting self-identified conservatives and people from the "religious right."

A product of Jesuit schools and a prolific writer, the formerly syndicated columnist has also written five books, including "Right from the Beginning," and "A Republic, not an Empire." While his books spell out his philosophical foundations, Buchanan's campaign

website lists the candidate's positions on issues from abortion to treatment of veterans.

"The Internet is enormously helpful in communicating with millions of Americans who have not been able to see us on the Network news or in the national debates," he remarked. With clearly written policies and principles on 23 different subjects, he addresses controversial topics, such as education and U.S.-China relations, in clear, succinct language:

"As President I will:

• Abolish the Department of Education and return its functions and funding to state and local control. ...
• Reject "multicultural" curricula that denigrate our history and teach our children to identify themselves as hyphenated Americans rather than as citizens of one nation under God. ...
• Oppose national testing and teaching standards as intrusions on the rights of parents and the primacy of local communities."

On U.S.-China relations, he states he will ask Congress to "require that all Chinese imports be taxed at the same rate China imposes on goods from the U.S.A.," and will "maintain U.S. economic leverage over Beijing by opposing the admission of China to the World Trade Organization."

Buchanan supporters argue their candidate's direct and specific policy objectives separate him from the Republican and Democrat presidential hopefuls as well as his rivals from other third parties.

In Buchanan's words: "I think I've distinguished myself from Clinton and Gore and Bush and Cheney and the others in this sense: We are the only recognized national party that stands for a new America-first foreign policy that brings our troops home from Europe and Asia. We're the only recognized national party that will defend America's borders instead of the borders of Kuwait and Kosovo. We are the only recognized national party that is a conservative party that will downsize government in Washington. And we are the only party committed to reshape the Supreme Court into a pro-life constitutional court that respects the religious heritage of the American people."

As with every third-party candidate before him, the Reform Party nominee has had to deal with opposition from those who call him a "spoiler" -- someone who, though he likely will not win the election, will only serve to pull voters away from a major party candidate who might otherwise have had their support. Pundits have considered the "spoiler" phenomenon a factor in President Bush's loss to Bill Clinton in 1992, since Reform Party candidate Ross Perot attracted the votes of potential Bush supporters. However, Buchanan argues voters should be given another choice, regardless of the effect on election outcomes.

"People identify every third party as a spoiler party, but some third parties eventually become second parties and first parties. And that's what we hope to be -- to be the core of a new second party which then becomes the national party after a number of years. The people who call us spoilers, what they're saying, in effect, is that anyone who challenges a Republican and Democratic domination of the presidency is automatically a spoiler. Fifty percent of the American people have walked away from this two-party monopoly in Washington, and there are now five, six other national parties, very small. So I don't think that simply because we offer the American people a different choice than the Republicans and Democrats are offering, we are therefore somehow poaching on land that belongs to the Republicans and Democrats. The votes of the American people belong to them, whomever they wish to confer them upon."

"This new party we're building is not designed to spoil anything for anybody," Buchanan concluded. "We are creating a new party to give the American people a real, authentic, conservative choice in this campaign and in the future."

Buchanan plans to spend election night in Virginia, where his campaign headquarters are located.

Read Part 1 --

Meet Libertarian Party candidate Harry
Browne

Read Part 2 --

Meet Constitution Party's Howard Phillips