A viewer asked this question on 5/26/2000:
Hi JesseGordon !
1. How great are Pat Buchanan's chances to be
nominated as presidential candidate
for the Reform Party ?
2. How well could he do in a national
election as an third party candidate ?
3. How strong is his links with the
Christian fundamentalists ?
4. How has the Jewish community reacted
on his writings about world war two ?
Thanks
Yours, Lars
JesseGordon gave this response on 5/26/2000:
1. His chances of getting the Reform Party nomination are nearly 100%. Since Jesse Ventura (governor of Minnesota) split off from the main Reform party, Buchanan has little opposition left. If Perot decided to run again, Buchanan would have a problem getting nominated. But that's not very likely.
2. He's polling about 4%-6% these days. He might do better later, because right now people aren't paying much attention and Bush & Gore get all the press. If e gets 10%, that would be an astounding victory -- 5% is more likely. Ralph Nader's supporters regularly point to a poll from a couple weeks ago where Buchanan was fourth to Nader's third.
3. He hasn't got many formal ties with the Christian fundamentalist community (his background is as a White House staffer under Republican presidents, not any church groups). But his views line up pretty well with the fundamentalists:
- Strongly pro-life
- For vouchers for parochial schools
- Against godless China
- Blames immorality for juvenile crime
So true fundamentalists will likely support him, since Bush's stances are much weaker on all those points. You can see all of Buchanan's stances at http://issues2000.org/Pat_Buchanan.htm
4. His book "A Republic, Not an Empire" indeed infuriated numerous Jews. I haven't heard much about residual antagonism, so I guess it's faded. Here are the choice topics that were particularly infuriating:
- US should have re-armed in 1930s when Japan invaded China.
- War guarantees to Poland kept Hitler from attacking USSR.
- Hitler was no threat to US; sought mastery of Europe only.
- FDR forced Japan to attack US as back door to WWII.
You can read the details at:
http://issues2000.org/Republic_Not_an_Empire.htm