Pat Buchanan on Principles & Values
Buchanan more spoiler than Nader, in state-based analysis
The conventional view is that Nader cost Gore a victory, while Buchanan was not a factor, because Nader won 2.8 million votes to Buchanan’s 450,000. But the key question is which states were so close that third-party voters could have made a difference,
had they instead voted for Bush or Gore. There were 8 states in which no candidate received a majority of votes. In ME and NE, Gore won [by more than Buchanan’s vote], so those are moot. In FL and NH, Bush won, but by fewer votes than Nader received
[i.e., Nader was the “spoiler” there].
In the remaining four states, IA, NM, OR, and WI, Buchanan’s vote total exceeded the difference between Gore and Bush. Combined, these four states account for 30 electoral votes, or one more than FL and NH
combined. In other words, if Buchanan has dropped out and his supporters had switched to Bush, Bush would not have needed Florida to become president. Click here for state-by-state vote tallies.
Source: Davis Leonhardt, New York Times, p. 4
Dec 10, 2000
Votes for me must count for me
Q: We have a chart that shows all Florida counties. The most you did any of them, with the exception of Palm Beach, was 1,000 votes. In Palm Beach County, you had 3,407 votes. In the state, you had 17,300 votes. Twenty percent of your supporters came fro
Palm Beach County, a liberal Democratic county. How do you explain that? A: Some of my votes clearly were intended to for Gore. But votes for me have to be counted for me.
Q: Some people were confused by this butterfly ballot.
A: You can’t go on what we think people intended. You got to go on the votes as they were done and as they were counted. The Gore people are exaggerating. Let me give you an example. They mentioned Delray Beach. I think I got 49 votes, and they say
there’s no way I could have gotten that. I’ve got a condominium in Delray Beach. I go to the pancake house every morning, and a lot of people are very friendly. And the fact that I got 50 votes there is not outrageous.
Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN
Nov 12, 2000
Gore win could result from Democrats counting votes
Q: What about the Florida recount?A: Bush won the popular vote in Florida, Bush won the recount. The Democrats are demanding a recount by hand in four counties that are heavily Democratic. That not only lends itself to human error, it opens the thing
up to more than just mischief. People can look up those ballots, say, “Well, a tie, let’s give it to our friend Al Gore.” The machine is not going to give something to Al Gore that he didn’t get.
Q: Who is in the stronger position, right now, knowing
what we know right now, to win Florida?
A: If you recount the votes in Democratic counties, with Democrats recounting, there is a likelihood they are going to find more votes for Gore. Gore could well come out of this thing ahead before you get to the
absentee ballots. Democrats play hardball better than Republicans. If they get a lead on this thing, they will say it is Al Gore’s election. The possibility exists this could be taken away from the Republicans.
Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN
Nov 12, 2000
Votes for me must count for me
Q: We have a chart that shows all Florida counties. The most you did any of them, with the exception of Palm Beach, was 1,000 votes. In Palm Beach County, you had 3,407 votes. In the state, you had 17,300 votes. Twenty percent of your supporters came
from Palm Beach County, a liberal Democratic county. How do you explain that? A: Some of my votes clearly were intended to for Gore. But votes for me have to be counted for me.
Q: Some people were confused by this butterfly ballot.
A: You can’t go
on what we think people intended. You got to go on the votes as they were done and as they were counted. The Gore people are exaggerating. Let me give you an example. They mentioned Delray Beach. I think I got 49 votes, and they say there’s no way I
could have gotten that. I’ve got a condominium in Delray Beach. I go to the pancake house every morning, and a lot of people are very friendly. And the fact that I got 50 votes there is not outrageous.
Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN
Nov 12, 2000
Gore win could result from Democrats counting votes
Q: What about the Florida recount?A: Bush won the popular vote in Florida, Bush won the recount. The Democrats are demanding a recount by hand in four counties that are heavily Democratic. That not only lends itself to human error, it opens the thing
up to more than just mischief. People can look up those ballots, say, “Well, a tie, let’s give it to our friend Al Gore.” The machine is not going to give something to Al Gore that he didn’t get.
Q: Who is in the stronger position, right now, knowing
what we know right now, to win Florida?
A: If you recount the votes in Democratic counties, with Democrats recounting, there is a likelihood they are going to find more votes for Gore. Gore could well come out of this thing ahead before you get
to the absentee ballots. Democrats play hardball better than Republicans. If they get a lead on this thing, they will say it is Al Gore’s election. The possibility exists this could be taken away from the Republicans.
Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN
Nov 12, 2000
Yes, a “Christian nation,” not “Judeo-Christian” principles
Buchanan said he talks about a “Christian nation” because the Supreme Court has “de-Christianized America.” He said more than a million students have enrolled in Christian schools over the past decade; “They are refugees from what they see as godless
public schools.” Asked why he refused to refer to “Judeo-Christian” principles rather than a “Christian nation,” he said: “Harry Truman used the phrase. Woodrow Wilson used the phrase. Do you want to use accurate words or politically correct language?
Source: Curtis Wilkie, Boston Globe
Oct 19, 2000
Bob Jones University unfairly portrayed in media
Pat Buchanan hopes his friends at Bob Jones University will help revive his low-budget presidential campaign. Buchanan, a Catholic, said he wants to “stand with my friends” and talk about the social and moral and cultural issues that have been absent
from the presidential race. “These folks were very good to me and friendly to me in two campaigns and I think they’ve been beat up and piled on unfairly and unjustly by the national media.”
Source: Jim Davenport (AP), CNN
Sep 18, 2000
Original “America First” in 1940s to keep US out of WWII
The America First Committee was born in 1940, after France fell. The committee’s principles [were]:- The US must build an impregnable defense
- No foreign power can successfully attack a prepared America
- American democracy can be preserved only
by keeping out of the European war
- “Aid short of war” weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad
The leaders of America First were neither utopians nor pacifists; they believed in peace through strength.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.271-2
Oct 9, 1999
A patriot who calls himself a nationalist
Pat Buchanan refers to himself as a “nationalist.” He wants to preserve the US as a soveriegn nation and to restore a sense of its special achievements as a free country and a decent and humane society. He believes that the American government exists to
serve the American people, not to engage in global adventures or promote world government. Buchanan is a patriot, not a nationalist.
Source: The Enterprise (Brockton, MA) Thomas Sowell editorial, p.A7
Sep 23, 1999
Traditional morality fights culture war against secularists
America is locked in a cultural war for the soul of our country. On one side: secularists armed with the proposition that God is dead. Their governing axioms reduce faith to superstition and traditional morality to quaint nonsense. If we are to reclaim
American morality, we must restore traditional values-patriotism, loyalty, courage, and decency. We must revitalize our popular culture with media detoxified of raw sex & violence. We must ensure that the schools teach the values we hold dear.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues: Culture War”
Jun 5, 1999
Global Economy destroys US industry & US independence
America becomes ever more addicted to the narcotic of cheap imports. That addiction dismantles the mightiest industrial empire the world has ever seen. The yellow brick road that once took tens of millions of poor and working Americans into the middle
class lies in ruin. It is not an accident. It is a deliberate effort to submerge our country in a Global Economy, whence we shall never be truly free again. This highway ends in a dangerous trail, and the toll is the death of American independence.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH
Mar 2, 1999
Return to Constitutionalism from Socialism
It is a natural tendency of government to seek power, and never to relinquish it. In our lifetime, we have seen government grow to where it consumes 40% of family income. Not long ago, that was called Socialism. The first days of a new administration
should see a return to Constitutionalism, a rollback of federal power, fewer federal regulations and lower taxes. Like welfare, poverty, housing, primary and secondary education should be returned to the states.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH
Mar 2, 1999
Budget deficit replaced by moral deficit
American’s greatest deficit is no longer found in the federal budget. It is a moral deficit, and it may be found in a polluted and poisoned culture that has become the great enemy within. The White House, this temple of our civilization, has been
desecrated. The personal destruction of political rivals has been perfected to a high art. It is time to call the curtain on the soap opera in the White House, time to restore a measure of dignity to our national stage.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH
Mar 2, 1999
Clinton’s social agenda is neither American nor Godly
The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America - abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat - that’s change all right. But it is not the kind of change
America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.
Source: Speech at 1992 GOP Convention
Aug 17, 1992
Pat Buchanan on Reform Party
Conspiracy by two parties to deny letting Americans hear him
I should be included in the presidential debate because I’m the representative of a recognized party, one of three, Republicans, Democrats and Reform. And the other two parties are engaged in a conspiracy, basically, to deny me access to the debate
that’s going to decide the election and the presidency of the United States. And the American people are being denied right to see and hear a candidate they’re paying for.
Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’
Oct 1, 2000
Real conservatism limits government, not like Bush’s plans
Q: You said: ‘The Republican Party has never nominated a candidate who brings fewer cards to the table in terms of experience, knowledge, & wisdom.’A: He doesn’t have the tickets that his father did. But that’s not why I oppose Bush. Fundamentally, he
supported NAFTA & WTO, which I opposed. He supported an unjust, unconstitutional war in the Balkans, which I opposed. He supports the Clinton/Gore policy toward China, which I consider appeasement. He’s proposed spending about $700 billion in new
programs and entitlements. That is not conservatism. We got two parties very close together funded by the same special interests, the same corporate powers. We need a party that will stand up for conservatism, for an America first foreign policy, that
will defend our borders, that will defend life, that will speak up for a new Supreme Court that recognizes what its role ought to be. The Republican Party has abandoned ground to imitate Clinton and Gore because it believes that’s the way to win.
Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’
Oct 1, 2000
Buchanan chooses national co-chair as running mate
Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan named Ezola Foster, an educator and national co-chair of his campaign, as his running mate Friday. “I think this lady will be a tremendous benefit to our cause, and to our campaign, and to our movement,”
Buchanan said in announcing the choice. Foster has run for office as both a Democrat and a Republican, but has been an independent for the past four years. She is married and has three children.
Source: CNN.com
Aug 11, 2000
Reform Party will grow, and support will increase
“We start building this party into the teens in the polls, then we get in that debate with Albert and with W,” Pat Buchanan told supporters Wednesday. “You’ve seen the energy and enthusiasm we’re building.
We’re going to give the American people a real choice in November. We’re the fighting third party which will eventually be the second party, then the first party in America.”
Source: CNN.com
Aug 9, 2000
Building populist, conservative, traditionalist Reform Party
We need the $12 million which we’re entitled to as a recognized national party, and without it, you can’t run a decent national campaign. But we get one-fifth of what the other parties do. But we are building a new populist, conservative, traditionalist
Reform Party that is open to folks from the Democratic Party, from the Independents and the Republican Party alike. We are building a broad coalition of those unrepresented by the two Clinton parties we have today.
Source: Interview on Face the Nation
Aug 6, 2000
Far right support for Buchanan has transformed Reform Party
Buchanan’s presidential bid has turned the once-centrist Reform Party into a magnet attracting leaders and activists of extreme right organizations. The flood of support from the extreme right, including groups that are intensely anti-black, anti-Jewish
and anti-immigrant, reflects the profound transformation of the Reform Party. Buchanan’s candidacy is turning the party from a secular organization predominantly focused on trade and campaign finance reform into a hard-right party opposed to abortion,
critical of the influence of Israel and adamantly opposed to affirmative action. Buchanan’s harsh critiques of the “Israel lobby,” of third world immigration and of such civil rights leaders as the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. have resonated with groups that see Jews as corrupters of American culture and that see blacks and Hispanics as threats to white majority rule of the United States.
Source: Thomas B. Edsall in Washington Post
Jul 23, 2000
Two Beltway parties for each others’ bidding
The Republican Party has basically caved in and compromised with Clinton, on tax cuts & downsizing government. They’ve become a party of big government. Congress gave Clinton $1/2 billion more than he requested for the Dept. of Education. We have two big
government Beltway parties which are globalists & interventionists. It is like professional wrestling. They do battle and they call each other names here in town. But when push comes to shove, [the GOP] whips votes for Clinton to help out China.
Source: National Public Radio interview, “Talk of the Nation”
May 30, 2000
Suing FEC to include Reform Party in presidential debates
Q: The Reform Party is in a suit against the Presidential Debate Commission. What are you requesting of the FEC? A: The Commission is supposed to be non-partisan. It is not. It is bipartisan. It has been set up [to keep] third parties out of the
presidential debate. We have three parties recognized by the Congress and the FEC. To have two of them conspiring to keep the third party out of the crucial and decisive event of the elections is basically a conspiracy to keep control of the White House.
Source: National Public Radio interview, “Talk of the Nation”
May 30, 2000
Reform Party offers different agenda & real change
We will make a lot of changes. I went to the Reform Party because we offer a dramatically different agenda. That’s our one great hope of really breaking out [in the election].
People are willing to walk away from the Democratic and Republican parties - independents are now more numerous than party registrants.
Source: The Howie Carr Show, WRKO Boston 680 AM
Dec 2, 1999
Leaving GOP elite, to take message to voters
Excerpts from Buchanan’s letter announcing he would seek the Reform Party nomination: “I must leave the party that has long been my home-with regret but not rancor-because the Washington elite of the GOP has left me and the principles for
which I have toiled and fought for 40 years. Free from the constraints of working within one of the establishment parties. we will, at long last, be able to take our message directly to all the American voters in a general election.”
Source: CNN.com, via Associated Press
Oct 25, 1999