Word: buchananism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...chewing over numbers. For Gingrich the House Speaker, there are all the usual budget totals and legislative head counts to think about. But for Gingrich the Party Strategist, there's just one big number: 35%. That's the high-end estimate of how many Republicans go for Pat Buchanan. What worries the G.O.P. leadership is that some of them might leave with him too should the party turn its back on them. Even if Buchanan doesn't become the Republican nominee--and G.O.P. leaders are still convinced It Can't Possibly Happen--the forces that Pat has mobilized will remain...
...surveys--each time about 1,000 registered voters who identify themselves as Republicans or leaning in that direction--the mood is volatile. In a one-month period ending in late February, there was a movement away from both Dole (down 10 points) and Steve Forbes (down 6) and toward Buchanan (up 16 points) and Lamar Alexander (up 9). For all the attention lately to his weaknesses, however, Dole remains well out front with a double-digit lead over all his nearest competitors...
What that means for traditional Republicans is that the Buchanan cohort is large and desirable but maybe also impossible to accommodate. The issues--and the answers--that excite them are the very ones most likely to drive away moderates. The response from some quarters of the party has been to declare Buchanan beyond the pale. William Bennett, the moralist-at-large backing Lamar Alexander, has even predicted a third-party effort if Buchanan is the nominee. What Gingrich is hearing from many of the influential G.O.P. freshmen, however, is that the Buchanan crowd is a force that must be reckoned...
...with voter loyalty this year a sometime thing, any of those numbers could jump or dive soon. What's going to prove more enduring are the grievances of Buchanan supporters and the intensity that makes them a breed apart from other Republican voters. Compared with the middling sort behind Dole, Forbes or Alexander, the word that best characterizes them is more. On controversial issues the Dole-Forbes-Alexander supporters are roughly similar in outlook. The Buchananites are a statistical fever spike...
...people who are punching the air at Buchanan rallies are more alarmed about the present, more willing to contemplate radical change, more antigovernment (except when it comes to government promoting traditional values), more antiabortion, more anti-free trade. Talk to them, and you will hear 71% say the country is in deep and serious trouble, 60% that the U.S. should radically reduce its role in international affairs, 56% that the G.O.P. platform should call for a constitutional ban on abortion. (By way of comparison, just 22% of Dole's supporters want an antiabortion amendment, 24% of Alexander...