Word: buchananism
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...Republicans decided long ago that too much democracy is a dangerous thing when it comes to nominating a President. In the next four weeks the game of presidential politics turns very serious, very unforgiving and very unpopulist. It's affirmative action for party elders; if a rebel like Buchanan wants to be President, he could do twice as well as anyone else and find that even that might not be enough...
...reason for this is that the process--the calendar, the rules, the role of the Governors--is intended to favor the candidate sanctioned by the party. If all goes according to plan, Bob Dole should hobble Buchanan, the impetuous insurgent. But nothing so far has gone as planned, and party lawyers can imagine a scene like this: a fractured convention, with clumps of delegates nominally pledged each to Dole, Lamar Alexander, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes; more than half the delegates not legally bound to any candidate at all under various state rules; no clear sign of a nominee...
...front runner into inevitability. Now it may not even save one from ignominy. Dole alone has raised the money for the ads and traveling necessary in a multifront war. He has $6.4 million cash on hand (although he is bumping up against the primary season's legal spending limit); Buchanan and Alexander have roughly $1 million each...
Beginning last Saturday, however, with Forbes' victory in Delaware, more and more races will be winner-take-all contests or modified versions of that system. As long as Dole, Alexander and Forbes are carving up the non-Buchanan vote, Buchanan can win large chunks of delegates without ever having to reach beyond an irreducible 30% base. As the campaign moves from New England, Georgia and Colorado on March 5 to Texas and Florida on March 12, the percentage of delegates awarded on a proportional basis shrinks. No wonder Dole strategist Don Sipple wants Alexander gone by then...
...suppose it remains a three- or four-man race right through the March madness. What would stop Buchanan then? Late last week the Republican National Committee counsel's office was trying to quickly compile an updated set of rules governing delegate commitments in hopes of answering that question. Said a G.O.P. official working on the project: "Let's just say the level of interest in this question has reached a heightened state...